<p>I'm planning on taking 5 classes Senior year and they are listed below:
AP Physics B
AP BC Calculus
AP Economy
Honors English
Art</p>
<p>I always took 7 classes previously. My Junior year had 3 APs and 2 honors and 2 regular classes. When colleges see that I have only 5 classes will they think I'm slacking off? How do I show them I'm only taking 5 classes because I have a lot of other things on my hand?</p>
<p>I need the extra time during my Senior year to study for ACT/SAT--I need to take 3 SAT IIs also-- and do college applications.
I also need time for my Intel contest. Is it a wise choice to take only 5 classes?
If I had to take another class, it would be AP French...
Help? Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s “little” to be taking 4 core classes although it is less than usual
but I do think one more (possibly language, science, or history) would be better</p>
<p>I am only taking 5 (4 core) with few electives. In senior year, you need a lot of time with college stuff and you should not overload yourself. I think its fine</p>
<p>Five academic courses is pretty standard at my school. We have a gym requirement every semester, so most people take 5 courses, plus gym, lunch and a study hall (8 period day). An AP science course at our school is a period and a half, though. Some kids take another course instead of study hall, but that tends to happen more in sophomore and junior year than in senior year. The guidance counselors counsel the incoming freshman against taking 6 courses and strongly suggest having a study hall that first year.</p>
<p>A lot probably depends on which school(s) you are thinking about applying to. You may want to think long and hard about taking another class if you are going to be applying to selective schools, especially since one of your intended classes is a regular art class. In my opinion, you do run the risk of having colleges view your senior year schedule as “slacking off” since you are going from 7 classes to 5 (including the art class) and 5 AP/Honors classes to 4. Be aware that most seniors are busy taking admission tests and preparing college apps, and most maintain a comparable level of course difficulty from junior to senior year. Having said all of that, if you’re not applying to tough schools and want to ensure some semblance of sanity and quality of life your senior year that is totally understandable from my perspective. :)</p>
<p>My S will be taking the following classes this upcoming senior year:</p>
<p>Multivariable Calculus (college level)
AP Chemistry
AP English Literature
AP Macroeconomics/US Govt
Team Aquatics (varsity water polo and swim teams)</p>
<p>Prior to this, he took 3 AP class sophomore year (Calculus BC, Spanish Language, Euro History) and 4 AP classes junior year (Physics C (counts as two), English Laguage, US History … plus Linear Algebra (college level.) So freshman-junior year he had six classes, and now five senior year. This is not unusual for an athlete with other EC activity, plus he’s taken some courses in the summer.</p>
<p>He is not worried that his GC will mark his schedule as anything but most rigorous, or that anyone else could reasonably consider it as anything but that.</p>
<p>Anything less than what you’ve taken in the past looks like slacking. everyone has to take the SATs and write apps, but senior year is generally still a fully challenging schedule if you’re looking at very selective colleges.</p>
<p>I think most seniors take 5 core classes. You are taking 4 plus Art. Is art required at your school? If not, I would substitute it with a foreign language. If language isn’t your thing, just take the regular level. Your course load is definitely rigorous, there’s no denying that, but it isn’t the absolute. In order to have your course load be seen as extremely rigorous, you would just need to take a foreign language class.
My schedule next year is as follows:</p>
<p>AP Stats (last math class available)
AP Bio
Psychology Honors
AP Spanish
AP English Lit
Religion (required)</p>
<p>Really, I think the answer depends on your school (what it offers) and the colleges you’re applying to. In my school, everyone likes to stack their schedule full of AP classes (consequently, we hardly sleep at all). For example, we had plenty of juniors taking 7 AP exams or more (I, myself, took 6). A lot of our high ranking seniors also took 7 or more AP classes. Last year, we had two students take 9 AP exams. </p>
<p>My senior schedule consists of 8 AP classes (Calc BC, Microecon, US govt, Physics C, Art, Euro, Spanish, English Lit), but that’s probably just because it’s somewhat the norm here.</p>
<p>I don’t think your taking 5 is too little. While you have less classes than you did previously, you do have some difficult AP classes. The adcoms MAY think you’re slacking off if the other areas of your app aren’t very strong. However, as long as you do well in your Intel contest, I think you should be fine.</p>
<p>God Ascendancy how are you going to survive your Senior year? Haha</p>
<p>The colleges that I’m applying for are:
Wash U,
Northwestern,
Duke,
Vanderbilt,
U Penn,
Notre Dame,
U Chicago,
Rice,
Emory,
Cornell,
Johns Hopkins,
Carnegie Mellon,
U Virginia,
UC Berkeley,
UCLA<br>
Stanford
Tufts University
Wake forest university<br>
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
New York University
Boston College
UCSD
UC DAVIS
UC IRVINE
UC SB </p>
<p>The main benefit of taking 5 classes is that my day will end at 12 30, if I take 6, it ends at 2</p>
<p>Art is required for me to attend a UC school…</p>
<p>The AP Economy is Macro and Micro.
As for the application, yeah haha. But the 5 UCs are like 1 school. I currently have 17 (considering UC as 1 and eliminating Chapel Hill and Boston College)</p>
<p>I took only five, as did my friends attending Yale and Princeton. For most of us, at least four of the five were AP’s, but you’ve got honors in there. Don’t freak; shift your focus towards getting great grades in those five classes.</p>
<p>This is pretty far from the typical attitude of the average kid about to get into Stanford…Is your counselor really going to check the most rigorous box?</p>
<p>I’m taking six. I see no problem with taking a few less classes senior year, especially if they’re all rigorous classes. Most people have a lot going on senior year.</p>
<p>The reason as to why I want my day to end early is because I’m focusing on my extra circulars. School work will most likely take around 4 hours daily and I will be interning at the Stanford lab for about 2 hours a day. On top of that I will be working on my Intel STS research and report; I’ll probably be spending 3 hours daily on that. And then there are clubs and other things as well.
I’m sure that my class schedule isn’t that rigorous but I hope that colleges and my counselor will see that I’m focusing my time elsewhere and I’m not trying to slack off; I’m just trying to budget my time. Will this suffice for a Stanford student attitude hmom5?</p>