Junior Year, help !!!

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I have already signed up for my schedule for next year, but we are allowed 10 days to change it when school starts without it affecting our report/transcript. I signed up for the following:

Spanish 3 Honors
AP Seminar
APUSH
AP Lit
AP Euro
AP Calc AB
AP Bio

I started looking into Northwestern’s HPME program and realized my courses planned for the rest of high school won’t meet the requirements.

I will not be dropping Spanish, USH, Lit, Calc, or Bio.

I plan on taking AP Research senior year, but is it worth it? What do the AP Capstone courses grant you, opposed to other people who did not complete them? I would consider dropping AP Seminar for my junior year.

I also want to drop AP Euro because I do not like having 6 APs to worry about. I want to be able to focus on my ECs, as well as the difficult courses I will be taking, such as Calc and Bio.

I want to take the PLTW: Human Body Systems course in order to take the third year (Medical Interventions) my senior year. But, I do not know if taking physics my senior year will be too hard with AP Chem.

AP Chem is basically a requirement for HPME, and the AP chem teacher preaches about not taking AP Chem with physics. Is this correct??

My senior schedule would look like this:

AP Spanish
AP Research??? (if I take Seminar)
Physics??
Anatomy & Physiology
PLTW Medical Interventions
AP Stats
AP Chem

I could also take the risk of not applying for NW’s HPME, hoping that I get into their UPSP program, which you apply to while working on your undergrad. Risk is, only around 5 students are accepted, and NW is and will be full of amazing students. What should I do? Be safe with HPME and hope I get in, or take the risk and maybe be one of five to get into UPSP???

Of course, I have other options which aren’t that risky, but still highly competitive.Those options are:
UChicago’s med school professional option (basically start med school in your last year of undergrad)
Hopkins’, where I would complete the Five-Year Master’s Program for the Pre-Health track.

Thank you in advance, any advice is appreciated.

2

This is a LOT of APs.

If it were me, I would back off at least from AP Euro to some other class (possibly regular Euro, or some other non-AP class altogether). IMHO as a parent, AP Euro was an exceptionally difficult and time consuming class when my daughter took it (I have called it "the hardest A- that I have ever seen in my life). Two different AP history classes also seems excessive in my opinion.

Even dropping AP Euro this still seems like a lot.

I don’t understand why you are calling U.Chicago’s med school professional program as an “option that is not risky”. Are you a president’s child with straight A+'s in AP classes, 800 on every SAT section, and also URM, or is there actually some risk regarding whether you will get accepted?

3

I don’t see it as that risky as if I don’t get accepted I wouldn’t be that affected. It would still probably hurt as I obviously would want it. But, the worst thing I would be doing is completing everything in a “normal” time frame. I could apply regularly to Pritzker, or any other med school, which is still also “risky” I suppose. The risk I see with the UPSP is just the fact that I would go to Northwestern for it, but only 5 students get selected out of so many qualified students. It’s highly selective of course. I think we may just have different opinions and thoughts on risk, totally understandable.

And I would also consider dropping AP Seminar, as I have researched the AP Capstone pros, and they don’t really stand out for me.

Thank you!

4

Okay, I understand you definition of “risky”, and it makes sense. It means there is no risk in that you apply for the program out of high school, at the same time that you apply to multiple other universities. If you get in, you are in and don’t need to apply again after going to university. If you don’t get in, you will go somewhere else (which given your GPA from a different thread, seems quite certain also as long as you include reasonable match and safety schools on your list).

Also, of course medical school is “risky” in the sense that you need to get accepted, but only in the normal sense that every premed students accepts.

This makes sense.

5

I don’t know what my top 3 schools are to me right now (reach, match, safety), how does one figure this out? I have not been exposed to much as I just finished sophomore year and haven’t “done” much. I haven’t really ventured out of my comfort zone, and I thought taking 6 APs would be doing that. But, I’ve realized I wanted to take them for the AP “label”, and not the actual class.

I used to be stuck on the thought of going to an Ivy because they are the “best”. Yes, they’re so good, but other schools are just as amazing. I always ruled out going to Northwestern or UChicago because they’re too close to home, as I live an hour away basically. I have visited them both, and they’re amazing, and I fell in love with the programs they offer for pre-med students. I like them because it’s not a Pre-Med/Biology major. I’ve read that getting those undergrad degrees aren’t necessarily “bad”, but other people who major in say, French Literature, are taking the required courses for that degree, plus the Pre-Med requirements. My preferred major would be neuroscience, or genetics, which don’t have all that much to do with what type of speciality I want to work in. (Pediatric & Neonatal surgery). Are these majors too close to the medical field, or is that just nonsense? Do med schools actually care about what an applicant majors in, or just how well they did in those courses and on the MCAT?

6

“Yes, they’re so good, but other schools are just as amazing.”

