<p>I'm sort of in a dilemma here. Due to budget cuts at my school, less classes are being offered, so for now I have 2 choices:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Take AP Bio and a intro-to-organic-chem (required with AP Bio) class like I originally planned to, but I'm just informed that to do this, I have to drop band, something I've been in for 5 years already...</p></li>
<li><p>Take AP Physics instead and keep band. This sounds fine at first, but our school's AP Physics only focus on the Mechanics section, and I already self-studied this AP Exam last year and got a 5... I think it would be cool to see the physics labs since self-studying means it's hard to conduct labs.... but I don't know if it's worth sacrificing AP Bio.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I'm a bit leaning towards taking AP Bio, just because it would have more new information than AP Physics.
But I'm also worried about the "showing commitment" part... I can't play soccer this year because of the "varsity or cut" policy for senior athletes, and now if I'm forced to drop band, does it seem like I'm dropping everything out of senioritis?</p>
<p>I do have some other non-school-related commitments like math competitions and competitive badminton (nationally ranked), but it seems like the school is taking away all my school-related extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Please give me some advice on this.... I really don't know what to do.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>You can leave a note on your application explaining things. Either of these choices sounds good, so it comes down to what you want to do. As Kunatah said, MIT won’t hold it against you.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I had to drop AP Bio when I was in high school because it conflicted with show choir, which was a really big deal at my school (I’m from Ohio; think “Glee”). I was really upset about it – I had been so excited about AP Bio – but show choir was really important to me. </p>
<p>Ultimately, you have to do what will make you happy whether or not you get into MIT.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d probably not skip band. Transcript-wise, a single course is really not going to make or break you. </p>
<p>Only if biology is a serious interest of yours would I favor not skipping it. For instance, I don’t think I would have let nearly anything come in the way of my taking calculus in high school. Then again, there is no activity I placed above my academic interests in any case whatsoever. Further, I think some classes are very good to actually take and not just learn the material on your own - these tend to be when the skills learned are too foundational to risk not having crisp.</p>
<p>Congrats on self-studying AP Physics. That’s a nice first step towards the kind of independence that helps you a lot in college.</p>
<p>Had a similar scheduling conflict in high school. In my case, it turned out to my surprise that the orchestra conductor was perfectly happy to let me take music as an “independent study” course so that I could still show up for small group lessons and the performances, but won’t have to attend the large rehearsals that caused the conflict. </p>
<p>Perhaps suggest this option to your music teacher. Chances are, he/she don’t want to lose you either, since senior players with experience in the group are hard to replace, especially if you play a rare instrument. Be creative, try different options.</p>
<p>@xrCalic:
I had this similar dilemma last year… my band teacher was so freaked out because that meant losing a French horn player =P But I did worked around it so yeah. Our band only rehearses once a day, so you either miss it or you don’t. Thanks so much for your suggestion though!</p>
<p>Another question:</p>
<p>Most colleges require that I take a year of bio, chem, and physics in high school.
But again with budget cuts, if I take one year of each science, I can only take 1 AP Science by the end of high school. I really wanted to take all three…</p>
<p>So when I worked out high school plans with my counselor two years ago, I can take AP Bio and AP Chem, but then I can’t take physics at all. That’s when I got the idea of self-studying… and I used MIT OCW (Walter Lewin is incredible) to self-study Mechanics last year; I’m planning to self-study E&M this year.</p>
<p>So my question is… I don’t have physics ANYWHERE on my transcript since I taught myself physics from the very beginning… I’m trying out Physics Olympiad this year for what it’s worth. How do colleges view this? In their eyes, does this count as taking a year of physics? </p>
<p>And in this case, should I opt for AP Physics instead? I would hate to get denied for not fulfilling the course requirements…</p>
<p>Lastly,
Thanks so much to everyone who responded! I really appreciate it!</p>
<p>If they require 3 sciences in school, I think it’s safest to just do that. In fact, I’m surprised your school lets you get by without taking the 3. I’d expect it’s a graduation requirement to fulfill things like 4 years English, 3 years math, etc. Perhaps 3 different sciences is not required, only recommended, in which case it isn’t such a big deal. </p>
<p>Be warned - colleges can be very obtuse. Not everyone will approach this stuff logically. Sure, the physics olympiad performance probably involves more preparation and skill than taking a high school course. But remember, a lot of silly things are required for college, because they just are. The SAT I is no exception to this. Sure, sure, sure it’s an attempt to have at least one totally standardized thing, but really how useful is something so generic in practice…</p>
do what you want, and not what you THINK they want from you.</p>