I’m currently a junior at a competitive high school in the bay. My junior year schedule is as follows
American Literature and Writing
Teacher Assistant
AP US History
AP Physics C: Mech (1st sem)/ AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism (2nd sem)
AP Statistics
I have taken AP Physics 1, Calculus BC, and Chinese last year as a sophomore, and also took the AP Physics 2 test last year, all 5’s.
I’m wondering if my current schedule is too lax for junior year. I only have 4 real courses. I was debating whether to take AP CS A or not, but I ended up deciding to self study it because of my extensive programming background already. I was planning to have a slightly easier schedule because I wanted to dedicate some more time to olympiads, and extracurrculars, but now I see my schedule every day and wonder if colleges will see me as having junioritis. Thoughts?
Yes. I’m unaware of any competitive HS where 4 courses is the norm.
Is this typical for your school? Talk to your guidance counselor. You want your transcript to be the most rigorous for competitive colleges. No EC is worth sacrificing your academics.
What other options do you have? Does your school have only five or six periods? Can you not take a class instead of being a teaching assistant (and what subject is that, BTW?)
Take an art course or a new foreign language … or even Discrete Math at a local CC?
Why aren’t you taking AP Lang?
we do not have AP Lang at our school
I’m taing for my calc bc teacher from last year
Is there a local CC where you could take Freshman composition and an advanced math class, say English in the Fall and Math in the Spring? Each would count as an advanced class.
A first problem is that you stop your math progression with BC in 10th grade. You’d be expected to look for the rest of the sequence since you were three years advanced.
A second problem is rigor: you have an easy English class and an easy math class, plus two rigorous courses. (TAing in math is fine but only if you have the rest).
Finally, selective colleges expect 5 academic courses per year out of six periods.
Are you leaving things off your schedule like gym or health? I would trade teaching assistant for a class - maybe music, art, business or something. For most colleges teaching assistant is viewed like a study hall. You also have the option to take 2 years of a new foreign language.
Thanks for your input everyone! Now that I think about it, I never would have thought that I would fall into the “don’t be too overloaded” philosophy that our counselors preach. Our most rigorous literature class in junior year is american literature honors, which is essentially AP Lang, but labelled as an honors class. I kind of just realized how badly I screwed up, as I cannot change my courses anymore. Will taking courses at my community college make up for this? I’m planning on taking a CS course there to make up for my lack of AP CS. Any other suggestions?
Yes, CC classes are considered equivalent to APs. You need one CC math class (Discrete Math?) Before you worry about taking an elective such as a CS class.