Junior year AP/ Honor Courses?

Pre-Med & Medical School High School Student Topics
1

I am currently a sophomore in high school. It is about time to choose classes for next year (in about week or so) and would like some input on whether or not I should take AP English language and composition. I wouldn’t consider myself a good writer but I am willing to put all of my time and effort to do the best of my abilities. I will not be involved in any after school activity due to the austerity of my schedule. (Yes, I am aware of what I am getting myself into.)

These are the courses that I have in mind and am planning on taking:
AP Bio
APUSH
Pre-Calc Honors
Spanish 3
AP English/ regular english?
Elective

I am trying to get into a UC and am worried that if I overload on AP’s next year, I would get low grades and hurt my chances; while at the same time, I want to take a good amount of challenging courses to be a competitive applicant for UC’s. (Excluding Berkeley and LA)

Should I go ahead and take AP Eng or hold out and take it senior year? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

2

For UC admissions, take any AP/honors that you could get a B or higher in (while keeping a reasonable workload). Weighted B’s and regular A’s both count as a 4.0 toward your weighted GPA, but the number of weighted courses is separately counted toward your admission score as well. Thus, an AP/honors B will help you more than a regular A.