<p>I'm currently a Freshman in highschool, and college is important to me. I want to pursue a career in Computer Science and possibly get my degree from Stanford University. Everything I do now will reflect on my future. It's critical I do everything right with little to no flaws along the way. I'm enrolled in Spanish and Choir as my electives. I'm also taking a Junior math class (Algebra 2), and a basic physics class. I took choir to make myself look well rounded and have experience in the fine arts. I want to leave the class and pick up to AP Computer science next semester ( In a couple days). I have experience with Java, Python, And C+, also my counselor said I'm ready to take the class. Will dropping the fine arts class effect me in the future? I participate in outdoor track and I'm quite good at Hurdles (Just making a statement with confidence, not being blatantly arrogant.). I entered a science competition earlier this year and I won and I'll have my experiment be exercised on board the Space Station. I'm also taking part in an Intel internship this summer if that means anything.
Along with honors classes, and all these extra curricular activities, will leaving the fine arts effect my admission into Stanford? Perhaps MIT?</p>
<p>For Intel to help you in a college application, you need to do well in it.</p>
<p>Dropping choir would hurt you for, say, Berklee, RISD or Juilliard but I don,t think it will hurt you at Stanford or MIT that much.</p>
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<p>It must be exhausting to live your life believing this nonsense.</p>
<p>It isn’t true that you must be, like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in very way to get into Stanford. In fact, whether or not you get into Stanford will be basically beyond your control, with the answer determined by people who really won’t give a rodent’s behind about most of the choices you make at the age of 14.</p>
<p>Moreover, it really doesn’t matter all that much in the end whether you go to Stanford. I do not wish to knock Stanford–it’s a phenomenal university with incredible people and resources, and a Stanford education can really change your life. But there are plenty of really good colleges and universities in the country where you can get a great undergraduate education and have life-changing experiences. Many, many people live happy, productive adult lives without having attended Stanford.</p>
<p>Certainly, you need to be thinking about your future, and making wise choices and avoiding foolish ones. (I think, by the way, that completely ignoring the arts wouldn’t be wise.) And certainly it is true that some decisions you make now that seem trivial will have effects later in your life that you can’t now predict. But because you can’t predict whether any particular choice will have repercussions 5 or 15 or 25 years from now, you really shouldn’t obsess about every decision as if your entire future hangs in the balance. </p>
<p>Make sensible choices about your classes, and then do as well in the classes you’ve chosen as you can. Use your time out of school productively: accomplish something, and show some genuine personal growth. If you do these things, you’ll be a competitive applicant for universities the caliber of Stanford and MIT. And then you might get into them–or you might not.</p>
<p>Depressing, I know, but that’s the reality.</p>
<p>I agree with everything Sikrosky said, but also add you might want to stay in the class. The reality is that you will apply to many schools, and each school will look for different things and have different requirements for what classes you must have taken in high school. Some schools do require art electives, you should consider staying in the class…</p>