Hi everybody! I just came to CC not too long ago (1 hour). At my HS, we registered for 10th-grade courses. I want to go to a good college with a good pre-med education (i want to major in neuroscience). I am slightly concerned about whether my classes are too weak or too strong.
What I signed up for:
Honors English II
Honors Pre-calc
Honors Chem I
Honors Amer His
AP Psychology
AP World History
Honors Acc
PLTW Honors Bio Med
Online: Spanish 1
Are any of these course notoriously easy or hard? Any advice is helpful. Thanks!!
I think that’s a pretty good healthy middle for sophomore year, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with classes since you’re still building your GPA. Just make sure to maintain good grades! If you want to be competitive for pre-med later, I would suggest taking more APs in your junior and senior year like AP bio & chem. They’re harder, but competitive schools like to see you can succeed in these types of college-level classes.
@purplecards09
Hi! Yes, I am planning on taking AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Calc, and AP Physics during my upperclassmen years. I make pretty solid grades but I don’t know how I compare with the other 3000+ students in my HS. UW- 3.93 → W- 4.6
@RussianMom
Hi, so at our hs, the only two AP’s we can take in Soph are AP world and AP psych. And since Amer Hist is an honors course, I thought why not? Trying to go for the best GPA possible.
That’s really good!! No need to stress too much about increasing that in my opinion, Remember that Ecs are super important too though, I didn’t have the highest gpa in my class and still got into some top institutions bc my extracurriculars were unique. Those will help you stand out from other academically competitive students. Wishing you the best!
@purplecards09
Thank you! I have been struggling with ec’s recently in fact. I am slightly worried that, for the colleges I wish to attend, my ec’s just will not contend. I have been playing piano for 11 years. I have won many regional awards. I am in the states right now. But I am no prodigy…I have won no nationals nor international. And since the piano is quite common, I don’t see myself too strong in that sector.
That’s alright! Trust me you don’t need to be a prodigy to get into amazing schools and once again, you’re only a sophomore you still have so much time to organize yourself! I personally think I started growing my ECs during the summer of my sophomore year. Ask yourself what you’re passionate about and go from there! Im not sure what you would like to study, but if it’s science you could always find shadowing opportunities, find research opportunities, or even just creating a club. I know for me I am more of a creative person so I created my own design store, blog… things like that and it showed universities that I already felt passionate about my studies before even going in. Maybe you can tutor kids for the piano. Little things like that could make you stand out. Exploring new things like this will also help you realize if you really want to do what you plan on majoring in.
@AllGoodNamesRGone I would look in the direction of CS, Electronics or Engineering courses, like Robotics, could be handy if you consider Neuroscience, plan to take Statistics too, at some point. Consider taking APUSH later on, instead of the honors history class with another history AP now. Honors history or AP - it is still a lot of content, sometimes taught by the same teacher, but you will be missing out on that AP credit.
Talk to your counselor, it should be a 4 year plan, not a 1 year plan, anyway. Good conversation will help you balance your plan.
Also, why online Spanish? Did you take foreign language your freshman year? Don’t forget about art classes though, some schools require at least one year of hands on art classes, UC schools, for example, if you are considering applying there.
I decided to take online spanish because i did not take a fl in freshmen or in middle school. Our school system allows us to take fl’s in ms as well. So, since these are regular courses (4.0 on the 5.0 scale), I decided to try and beef up my schedule as much as possible to avoid dinging my gpa. Hope that helps!
I do not know if I will be able to take statistics as I have already committed to the Calculus pathway. I will see if I can possibly double up on math courses in the future. Thanks!!
@AllGoodNamesRGone, it’s a big mistake to avoid foreign language unless the online course is accepted by your high school and will show up on your official transcript. Most high schools require some foreign language to graduate, and most colleges will ask for a minimum of two years. Competitive colleges and universities will expect or prefer three to four years, and have no trouble finding top applicants with four years of all core subjects.
It’s great that you’re focusing on strong math/science/social studies but this should not come at the expense of omitting a core subject. Any college competitive enough to expect AP sciences will also expect foreign language competency. If you’re worried about your GPA, believe me, your college GPA will be more important for getting into medical school than your high school GPA. You will most certainly have to fulfill a foreign language requirement in college, and if your online school hasn’t prepared you well, FL moves much faster and is more challenging to learn in college. @MYOS1634 ?
Drop one of your history classes or AP Psych to take junior or senior year. AP history requires a lot of reading and its probably a bad idea for anyone (except history buffs) to take two at once. Also, the medical class, while obviously interesting to you, will not be expected by any college (unless that counts as your honors bio class) but foreign language will be. You should have one each of the main core sciences but you don’t have to have APs in all of them.
If you plan to work on the field of neuroscience or become a physician, knowing Spanish can be a help in your career, working with diverse patients. Online school generally doesn’t give you the greatest chance to master the language unless your high school program is really weak. Colleges will expect you to take core subjects that your high school offers, though.
Remember that Ecs are super important too though, I didn’t have the highest gpa in my class and still got into some top institutions bc my extracurriculars were unique. Those will help you stand out from other academically competitive students. Wishing you the best!