Hi guys, so I am a sophomore at a fairly large magnet school. At my school, AP Biology and AP Chemistry are double-blocked classes, and the second block is supposed to be lab block weighted as an honors class. However I recently found out that one of the AP Bio teachers as well as the AP Chem teacher change the weighting in the GPAs so that way the classes go in as 2 AP-weighted classes. So at first I thought that my GPA/CR would be fine, as I am taking 2 AP-weighted classes and the rest Honors-weighted, and had two AP-weighted classes last year that I got 100’s in. Now I am not so sure. My class rank is currently sitting at somewhere around 6-7/526, however it’s probably going to take a nose dive after this year and drop 10-15 ranks due to the fact that close to ~40 people in my class are taking AP Biology right now. Furthermore, the CP-weighted required class I decided to get out of the way my freshman year also whittled away my GPA by crucial thousandths of points, causing me to barely miss top 10 ranking my freshman year (I was ranked 11 w/ WGPA of 5.062, friend was 9 at 5.065).
I mostly could not take AP Biology due to the fact that I am in my school’s top orchestra, which takes up a block, as well the fact that I had to complete some prerequisite classes that I could not get around (Java I for AP Computer Science). All of this is highlighted in one of my threads from earlier this year, called “AP Biology or Precalculus Honors”. This is actually a common problem for a lot of the high-achieving students at school like me who are also in some sort of fine arts class like band or orchestra, and as a result more people who aren’t in any kind of fine arts class seem to have artificially jacked-up GPA’s, since they are able to take 3, 4, or even 5 blocks of AP-weighted classes their sophomore years.
I am going to try and patch up my GPA junior year by taking 5 AP classes that weigh in at around 6-7 AP-weighted blocks:
AP English Lang
AP US History
AP Chem or AP Physics 1 (depending on whether I can get waived into Physics C my senior year or not)
AP Chem Lab or AP Physics 2 (DB’d with Physics 1)
AP Calc BC
AP Calc BC Lab (supposed to be double-blocked as 2 AP-weighted classes)
AP Computer Science A or AP Spanish 4 or Honors Physics (if I decide to take AP Chem and can’t get waived in)
Honors Orchestra Masterclass 3
But then again, I’m still not sure if I can pull myself back into the top 10 of my high school class, considering that top 10 students get a LOT of benefits at my school.
Sorry about the length of this rant. I’m just agitated about how unfairly things can go for us STEMmy fine-arts kids. I’m sure many other CC’ers can relate to this.