<p>Hello, I have a question that has been puzzling my wife, daughter, and I and would welcome any thoughts the group might have. It concerns high school course selection and what is more favored by college admissions boards.</p>
<p>I'll simplify things a bit for clarity's sake:</p>
<ul>
<li>My daughter is a high school sophomore, and we're choosing courses for her junior year.</li>
<li>Courses at her high school are offered at four levels: CP-2, CP-1, Honors, AP.</li>
<li>Every class is not offered at every level.</li>
</ul>
<p>The combination of courses offered along with what my daughter is ready for yields two viable options for her:</p>
<ul>
<li>Option 1: take two AP courses (Physics and Math), and three Honors courses (French, History, English).</li>
<li>Option 2: take three AP courses (Physics, Math, History), one Honors (French), and one CP-1 (English).</li>
</ul>
<p>Assume these are the only two options (I'd need to get into the gory detail of the course offerings to explain why), and also assume we're confident she'll perform well academically with either option.</p>
<p>From the people we've spoken to there are two schools of thought. One says stay away from the CP-1 level, and especially so for a core subject like English. The other school says the benefit of three AP courses outweighs the drop down in English. </p>
<p>I personally suggest taking AP history no matter what due to the experience it gives you in writing college level papers and college level testing. The nice thing about having the 3 AP choices is that your child will be able to receive AP credit for those classes, allowing her to bypass those gen. eds. in college: a great money saver. Also, honors English will most likely not mean a whole heck of a lot if she has good writing skills anyway and plans on going into a different area of study… Not to mention that AP history will be strikingly similar to an English class due to the amount of reading and writing involved in history courses of that nature. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, AP tests can be taken in any subject the student wishes! For this reason, many schools simply have honors classes that offer AP opportunities. It is extremely easy to get a AP prep guide and use an honors class to prep for any given test, so your daughter can still take an AP test if she choses to go the all-honors route! AP classes are only called “AP” due to their preparatory design. Note: some schools weigh AP higher in GPA… Though not always. </p>
<p>It may matter which physics (1, 2, B, C-M, C-E), which math (AB, BC), and which history (US, Euro, world) courses are involved. Consideration of other options for these courses (or AP English) may allow more schedule choices.</p>
<p>More questions to consider:</p>
<p>For which selections will the counselor indicate that the student took the most demanding schedule?
For which selections in English have past students gone to college with without needing remedial English courses in college?</p>
<p>I agree with Engineeringgeek3 in that AP History really did help me write nice papers for college, but this could be completely dependent on the teacher, and of course the standards for honors history at your school. I really think either schedule is great but I would just consider a few questions when deciding: </p>
<p>What are her friends taking? Who are the better teachers? Does the guidance counselor list them as equally rigorous? If she doesn’t take honors English/AP History will she be allowed to take Honors/AP courses in her Senior year? </p>
<p>I’d do the opposite, anything less than AP is rarely differentiated. 3 APs is more impressive than 2, anything below that is seen at just the same, pretty much. Questions will be raised about why you only took 2 APs when you could have taken 3 - colleges understand that after that, you just have to take the classes that fit, honors or no.</p>