At my high school I was offered to take Honors Physics and APUSH. I like both history and science however I’m intending on taking Honors Physics as my intended major is in Aerospace Engineering and plan on dropping APUSH to take Honors U.S. History 2. Will this hurt my chances of getting into an Ivy League?
I think Cornell is the only Ivy with aerospace engineering as a major so is that the only school you are asking about? fWIW, all selective schools expect you to take a high rigor in high school. Make sure what you choose will get the most rigorous box checked by your guidance counselor.
Please take courses because you want to take them. Your chances of getting admitted to an Ivy are small as are everyone else’s. If you get rejected, or accepted….you will never know why.
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Adding to this - @Aquira715, I hope you’re aware that a large chunk of the top 20 schools for aerospace engineering are public flagships, not Ivies. So I hope you’re preparing a balanced list of schools.
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can you take AP physics 1?
My school doesn’t offer it to Juniors.
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For the more selective colleges, the answer is always the highest available rigor (and earn A grades), so in this case, it would be honors physics and AP US history (and earn A grades in both).
If you cannot or do not want to take both, then you really do want to have some kind of physics in high school before taking physics in college needed for any engineering major.
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Like every other person who is not the child a super-wealthy donor or extremely famous, the chances of being accepted to an Ivy League college are so low that it does not make any sense to make choices based on that highly unlikely situation.
Furthermore, if you are interested in aerospace engineering, you should start looking which colleges have this major, and see what they do, what they offer, and, if you want to take it further, where graduates of these programs end up working. As @me29034 stated, except for Cornell, Ivy League colleges don’t even have aerospace engineering, so there is no point in thinking of these in the first place.
If aerospace engineering interests you, take a look at this website: National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project - NASA
The colleges you should aim for are colleges in the various Space Grant Consortia, Those are the colleges with the best programs and those are the colleges at which you will have to most opportunities for internships and individual research. These are the best colleges for any student who wants to be an aerospace engineer.
As a rule, if you want to major in engineering in any of the colleges in the various consortia, the advice from @ucbalumnus is relevant to all of them.
…for space related technologies. But aerospace engineering is a broader field and there are many other very good aerospace engineering schools that are not listed here.
Additionally, many people entering aerospace careers have a degree in mechanical engineering.
OP should, IMO, consider schools that are strong in either major when building their shortlist.
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Can you take both? That is the best option.
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Good points.
But, but, but, NASA!!!
Why can’t you take both? What are the rest of your classes?
Take the classes that interest you, that you are good at, and that keep the stress reasonable. Don’t try to fit a set of schools, especially schools with low acceptance rates. Instead, find schools that fit you.
One person I know who did Aerospace Engineering went to WPI. You might want to look at various tech. institutes. Check out Olin too.
What would you take next year, depending on what you choose this year? Also if this is due to a scheduling conflict, you can always do dual credit at a community college or a Virtual High School class https://www.vhslearning.org/. Our school accepted VHS for credit and it went on the transcript.
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Here’s this:
https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/opportunities/academic-partnerships/surp
14 schools in the Consortia. If you are interested in space, start looking at these schools. Good luck!