@DreamerMom , you might ask the HS GC how it will look to the targeted colleges if she drops Stats. To me it’s a question of balance. Will her mental health be adversely affected by keeping the Stats course? If so, it might affect her other grades too. But if she is fine with the schedule and can handle it, I’d let her but encourage her to get a head start on those essays this summer.
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It’s a delicate balance in showing rigor while avoiding burn out. PE may be an option since it is required and actually beneficial IMO for academically driven students who need to de-stress.
Your student’s stats should make her competitive at any school so don’t wait too long on starting essays. Our S16 was not an essay person either (more of an analytical paper type) so he worked long and hard on his essays. We believe his essays were key to his admissions successes. Thankfully our D22 is a much better writer.
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I just saw one of her friends schedule for Junior year… 5 AP classes, including AP Physics and AP Chem at the same time. This girl ended up at Vandy this year. So this basically gives me an idea on how competitive kids at her school are… So maybe my D22 schedule is not that crazy after all…
My son took 5 APs (APUSH, Lang, Calc AB, Physics, Bio) and an engr academy elective. Got into the UCs (inc Cal and Brown). Four APs senior year. It makes a difference with course rigor. I think the other piece that matters are his essays and how he was able to convey who he is/why they would want him, his activities through the essays.
For reference, my son applied to 14 schools. Luckily, UCs essays apply to the 6 UC he submitted. The other colleges–Ivies, JHU, USC, etc. had supplementals, but they were not bad at all. They were all 250-450 ish words, which my son felt weren’t hard to fill out, but much harder to prioritize content. The best thing he did for himself was to work on his UC essays first, along with his Brown ED essays (he applied PLME, so a total of 7 just for Brown). The two sets of apps and essays covered enough topics that it made it fairly seamless for him to repurpose the essays for the other colleges.
Make sure the kids set aside time for the common app essay, get in that ED/REA app since the deadline is usually earlier.
Some that give out merit scholarships have unique deadlines that aren’t published on common app. S21 was so focused on USC’s merit deadline that he didn’t realize Vandy had a merit deadline, which he missed, but still applied anyway.
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I have to admit that I’m not sure about the importance of taking every possible AP. Our D is on track to complete maybe 6 AP classes (the rest will be honors classes) and so far she is holding a 4.0 UW gpa. Her brother only took 3 AP classes, graduated with 4.0 UW gpa and was accepted at every school he applied to except MIT.
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@DreamerMom My S22 is taking 3 APs senior year- Calc BC, Physics C, and Econ, and I was curious about adding AP Stats. His high school counselor specifically advised against it, even in the context of applying to highly selective colleges. He will be taking band, jazz, chamber orchestra instead. Have you checked with your daughter’s counselor? Overloading with APs senior year could just be overkill?
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I absolutely agree with this notion. However, since these AP races got out of hands, top students have to keep up to be able to show “rigor” and have this box of “most challenging classes” check. Also, for us, we did run out of the classes and have to choose what is left available 
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The only other choice would be PE for 6 months and then she has to choose another 6 months course, possibly creative writing. So I don’t really see much of a choice and this is what frustrates me with current offerings at her school…
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@DreamerMom Ah, I see the dilemma. Fwiw AP stats is not one of the more rigorous APs and shouldn’t be a huge time commitment. If it were me, I’d choose gym and creative writing 
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Also AP psych is a rather easy AP and for most AP Gov is also fairly easy. I would think for someone looking for CS dropping one of those would be better than dropping AP Stats. But thats just my off the cuff thought.
My D21 soon to be nursing major (4.0UW 35 ACT) this year took AP Stats, AP Macro and Micro, AP Latin, AP Bio , AP Psych and Honors English. And has been able to keep up her A average while also competing in two varsity sports.
Just for reference in 11th grade she took AP English, AP US history and AP AB Calc, and in 10 grade AP Human Geography.
From her stats and scores, I don’t think your daughter will have any problem regardless of what she ultimately choices to do with regard to her schedule. All the top schools are crap shoots and your daughter clearly has stats and rigor to be selected to one of them. Whether she takes 3 or 4 AP classes I would not think is not going to be determinative to whether a particular school selects her. As others have said at the highly selective schools essays may mean a lot more that whether or not she took AP Psych.
