I’m currently a freshman at a pretty big public high school in Texas (my grade has 1000 something people). This is my next year’s schedule:
- AP Calc AB
- AP World History
- AP Psych
- AP Physics 1
- AP Bio
- Chemistry Honors
- English Honors
- Spanish III Honors
For references, this is my schedule for this year:
- Algebra 2 Honors (93)
- Biology Honors (96)
- Debate 1 (99- but this class does not count towards ranking)
- AP Human Geo (97)
- Spanish 2 Honors (97)
- PE
- English 1 Honors (98)
- Fundamentals of Computer Science (96- This is an endorsement course so it is also not counted towards rankings).
As of now, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with the course load and keep good grades (good as in everything AP class above a 90, and everything above 94 for the honors classes). Has anyone done AP Bio, Physics 1, Psych and AP WH in their sophomore (I’m not very worried about Calc AB, as many people from my school have claimed that it is relatively easier than Alg 2)? If you have, how did you do?
My school is really competitive (The cutoff for our sophomore year is going to be 5.42/6.0, and probably 5.50/6.0 in our senior year). My goal is to be in top 20, but it seems pretty hard at this point with my grades. I’ll probably end up somewhere in top 40. I’m aiming for John Hopkins University. Is being top 40 (top 4% of my school) good enough? I know the other factors are important too, but generally saying, for those that get accepted, what is their class rank?
Thank you in advance.
That seems like a crazy schedule to me. Tripling up on science in 10th grade is unnecessary.
Also, it’s too early to know if you will be competitive for Johns Hopkins (you are missing an “s” in the name of the school) without test scores and a junior year GPA. Don’t worry about striving for a tippy top school, focus on studying what you like and having fun. You need to have a schedule that you can manage.
You aren’t ready for AP Physics or AP Calc.
Why are you skipping precalculus? Why not take a class in art, music, business etc instead of so many science classes? Cutoff for what?
Only Texas is obsessed with class rank. Many other places don’t even have rankings. Your schedule looks like a recipe for disaster. I really think that the UTexas auto acceptance criteria based on class rank should outlawed due to child abuse. The above schedule is exhibit 1.
AP Physics 1, AP World, honors sophomore English, Spanish III and AP Psychology are rigorous but are actually reasonable for a sophomore to take at the same time (probably an absolute maximum but still doable).
Everything else, however, definitely isn’t, especially going straight to calculus from algebra 2 and tripling up on the core sciences all at advanced levels. Choose between honors chemistry and AP Physics 1 and leave AP Biology for a later year. Also, take Precalculus.
Also, I don’t think you’ll have problems with AP Physics 1; all it assumes is prior knowledge of Algebra 2 or concurrent enrollment in Algebra 2, which you’ve already completed, and for the little it’s worth, I’ve known many sophomores who have taken the course and done fine (although whether or not they actually pass the exam is another story).
What is a problem, though, as I stated before, is taking five APs sophomore year, two of which are high-level STEM APs, and tripling up on advanced lab sciences after a relatively normal freshman year in terms of rigor.
A realistic schedule for you and other sophomores would be something like:
-AP World History
-English 2 Honors
-Chemistry 1 Honors or AP Physics 1
-Pre-Calculus Honors (sophomores in general should at least be in Geometry and have completed Algebra 1)
-Spanish 3 Honors
-Interesting electives that you care about - they don’t have to be AP or weighted at all, also AP Psychology does not do much to improve your course rigor, so if you’re taking it just because it has the AP label, don’t. I understand you are in Texas and you have to keep your GPA as high as possible, but try to balance a need for a high GPA with a desire to learn subjects you are actually interested in.
Junior year should be a bit more rigorous; try to take around 3/4 APs. Remember, senior year should be most rigorous and that any APs (or dual enrollment/other college or college-level high school classes) after eight or so do little to nothing in terms of improving a student’s courseload in the eyes of admissions officers, even at the most prestigious universities.
Sorry for long posting / double posting.
As a rising junior who just survived sophomore year, I definitely do not recommend tripling up in science. AP Bio and AP Physics are really hard (as well as require Biology and Chemistry ) and Honors Chemistry is also very rigorous. I took Marine Biology and Honors Chem at the same time and it was pretty hard but luckily, Marine Bio was fun. You should probably just keep AP World and AP Psych if you can handle it with your other honor classes.
1° ranking only counts for Texas. Everywhere else, top 10% is all colleges need to know - and sometimes they don’t even care, since about half high schools don’t rank at all. (Even in Texas, what matters is being top 7%, exact ranking means little - and since your class has over 1,000 students, it means you could be within the top 75 and still be fine.)
2° your proposed schedule is pure madness. It looks either like hubris or like foolishness. It will NOT help you get into college and may well decrease your odds since it’ll likely be impossible to do well with this.
3° don’t zero in on ONE “dream” college. It’s very unhealthy. Instead, try to identify what makes JHU so appealing to you and work on finding what colleges meet the same criteria. Get a Princeton Review’s Best Colleges and find a dozen colleges that meet some criteria of yours AND that you’d never heard of. Run the NPC on all these colleges (UT, other Texas publics, JHU, the dozen colleges) one by one and bring results to your parents to start talking about college costs, so that you have a clear idea of where you can’t apply for financial reasons. For instance, some colleges don’t offer any merit aid so if you can’t afford your EFC you shouldn’t apply to these colleges. On the other hand if your income is under 75K you may be better off applying to a “full need” college.Running the NPCs will tell you which colleges are possible financially.
4° this is a proposed schedule that’d make sense for top colleges, offering continuity from your 9th grade as well as showing your willingness to challenge yourself:
- Algebra 2 Honors (93) → Precalculus Honors
- Biology Honors (96) → Chemistry honors OR AP physics 1 (If you’re really good at time management, take both)
- Debate 1 (99- but this class does not count towards ranking) → Debate 2 or another elective of your choice
- AP Human Geo (97) → AP World History
- Spanish 2 Honors (97) → Spanish 3 Honors
- PE → PE or fun elective (I recommend Culinary Arts)
- English 1 Honors (98) → English 2 Honors
- Fundamentals of Computer Science → AP CS Principles
Junior Year it’d mean, to keep continuity and challenge:
Calculus AB, AP Physics 1 or AP Chemistry (you must take Honors Chem first), APUSH, AP English Lang, Spanish 4 Honors, AP CS A or Robotics or non weighted STEM elective, Debate or fun elective, free period.