Exactly, there are a lot of very good universities.

“My preferred major would be neuroscience, or genetics, … (Pediatric & Neonatal surgery). Are these majors too close to the medical field,”

I know someone who was for a while a neuroscience major on a premed track. The overlap seemed reasonable. To me neuroscience seems fascinating – when Star Trek used to say “space the final frontier” I eventually figured out that the real “final frontier” is the inside of the human mind. It also seems like relatively recently there has been and continue to be significant advancement in the understanding of the relationship between genetics and human disease.

My understanding is that if you go to medical school then you don’t actually pick a specialty until relatively late in the experience (certainly many years after your sophomore year of high school).

“Do med schools actually care about what an applicant majors in, or just how well they did in those courses and on the MCAT?”

Other’s on this forum have said “GPA and MCAT”.

In order to pick reach, match, and safety schools, you need to do some thinking and some research. Now is probably a decent time to start (you definitely are not late, you won’t apply for over a year). You should compare your GPA and SAT scores with incoming students at universities that you are considering – which of course requires that you wait until you get SAT scores. You need to run the NPC and see whether you can afford whatever it is likely to cost at each school that you are considering. Cost pushes a LOT of students to in-state public schools, which are usually quite good. You also should visit some schools. We started with visiting the schools near our house just to minimize the effort to get there, but also did a few “visit trips” where we saw three or four universities that were relatively close to each other.

By the way, regarding taking chem and physics at the same time, I personally took them in separate years, which I think was probably recommended at the time because they both contain labs (which better be written up the same day that you do them, or your writeup might end up differing from what actually happened). I don’t see any reason to take them at the same time but nonetheless it probably would have been okay.

7

Thank you for the insight! I think I may end up not taking AP Seminar in order to take physics. My pre-cal teacher made a lot of references to physics, and the teachers at my school seem to coordinate what they’re teaching and how it relates to one another’s curriculum. I think my best bet would be taking physics right after pre-cal. Is there a lot of correlation between the two subjects?

8

definitely don’t take AP Euro and AP USH at the same time. Pick one.
Also I would only take one AP science at a time.

9

I took physics and calculus at the same time as a freshman in university. There was obviously a lot of cooperation between the professors teaching each class. We would learn something in calculus, then in just a few days we would learn how to use this same calculus technique to solve a particular physics problem. I recall harmonic motion as particularly an area where this applied. This make both classes easier, and I think that I learned the calculus better for having an immediate use for it.

So yes, physics is one of the more “mathematical” sciences, which is one reason that I liked it.

10

I’ve decided not to take AP Euro, thank you!

11

Thank you so much! Do you have any experience with AP Seminar? Is it worth it to get the AP Capstone diploma, if of course I achieve it, or should I take physics junior year?

12

“Do you have any experience with AP Seminar? Is it worth it to get the AP Capstone diploma”

I have no experience with either (neither as student nor as parent).

13

Well, thank you! You’ve been such a great help.

14

Take AP Euro senior year instead of A&P, and take physics junior year instead of AP Euro. :slight_smile:

Make sure you have English your senior year (requirement at most colleges).

15

Does a high school english course that you took in middle school count for colleges? AP Lit is the highest English class offered at my school, and I will have completed that my junior year. I will have English 9 Honors, Class Lit Honors/Comp, AP Lang, and AP Lit. Is that sufficient? What should I do if not? And what is the reasoning for not taking A&P? I just want to weigh the reasons to see what I think is best for me. Thank you!

16

Yes, that’d be sufficient, as long as the “HS class taken in MS” appears on your transcript.
A&P is useful if you plan on going into nursing, or if you’re unable/unwilling to take AP Bio. However it’s not necessary - and, most importantly, your schedule needs to be balanced. 4/7 classes in the sciences is one too many and it’s the easiest class to cut and replace.

17

Junior:
Spanish III Honors
Physics
APUSH
AP Lit
PLTW Human Body Systems
AP Calc
AP Bio

Senior:
AP Spanish
AP Psychology
AP European or AP US Gvt
Anatomy
PLTW Medical Interventions
AP Stats
AP Chem

Are these schedules balanced? There is about nothing left to take at my school besides agricultural or computer classes, which I have no interest in whatsoever. That’s why my schedule is either full of science or social science.

Should I take AP Euro or AP US Gvt my senior year?

18

“Should I take AP Euro or AP US Gvt my senior year?”

You can wait and see how you do on next year’s AP classes before deciding. Remember that senior year you will have the additional task of “research universities, visit universities, apply to universities, hear back, decide where to go (which might involve more visits), …”. This is essentially as much work as another AP class, so it is often a good idea to be one class lighter during senior year than what you are used to. As such, my initial answer to this question is “no”, but you can decide in about 11 months from now.

19

You don’t have to decide now.
This would be a very challenging curriculum. Do you feel up to the task?