Junior Year Course Selections

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

So, I thought I was set on what I was going to take next year. But I’m second-guessing myself now… I’m a sophomore at the moment, and there are several courses that I’m not sure about.

The four courses I have set:
Honors English 11 (my school only offers Lit)
AP Calc BC
AP Physics 1
Journalism (if I get in; application-based, hyper-competitive school newspaper) OR Spanish 4 (DE)

However, I’m starting to doubt my original choices for my last two courses.

Originally, I had regular USH and AP Chem as those two courses. Now, though, I’m finding out a lot of people plan to take APUSH and say, AP Stats or AP Psych (both are notoriously easy at my school).

Now, I’m thinking of taking APUSH and AP Stats, or maybe APUSH and C++/Discrete (DE; it’s the first time my school will be offering the latter, though, so I’m not sure how difficult it will be; we previously had Finite/Discrete, but the CC changed the courses). I plan to go into something math/science-y (maybe engineering or research?), but many of my extracurriculars (i.e. Model UN and a literary magazine; I’ve also won several awards for my writing) point to the humanities. I need one easy course in my schedule (everything I plan to take is very hard/time-consuming, and first semester I have a seventh class, Marching Band, which meets for two hours after school two times a week alongside weekend commitments; I may also continue second semester, when it meets three hours instead of two). I’m slightly scared of APUSH, which is a notoriously hard course at my school, albeit a good one.

Taking APUSH and a course other than AP Chem, though, would change my senior year schedule:
AP Lit
Gov/Econ (no AP offered)
MVC/Linear Algebra (DE)
AP Physics C
Journalism (if I get in junior year) OR Creative Writing/Public Speaking
previously: AP Bio or APES; changed: AP Chem

What should I take? I go to a hyper-competitive Bay Area high school, by the way, and while I’m not at the top of my class (only a 3.8 GPA) due to some screw-ups freshman year, I’m still considered “smart” for some reason (maybe I answer too many questions in class? but this illusion seems to persist with teachers who previously had me). Obviously, my dream schools are MIT/Stanford, but they’re obviously super-high reaches that I probably won’t get into.

By the way, I’m “interested” in everything except maybe Stats. But Stats is also notoriously easy (I could have taken it this year and I should have, but instead I’m taking Engineering for a very stupid reason).

2

Ultimately, it’s a choice of what you enjoy. All of your options seem solid.

Here’re a couple tid bits from my experience:

If it were me, I’d prioritize APUSH and Ap Chem.

I’m not a history guy, but I really enjoyed US history. It was refreshingly challenging.

I also opted out of Spanish 4. Language classes seem to be much more productive in college than highschool, so I’ll save that level until then.

Good luck!

3

AP Chem, APUSH, and AP Physics are all notoriously difficult courses at my school, so I don’t want to take all three at once; and I have to take AP Physics 1 junior year to take AP Physics C senior year, sadly.

I’m mainly worried about the fact that everyone from my school who seems to get into a good college has taken APUSH… :confused: I love history, but I don’t want to kill myself–people are already really surprised that I’m taking Chem, Physics, Calc, and Honors English together (my high school is a highly competitive Bay Area high school where taking three APs in a year is the norm, by the way).

Note: the only person I know who took APUSH, two AP sciences, and Honors English junior year (although she did take Multivar/Linear junior year because she self-studied Calc BC freshman year whilst taking Alg 2) along with a major EC (dance) got three-ish hours of sleep a night. But she also got into Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

4

Ultimately, the choice is yours. I can’t tell you what’s best for you. But in terms of some advice and pros and cons, here’s a few:

APUSH, AP Chem, and AP Physics, and even Calc to an extent, are dangerously tough. They require hours of grinding and work unless you have a knack for the subject or already know the material. Go ahead and take them, but dead God, don’t take them all at once! That’s suicide! You want to have some time for yourself and your extracurriculars leftover, as contrary to popular belief, relaxation time is great for you, and you don’t always need to be working, working, working.

Since you want to go to MIT/Stanford, however, I’d recommend you stick to your Math and Science courses. Since you still have senior year to go, split it in half. Take Chem and Calc this year (if you can handle it), and maybe Physics next year (Physics has a lot of Calc in it, so best to know some of that first, anyway. I would know —> I got thrown into Physics before Calculus and when you’ve only started Trig, the class is a hellish nightmare the whole first semester). Then, if you like, stick one of the easier APs this year as well, and maybe the other one next year. Psychology is very, very easy, and is also very useful, but since there is a good chunk of information, you may want to take Stats for the mean time to just focus on Math.

AP Bio should never be mixed in with other rough AP Courses like APUSH. It’s usually a double period, and with 50-something chapters to finish before May, you will be in a mad rush to memorize everything. Don’t kill yourself with that, especially with Marching Band and such. APUSH is something you should take if you are ready to put in the effort. It’s actually very interesting, but there is A LOT of information just like Bio.

Overall, pick whatever is right for you and what will benefit you as an Engineer. Whatever that one girl did once to succeed may not be the right plan of action for you. It might be detrimental, even.

5

@kangarule My school requires AP Physics 1 (algebra-based) before AP Physics C, so I’ll have already completed Calc BC when I get to Physics C. I’m assuming the only parts of Physics C that involve Multivar are Maxwell’s Equations (if they’re mentioned), which I already know how to derive (albeit not mathematically).

All courses at my school are one period long; there are no double-periods.