<p>Ever since my freshman year of high school I've had a moderate courseload- 2 honors classes a year. I'm a junior now, and feel like, while I'm not working extremely extremely hard, I'm doing a solid amount of work (for example, some "non-honors" classes still require a good amount of work, like pre-calc). While not in rigorous classes, I have above a 4.0 and straight A's because of how much effort (a lot) I put into all my classes.</p>
<p>This courseload completely <em>PALES</em> in comparison to the kids here at CC, racking up 4-5 AP's their freshman and sophomore years. I was originally signed up to do APUSH this year, but decided against it as I've heard at my school specifically that it is extremely intense and stressful--I just could not deal with that for 10 months.</p>
<p>So, I think I'm going to take 2-3 next year, my senior year. My question is, I see kids racking them all up junior year and earlier; will this really make a difference to colleges if I just start on the AP track senior year? I'm one who stresses out easily so I don't want to overdo it.</p>
<p>I know, people are going to say it depends on the college and what my expectations are. I'm certainly not thinking HYPS, but maybe like an American University, BC, UNC, etc. Will it kill me to only take AP's senior year?</p>
<p>You have to understand that CC is not a representative sample of high school students. Most don't take any APs, many don't take honors either. I think your plan of taking two or three senior year is a good one. You can't go back in time and take more, and judging by your courseload previously and your description of your school it would be inadvisable for you to just take a schedule full of them, I don't think that adjustment would go well. You shouldn't have a problem getting into a quality college just because you don't have tons of AP classes, especially considering how well you do in regular and honors. However, UNC would almost certainly be a huge reach if you are out of state. I'm not sure if you are aware, but getting into a top flagship out of state (UMich, UT Austin, UNC, Berkley, UVA) is about as hard as getting into an ivy league school. But I wouldn't worry too much, you will have options. Like I said, CC is a not representative of the competition at most "normal" colleges.</p>
<p>The purpose of AP courses in my opinion is to boost your weighted GPA and get a higher class rank. And of course learn more but...</p>
<p>For senior year, I think it is just not right to take all AP courses. You should have done it junior year. Senior year should be all about applying for college and you don't want to add to that.</p>
<p>Getting into UMich and UVA out of state is not comparable to getting into an Ivy League school. You just need solid numbers to get into UMich and UVA. getting into an ivy requires the full package. a friend actually got into michigan with a 3.6 UW and a 2200 out of state.</p>