I need advice, my guidance counselor sucks.

<p>My schedule for junior year is:</p>

<p>AP English(Literature and Composition)
AP Spanish
AP Chemistry
AP U.S. History
Trigonometry
Physics l Honors
Tennis/Advanced Health Explorations</p>

<p>With that said, I need some advice. I'm not quite asking whether I should be taking these classes or not, but am more asking of what I should expect. I have already asked a few people at my school about it but everyone just says "I'm going to be screwed." I would just like to know what kind of year I'm looking at. I'm very interested in all of these subjects and would have no problem studying daily for every subject. Also, would it be possible to get all A's in these classes while performing well on the AP exams at the end of the year? Please give me all of your insight on the situation.</p>

<p>I posted this in the UF section because I'm also wondering if these are the right classes to be taking with UF taken into consideration.</p>

<p>Well you are def taking the right classes for UF. As for how year would go, it pretty much depends on the kind of person you are. Taking 4 APs and a Trig course(could be a hard one depending on your school) seems like too stressful, at least for me. But if you have the commitment to study hard for these courses then go for it. Just know that you might not have enough time in your daily schedule to actually hang out a lot with friends, do extracurriculars, or even get a job. UF takes a lot of stuff into consideration beside academics and extracurriculars play a big role. But you could fill up a lot of extracurriculars over the summer but again it would require a big sacrifice of your social life since you would have to give up your summer. But you just might be smart enough to study, get As and still have time left over to have a lot of fun.</p>

<p>Good Luck</p>

<p>you’re on track for UF with this schedule.</p>

<p>whether or not you’re going to strive with that course load is dependent on a wide variety of factors. if you’re generally an excellent student, and have a supportive and engaged family, i dont see why not. plenty of people take upwards of 6 AP courses in a year and do fine–its not that big of a step if you’re really in it for the long haul.</p>

<p>dont be too worried and take it one step at a time. i was taking 3 my junior year and it wasn’t anything near overwhelming.</p>

<p>what you should expect is highly dependent on the teachers and your current competence in the subjects. if you’re good at articulation and did well is spanish before, those two classes will be breezes, and the exams will be too. AP chem will likely be the most dramatic learning curve, unless you somehow have an unusual background in chemistry. US history is a very work intensive class because most teachers i’ve heard about do lots of note taking from the book and history in general is always just a lot of studying and repetition.</p>

<p>all and all, its not going to kill you or prevent you from having a life.</p>

<p>one mistake you might make that i did make: dont expect to stay interested. while you wont be overwhelmed with work, chances are, unless you’re really an exceptional student, that you will be getting enough work that you wont have time or will to enjoy the material. its great that you’re excited about taking them, but dont expect that thirst for presidential trivia to keep you engaged when times get tough.</p>

<p>Cant really comment on the classes, since those classes have different reputations at different schools. At my HS, AP Spanish was taken by spanish speakers only and not surprisingly everyone got a 5 on the exam. I heard its a hard class for non-speaker. Dont you take AP eng lang (11) and AP eng lit (12)? Lang was easy and much more interesting to me than Lit. AP chem was time consuming but made chem easy when I went to UF. APUSH was also time consuming and found it boring. I was much more interested in AP Gov and AP micro/macro. Physics - hate. </p>

<p>At least at my HS, your schedule is completely doable and shouldn’t be too difficult of a year. People were taking 5-9 APs per year, since our school district pays for our exams. Try and find people taking these classes this year and see what they thought.</p>

<p>Echoing some of what’s been said … it truly does depend on the kind of student you are. My D took 4 AP’s her jr year and 5 her senior year. She never felt she put any more time into these classes than any other class, except for AP Lang and AP Lit because English has always been her most challenging subject. She’s not a person who sits down and writes essays without a great deal of angst (essays in the sense of tell me “how you feel about this passage”). With that said, she’s gotten straight A’s in all her AP classes and seriously … it hasn’t infringed on anything. But she’s the master of discipline and time management. She’s also very gifted in math and math related subjects like physics. For her … she preferred lots of AP classes … less project oriented than honors classes, and she hates most projects — finds them hugely busy work. So the style of AP classes for the most part – and there wre exceptions – suited her best. As far as AP exams, so far on the six we have scores for she mostly has 5’s, with a couple of 4’s. We expect the same on the six she’s been taking now. Her AP teachers have been excellent – again for the most part – so very little review has been needed on her own outside of class. She looked at a gov review book, only because she had that 1st semester and wnated to review concepts. She also looked at an econ review book because that’s been her weakest AP teacher in terms of preparation. But keep in mind D’s got a memory you’d kill for … once she’s learned it, she very rarely forgets it … which makes review a breeze. So … you have to evaluate what kind of a learner you are, how organized you are, how motivated you are, and how good are your AP instructors. Keep that all in mind … and then do what’s best for you. :)</p>

