Hi, my school is just in the process of finishing up final touches to our senior year schedules.
Right now, I have scheduled:
AP Literature
AP Chemistry
AP Economics/AP Gov (semester each)
AP Statistics
AP French
Orchestra
My school is somewhat rigorous - top 300 ranked nationally - but not too bad. How hard is this schedule? I’m going to try to finish up most of the college essays over the summer. I heard econ/gov/stats is significantly easier than the apush/calc bc I’m taking right now. Call me crazy, but I’m actually thinking of adding AP Bio if I can to my schedule. (Not sure if I can, due to scheduling conflicts) This isn’t for any other reason than that I just really want to take ap bio. I considered taking a college statistics class instead over the summer and replacing that with ap bio but that didn’t happen. If I can take ap bio, would it be too difficult with my current schedule?
don’t add AP bio, whatever you do.
honestly I’d try to cut it down to only 4 APs if you can bc applying to college takes more time than you might think
It is highly recommended NOT to take AP Bio and AP Chem together, because both are time-intensive AND among the hardest AP’s.
You may be overdoing it as it is.
5 Ap’s at once is really hard.
AP Chem, AP Lit and AP French would all be very hard (each in their own way). I’d cut one of the three.
If you have AP Lang already you may want to take Honors English/Senior Seminars instead since most colleges don’t give credit for both; it’s a great class if you love to read, especially the great works of literature, but it’s quite a step up in terms of time and analytical skills, compared to AP Lang. Or, if you intend to study humanities/social sciences (IR, Political Science, Foreign Language, Philosophy…) keep AP Lit but take another science rather than AP Chem. If you have 5 AP’s, Marine Science Honors, and Orchestra, no one will consider your schedule less than “most rigorous”.
Your senior year will be way more stressful than you anticipate, because even if you work on your essays over the summer, you’ll be improving them during the Fall, dealing with FAFSA, dealing with supplements, making sure your Rolling Admissions/EA applications are out, etc, etc. It’s really a LOT to manage.
My son took 5 AP’s his senior year, and he had absolutely zero free time. It actually got desperate a few times around here. I’d suggest dropping one, as his friends who took four had more breathing room. What maybe made his schedule harder than yours: he took Calc BC (vs. Stats) and CS (vs. French), What maybe makes your schedule harder than his: while he took Physics and felt it had a crushing workload, he reported that the Chem kids had an even worse workload. Finally, he didn’t take the AP Gov test b/c the schools he applied to wouldn’t give credit for that and APUSH, which he’d already taken/tested. It’s also interesting to me that your AP Gov is a semester while his was a year - could that mean yours is much more intense? (I don’t know.)
Regarding adding AP Bio, I have no idea what it’s like as I don’t know of anyone who took it here, but if it’s anything like Physics/Chem, it’d be a bad idea to add it if you’re already taking Chem.
Right now I am a student at a Middle College school. Which means I take the rest of my high school classes (only 2) and then I have enough free time to take as many college courses as I please. I am a Junior. I am right now taking
Honours Civics and Economics (HS)
ENG 111
HIS 132
ACA 122
MAT 171
That is WAY too easy for me.
Next semester I will take
ENG 112
BIO 111 (equivalent to AP Bio)
MAT 172
PHI 231- ETHICS (YAY)
and Earth Environmental (UGH)
I always have free time.
I’m on Student Senate,
I tutor students in Math, English, and ACA.
If you look at my schedule my last semester of
high school will be my most rigorous.
I will be taking
BIO 275- Microbiology
CHM 151- General Chem 1 (AP Chem)
CHM 152- General Chem 2
PSY 150- General Psychology
SOC 210- Introduction to Sociology
AND THIS IS JUST THE SECOND SEMESTER OF MY SENIOR YEAR
my first semester of senior year will include
ART 114- Art History
BIO 112- (Second part of Biology)
ENG 241- Brit Lit
MAT 272- Calculus 2
SPA 221- Spanish Conversation
TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE INTENSE I WILL BE TAKING SUMMER CLASSES!!!
I will also be volunteering 10 hours a week at a local hospital
and will take part in something my state calls Governors School
Specialty courses over the summer.
You don’t need to make it super intense. Devote your summers to something important to you and pursue tha in-depth, as it’ll matter more to colleges that you spend your summers wisely (ie., doing something that’s not school, that matters to you.) Governor school is an exception of course.
Note that you can’t take Chem 1 and 2 at the same time since they’re sequential, so either 152 is a lab that goes with 151 or you can’t take it
