<p>I have yet to fulfill my PE requirement (2 semesters of PE) and I am currently a junior. I really want to take the most rigorous course load possible, but will it look bad that I'm taking PE? It can be avoided by playing a sport for two seasons, but I am not really the athletic type (asthma, etc.)...</p>
<p>I think I will still be able to take 4 AP's (the max my school allows) but I really want to make the most out of my senior year and a PE course isn't really helping with that and I don't want colleges to think I'm opting out of taking the hardest courses possible by taking PE</p>
<p>What other options do you have?
I know that some high schools in our area allow students to take PE classes at the local community college to satisfy the PE requirement. Those classes include yoga, beginning tennis, cross training and swimming.</p>
<p>Since PE is a graduation requirement, it is truly hard for me to believe that any college or university could hold it against you that you take PE your senior year. </p>
<p>One does have to wonder though just exactly what you were up to for the previous three years that you couldn’t manage to squeeze this requirement into your schedule any sooner.</p>
<p>Taking PE is a graduation requirement for you. Therefore, taking the required number of PE courses is completely compatible with taking the most rigorous schedule possible for you, at your particular school. And, no, it will not “look bad” if you fulfill the graduation requirements of your high school.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges just throw out the PE grades before calculating your gpa. If it is a requirement it is a requirement. Can you take it over the summer? That might free you up to take an additional course that your colleges might value in their deliberations.</p>
<p>My sons’ high school required both two semesters of PE and two semesters of Health Education to graduate. Since everyone in the class has to take the same classes, the colleges don’t hold it against students. These classes are pass/fail at our high school, so they have no direct effect on gpa or class rank.</p>
<p>However, our high school is relatively small (about 750 students) and offers just 7 periods a day, with all students starting class, having lunch, and finishing at the same time. In order to clear space to take all of the academic classes they wanted to take, my boys took their health and PE classes in summer school.</p>
<p>Students who did this, like my boys, were able to somewhat game the system to tweak their gpa and class rank. As I noted above, the health and pe classes themselves had no effect on gpa or class rank; however, students who cleared space in the academic schedule by taking these classes in the summer could then find room to take additional academic classes ( always a plus) and, if those additional classes were honors (an additional .5 added to gpa) or AP ( an additional 1.0 added to gpa)…and that definitely affected gpa and class rank.</p>
<p>Students were not excused from health or pe by playing on varsity teams. Nor were students given any academic credit for editing/writing for/being on any of the school publications (newspaper, literary journal, poetry journal). All students had to take a semester of Art and a semester of Music. Students who were in orchestra, concert band, marching band or the vocal ensembles all received academic credit (and in some cases, the honors gpa bump)…a differentiation I never quite figured out, given that all were extra-curricular activities at the school, and all took a huge amount of after school time, effort and devotion ( and I had students involved in this entire range of activities, so I have no particular prejudice for or against any particular activity).</p>