<p>zebes</p>

<p>Honors Physics + Trig + 4 APs? This is certainly a rigourous schedule. Can you handle it is the question. Zebes daughter did, but she sounds like an exceptional, self-disciplined, mature student. If you are also then by all means go for the challenege. I’m sure UF – any college for that matter – will view this as a “most rigourous” course load. I guess my only question has to do with the amount of additional work the Honors Physics course will take. At my daughter’s high school Honors-level Physics was at least as demanding as any AP, and required a lot of after-school work in the lab.</p>

<p>I’m not trying to be discouraging, but you might be setting yourself up for failure. You might do great in all those classes and be able to get A’s on them, or you might burn out half way through and get B’s, maybe even C’s. </p>

<p>You really have to think about taking on such a heavy schedule because you might be better off taking a couple of AP’s and really devoting time to them. If you take so many classes, you might find that you don’t have enough time to devote to any one subject and this might be detrimental to your grades.</p>

<p>If you structured that course yourself, that probably means you’re a kid who works hard and does well in school. You’ll be fine. Just be prepared for a good amount of work and studying.</p>

<p>This may help in answering your question.
If you are leaning towards the scences would be a different response than if you were leaning towards the arts.</p>

<p>Right now the only AP that seems pointless is the Spanish AP.
I believe UF only has a 2yr language requirement. Meet that and you are done. Drop down to Honors spanish and devote your time and energy to the AP’s that are relevant to your intended major.</p>

<p>My major is definitely going to be science related. I’m aiming at premed. The AP Spanish course will not be too difficult due to the teacher and my skill level of the language. I’ve taken 6 Spanish classes in the past 3 years, so my Spanish is pretty good. I’ve had the teacher 3 times before and it’s not much work from what I’ve heard from people that have taken it.</p>

<p>What classes should I make sure to take before the end of high school if I’m really interested in science and plan it to be my major in college?</p>

<p>For premed I’d say AP Bio, Chem and Physics. While Physics isn’t integral to your major, you will need to know it for the MCAT and even a C in Physics B should help you going into college.</p>

<p>Pre Health advising for HS students:</p>

<p>[Academic</a> Advising Center](<a href=“http://www.advising.ufl.edu/information/faq/highschool.html]Academic”>http://www.advising.ufl.edu/information/faq/highschool.html)</p>

<p>Are there certain courses I should take in high school or college?
Medical schools do not require any high school courses, but they do require college courses in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and often Math and English. You do not have to take extra courses in these areas in high school if you do not want to.
You SHOULD enter college with skills that will prepare you for these types of courses. You should have good analytical thinking and problem solving skills for Science and Math, and good communication skills for English. </p>

<p>What if I will have Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or dual enrollment credit for these courses?
While many students enter college with AP, IB or dual enrollment credit, they USUALLY do not have enough in any one subject to meet all the requirements for medical school.
In other words, you may have SOME Chemistry, but not ALL of the Chemistry which medical schools requires. Therefore, it is STRONGLY suggested that you take more courses in each area.
Some students do in fact come to college with all of their Math, English and possibly Biology pre-med requirements met. If this is the case, it would still be a good idea to take AT LEAST one more college course in each subject. Medical schools want to see how you can perform in these courses at the college level.
Some students may feel they do not know the material very well and may decide to retake some of the courses for which they have already earned credit……this is up to you!</p>

<p>With regards to AP classes: this is how we were counseled. </p>

<p>D’s going to major in engineering; her strengths are math and science. Yes, she took the AP math/science classes because they interested her, but she also took the AP Lang/Lit, AP world, APUSH, AP art history, AP Gov/Econ because these are the ones she wants to test out of. For her … a pure science/math schedule is her ideal. She doesn’t want to take freshman composition or sit through more history classes. So, she’s taking the AP classes to get rid of those gen ed requirements. She’s leaning towards MechE, and she knows no matter what she gets on the AP exam for Physics B, she’s taking physics w/ calculus at UF. She’s most likely going to start with Calc3. She probably will use her AP Bio credit (5), and she’ll use her AP chem credit (4) (plus 740 on CHEM SAT II and 100% on chem readiness assesment to test out of the basic chem class, too.) This was one of the suggestions we were given by a university student her freshman year of high school. Don’t forget to concentrate on the AP’s you hope will get you out of the classes you don’t want to take in college. You’ll most likely repeat your science requirements if you’re a science major … depending on each indiv student of course.</p>

<p>zebes</p>