<p>My daughter will be a senior next year and we are looking at her senior year schedule. Her college/career goal is something related to international relations, international business. Her school doesn't offer econ. She earned a scholarship from a math competition and would like to use it to take micro and macro econ classes from a CC. In the past 3 years (including this year) she has taken 4 science courses - AP chem, AP environmental science, Honors physics, and honors bio. For her senior year, she will take AP world history, AP English lit, AP statistics, honors french V, honors journalism, and TechEd (required). She doesn't want to take any science classes. We don't know if it'll look bad in her college application? She is not interested in majoring in any science related field. She did very well in all her science classes in the past. </p>
<p>Is she on a block schedule ? Most colleges will want 3 years of science. On a standard schedule thats 6 classes. </p>
<p>If she’s already taken 4 credits of science, she’s perfectly fine. No worries. </p>
<p>I think it’s perfectly fine. She has 4 years of science already, including all three of the “basics.” And she has taken two AP sciences, one of which is quite difficult. That looks like plenty of science to me.</p>
<p>One of my kids took no math and no foreign language in her senior year (after having taken plenty of both in earlier years). The top 20 university that she ended up attending didn’t seem to mind. </p>
<p>I do not think that a college would raise an eyebrow at the lack of senior year science, especially since she already has a year of chemistry, biology, and physics in addition to environmental science. Even if she were to change her mind and decide on a science major or a premed sequence once matriculated, this type of background would be competitive.</p>
<p>I would call the colleges your child is considering applying to. Colleges looking at the rigor of your curriculum compared to what is offered in your school. The colleges my daughter applied to stated if AP or IB level classes are offered they expect the student to challenge themselves and take the most rigorous courses offered. (AP or IB)
Some of the colleges like to see AP Calculus over AP Statistics because they consider it more challenging. It depends on how competitive admission to a particular college is that you are applying to. If admissions sees another applicant from the same high school that has taken a more rigorous schedule senior year that maybe looked upon more favorably. You are compared with other applicants from your class. Admissions would rather see more rigorous courses on a transcipt than a student with A’s in less challenging courses. </p>
<p>Thank you all for the comments!
She is now taking AP calc (AB) as a junior. Her school doesn’t offer BC. So that’s as far as she can go, unless she goes to a local college to take calc 2. But stats is important for what she wants to do, so are econ courses. </p>
<p>What we were debating was if she should take AP physics 1. She is now taking honors physics. AP physics 1 will be easy for her, without much challenge and get a good score in school and the AP test. But that really doesn’t build up to what she wants to do in college. </p>
<p>She has four sciences already, including all three of biology, chemistry, and physics, so that does not seem to be inadequate in any way.</p>
<p>Does she have AP scores for the AP classes she took? </p>
<p>4 years of science (even though only taken in 3 years) is definitely adequate.</p>
<p>My DD IR major at a highly selective took no science senior year of high school. She took two histories instead. She also had completed AP or honors bio, chem and physics before senior year. Did not seem to hurt her at all. She only wished she had taken the AP physics or bio exam because it would have gotten her out of one of her science distribution requirements at college. </p>
<p>I guess my perspective is different because in our public high school it is very common to have taken 5 science classes in four years. It is also common to take 7 or 8 college level classes senior year. (no honors) </p>
<p>That’s pretty rigorous considering that even college students don’t take seven or eight college courses (if I’m understanding “college level class” as a college course correctly…).</p>
<p>It should be fine. In fact I think the Econ classes show her interest and initiative. </p>
<p>Yes she has good AP chem score from last year (5). She will take AP enviro in May. Hopefully AP chem gets her out of science requirement in college? we’ll see. It’s nice to hear other IR major’s stories! She looked at some college’s IR majors and saw econ is required for IR program. That’s why we think taking some econ courses before she goes to college might be a good prep. </p>
<p>She’s got plenty of science. It’s fine to take APs or college level courses mostly in your area of interest, and not every single one, even when you are applying to the most selective colleges. That said, if you go to a school where everyone takes a jillion APs, you can lose out (a little maybe) if you take less than a jillion. But when you apply to very selective schools it’s really impossible to know what may or may not have resulted in an acceptance or rejection. It might be a missing AP, or it might that all the stats are fine and just that the applicant just doesn’t seem interesting enough, nothing to do with academics at all.</p>
<p>I know a kid who got into Yale with only 3 years of science and none of them were AP (they were honors - bio, chem, and physics). This is at a HS where almost all of the APs are available to take. He took AP Human Geography instead senior year. (he did get deferred at SCEA but got in during the RD round) He did have 7-8 AP classes overall.</p>
<p>Does she want to take AP Physics or is it being pushed because of how it “looks” to a college? </p>
<p>If pushed, just let her take relevant courses. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I only did 3.5 years of science- none senior year and ended up going on to get my BS and did just fine. </p>
<p>Really, it’s fine. </p>
<p>So she already knows which college she is going to? </p>
<p>Thanks again for the comments. </p>
<p>No she doesn’t want which college she is going to apply yet. some general idea, but not sure. How’bout Brown? 
</p>
<p>I think it would be silly to take AP physics 1 after taking honors physics. The college board divided physics B into physics 1 and physics 2 with the idea of the sequence of 1 and 2 covering each topic once, in more depth, instead of the customary broad physics honors class followed by the broad physics B class, hitting every topic twice, with less time each year per topic. I find it hard to believe the college board now intends high school students to take 3 full years of physics in the sequence, honors physics, physics 1, physics 2. That would be crazy–most kids can barely squeeze two years of physics into their program, much less 3, and it really makes no sense to spend 3 full years studying physics lacking calculus.</p>