Need help with my Junior year Schedule (No APs taken yet)

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hello there people of the College Confidential. I hope you guys can help me with a bit of a problem.</p>

<p>I'm currently a Sophomore and finishing my finals. Up till now, I still haven't taken any AP classes.</p>

<p>For my freshman year:
English 1 (B,B+)
Spanish 1 (A, B+)
Art (A, A)<br>
PE (A, A)
Geometry honors (B+, B)
Biology honors (A-, A-)</p>

<p>Summer:
World History (A, A)</p>

<p>For my sophomore year:
English 2 (A, A)
Spanish 2 (A-, A)
PE (A, A)
Engineer Design Tech (A, A)
Algebra 2 Honors(A, A)
Chemistry Honors (B-, A)</p>

<p>Unweighed, my GPA is currently 3.70. Weighted, it is 4.07. With this in mind, I still have not taken any AP classes. I thought it was too much work for me, and my school only offered AP World History for sophomores (none for frosh year). And up until a few weeks back, I did not know one could simply self-study and sign up for AP exams. Now when I compare myself to the majority of College Confidential, I feel like I am really lacking in my academics, and maybe even extra-curriculars. Now, I want to ask you guys for advice on how I should adjust my schedule accordingly.</p>

<p>My junior schedule will look like this (I already got the classes):
AP Lang and Comp.
AP Stats
AP Chem
Pre-Calc honors
Spanish 3
Weight-training (PE)
(I will be taking US history in the summer in addition to SAT prep)</p>

<p>Looking at this, it seems like quite a jump from 2 honor classes to 3 AP classes + 1 honors. I still do not think this is even enough. What do you guys suggest I should self-study in addition to my classes? And if so, which classes? I'm really aiming for UCSD or Georgia Tech, essentially a good computer science school.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time :)</p>

2

<p>AP Stats and AP Lang are generally pretty easy, AP Chem is not. </p>

<p>I self-studied the two Econs this year, they’re pretty straightforward. You could do that. Since you want to go to a computer science school, you could do AP Computer Science as well. </p>

<p>When you compare yourself to most CC’ers, remember that the kids who might seem really amazing or studious are also probably aiming for the Ivy League or schools like that, not the ones you listed.</p>

3

<p>You can’t compare yourself to these kids. A lot of these kids go to huge schools where there teachers have no idea who they are, their administration doesn’t care who they are, and where they take APs at any time because most of their teachers don’t care about them on a personal level. A lot of these schools also offer 25 APs, so there are a lot of options for students.</p>

<p>If you were offered only one AP starting sophomore year, it won’t be held against you as much as if you were offered 8 and took none. </p>

<p>Challenge yourself this year and spread your APs out over the course of the next two years and you should be fine.</p>

4

<p>Bumping for more input on this.</p>

5

<p>If you’re good at math, AP Chem will be the only hard class you’re taking. The difficulty with AP chem isn’t in the math, it’s in the concepts; you have to actually put effort into understanding what you’re being taught to get good grades lol… so if you’re lazy, it’ll be a tough year. But, overall, you should be able to manage.</p>

6

<p>bummmp</p>

7

<p>AP Statistics is very easy. AP Lang will really depend on the teacher; the concepts are not hard, but the teacher dictates the workload. AP Chemistry is time-consuming across the board, but based on your past performance, I think you’ll be fine.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for your input. What do you guys think about the APs though? Is it enough?</p>

9

<p>I personally think the AP social studies are the easiest. They’re the only APs available in my school for 9 and 10th graders (Human Geography and World History) and I think they’re a good intro to APs. Do you not like social studies or is it not required at your school? Your schedule looks fine. A lot of people find the transition from honors “memorization” to AP “understanding and analysis” very challenging. Concentrating on a few APs and doing well is the best way to introduce yourself to them IMO.</p>

10

<p>@z0e101‌ I didn’t take WHAP nor APUSH because you guessed it, I dislike studying history. Don’t get me wrong, I like history, but the act of memorizing tons of historical terms and times is just too much for me. I may self-study an easier social study like Human Geo.</p>

11

<p>@Japers Well if you’re looking for something easy to self-study, Human Geo. is the way to go. Personally, I thought it was a really fun class, a lot of common sense and not a lot of crazy concepts. An easy 5 on the exam. Taking it in 9th grade prepared me a lot better for understanding the context of many things in World History. But World and US are also required at my school.</p>