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my older son just finished his freshman year at Pitt and that was exactly my reaction when we toured the school. I didn’t expect it to blow me away like it did, and even then didn’t expect him to land there. He did and had a fabulous year in spite of things.
Now just need to find that same place/feel/opportunity for my 2022 twins!
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Starting the process with my 2022 twins. I don’t feel completely new because their brother is only 2 years older. I can’t seem to remember if we use weighted or unweighted gpa when checking out stats at different colleges. I know colleges tend to re-weight anyway, but I’m trying to get an idea as to where they stand with the info I have.
Also, at what point do you encourage more testing? With my eldest we were lucky in that he took his ACT cold and got a 35. One and done. His siblings did ok but not close to that (24/29 ACT, 1260/1330 SAT). So room for growth. They each took the ACT and SAT once and prefer the SAT. I think its a no brainer to try the SAT one more time with some prep before. They are sick of all of this already. So I don’t know if I need to just back off? Or push for that one more test. Am I expecting too much based on what their brother got?
Quite honestly I am hoping they will end up with decent merit. I know they will find a place, but $ helps!
The problem I have with those stats is they don’t control for GPA, etc. To really see if there was any clear preference for test scores, you’d have to compare two groups who had otherwise exactly the same GPA, course rigor, etc.
I think it makes more sense that those submitting test scores also had high GPAs. So you could just as easily show stats that said, admit rate of those with UW3.9+ 17% v. >3.9 8.6%. You know? I’d just be careful reading too much into those stats.
With taking a full load of AP classes, remember you may not have to take the tests. I know some schools require it. Ours does not and I think we’ll really think about which tests our kids take in the future. While the classes are a good amount of work for sure, the studying in the spring is a lot as well. Removing that would make for a more enjoyable spring of senior year.
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I would push them for one additional SAT with some studying. I’m sure they can bring those numbers up.
My view is you have the kids take both once and which ever test they do better in and/or feel more comfortable with have them study and retake the test
This is 100% right on. S21 would’ve taken most of his 4 AP exams for UC, but then he got into a different college that values AP/course rigor, but AP credits aren’t relevant to them. Imagine the joyous last few weeks of senior year knowing you don’t have to take the exams and imagine my joy to get a refund for the 4 exams he just skipped :). Just know that many colleges, you have to write to admissions and let them know that you won’t be taking the exams. Most will say that you can’t change the course selection vs. what you told them in the app, you have to maintain solid academic standing, but they would understand it if you bypassed the AP exam at the end of the year.
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Hi all. Haven’t been on CC much over the past few months but now returning as we start preparing for D22’s upcoming college applications. Hope everyone is well and has had at least one vaccination shot (I got my 2nd on Monday, so feel a bit better but my wife is still waiting to be notified for her 2nd shot and D22 not eligible for Covid vaccination in the UK 
).
Look forward to our “adventure” together!
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Junior year officially over. D is maintaining her 4.0. She’ll be starting her essays in a few days. Hopefully she’ll have a chance to tour a few schools before school stars again.
We’ll all be flying out to California in a few weeks to watch our son walk at Stanford’s commencement ceremony!
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Congratulations to your son.
The end of this semester has been brutal for my junior. He has been in virtual school with a 4x4 schedule for the entire year. He missed a month of schoolwork in March due to mono, and though he only missed maybe 2 weeks of virtual classes, his camera was off and he did not engage for a total of 4 weeks. He is really behind due to this schedule (AP US History, AP Physics, AP Chem, Honors English).
He took the SAT in late April after a lot of self-study and did well-he focused his efforts on the SAT instead of making up schoolwork. But his math score was surprisingly lower than expected (he had left the test fairly confident he had gotten all the math questions correct). He is signed up for the June SAT in the hopes of making up his math score.
We have told him to try to salvage his grades at this point, but given the likelihood that he will earn B’s, are we misguided in this? Should we encourage more self-prep for the SAT? Or the AP tests? Trying not to break this kid, but this is a ton of stuff to have completed by June 11.