Is this workload (4 APs) too much of a jump?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

I will be a junior next year and have kept all As up to this point, but the toughest course load I have had up to this point is my current sophomore schedule: 1 AP (APUSH), and honors in Spanish (Honors Spanish 2), English (Honors English 2), Science (Honors Environmental Science) and Math (Honors Geometry). I am also taking Honors Chemistry over the summer. My junior year schedule currently would look like this:

AP English Language (pretty hard with a mediocre teacher, but still, a very popular class with lots of As and even more 5s; have 95 in H English 2)
Honors Spanish 3 (surprisingly, a very challenging class, not so much with tests, but lot of project/essay/reading article-type work and teacher does almost a full immersion with no English for 45 out of 55 minutes)
Honors Algebra 2 (opinions split on how difficult material is, but teachers are really good and class is overall supposed to not be too hard)
Religion classes (Go to Catholic school; tests need to be studied for a decent amount, but definitely not hard classes)
AP Environmental Science (Roughly same as Honors Env. Science, which I have a 95 in, but with slightly more busy work and more frequent tests; it even uses the same textbook)
AP Psychology (Never taken a psychology class before and don’t really know much of anything about it, but neither do most who take it at my school and it’s considered a pretty easy AP)
AP US Gov./Macroecon. (Only Social Studies class taken is APUSH and have 94 in it; it’s AP Econ. first semester and AP Gov. second with both AP tests at the end; the AP. Gov thread is easy, but the AP. Econ thread is a bit harder)

Will it be a huge jump from sophomore year? Is it worth it? Should I drop APES or Psych. (or both)?

2

Most HS’s limit the number of AP’s for freshman and sophomores, or prohibit them altogether. So a highly motivated student going from 1 AP as a soph to 4 AP’s as a junior is common. Whether you can handle the change is something only you know (and maybe your parents and teachers). But none of us here know you.

I will say that while the workload of any AP class will depend on the teacher, IMO the only real time consuming class is AP English Language due to the amount to reading and writing involved. The workload for the others is fairly reasonable for an AP class.

My only challenge to you is that I do not see the value in taking AP Environmental Science if you’ve already taken the honors version, especially when the text is the same. How much more about environmental science is there to say? (Well, lots, but not necessarily in a HS setting).

3

You are correct, but I am mostly just looking for another AP science before taking AP Biology next year and am really scared of taking AP Chemistry (hardest AP at my school).

4

Depending upon your target colleges, honors physics might be better than AP Environmental Science

5

I am sure it would, and despite the fact that I don’t like physics and my career won’t involve it, I would do it, or even, but at my school, you have to be done with Algebra 2 and concurrently enrolled in either AP Statistics (will take senior year) or Honors/Regular Pre-Calc at least. So, the only non-regular science classes I can take are APES, AP Bio. (will take senior year), AP Chem and Honors Anatomy/Physiology (might go into medicine, but I have heard the class is very poorly structured, since it’s new).