I’m currently a freshman attempting to choose my courses for sophomore year, although I’m stuck. Would this schedule idea be too difficult or just right?
Sophomore Year Schedule:
1-Chemistry (no honors is provided and I plan to take AP chemistry my junior year)
2-Honors English 2 (I’m really good at English)
3-Advanced Algebra 2/Pre-Calculus (I’ve always been good at math, but I’m a little worried about this course)
4-Spanish 2 (no honors is provided)
5- AP World History (this will be my first AP course and I’m a little worried about it)
6-Physics 3-4 (I took physics in 8th grade, although I want to take the second year of regular physics (no honors is provided for physics) to build up my foundation for AP physics 1 & 2)
Would this schedule be too difficult or just right? I’m mostly an A student, but I do occasionally receive a B+.
My current schedule (freshman year) and first semester grades are:
-Honors Biochemistry (A)
-Honors English (B+)
-Geometry (A, no honors is provided)
-Spanish 1 (A, no honors is provided)
-Health (A, required)
-Painting Studio (A, required for arts credit)
Would my sophomore year schedule be too much of a transition, or not? I do intend on getting straight A’s second semester of my freshman year. Would it be GPA suicide?
P.S. I’m sorry if I sound whiny, it’s just I’m an extremely cautious person, especially when it comes to picking courses. I’ve talked to several teachers (at least 20) about their courses and what not. LOL
I would like to take 5 AP’s my junior year!
By the way, my school only offers 4 AP classes to sophomores: human geography, world history, environmental science, and computer science.
My concern is that you’re apparently not taking history this year - jumping to WH may be too much. Depending on how it’s taught, it can be one of the hardest AP history classes, so if you’re not taking history right now you may struggle.
Is there no way to accelerate a bit your foreign language? Although you’d reach Level 4 by senior year, which is what colleges want to see, it’d be regular level and honors is always better than regular, and if no honors/accelerated class is offered then if you could learn the contents of Spanish 2 over the summer via Concordia LAnguage Village or community college Spanish1 (which covers high school Spanish 1 and 2… in 6 weeks!) you’d at least have a shot at reaching Level 5 Spanish which would sort of make up for the lack of rigor in that area.
You’re doubling up in science for sophomore year and likely for junior year, so make sure you won’t run out of sciences to take. As you know AP Psych and APES are considered “light” AP, nice electives for freshmen/sophomores who want to discover what Ap classes are like, OR seniors who want a nice, “easy” class to add to a full load, OR students who wouldn’t be able to take the “hard” AP classes but get a taste of college-level classes this way to prepare for college better.
For admission purposes, a little form will be clipped to your application, summarizing your profile; colleges count how many accelerated/honors/AP classes you have each year and each year the total should be 5 if the high school allows it. Obviously your high school doesn’t, but 2 freshman year and 2 sophomore year makes for a “light” schedule -if at all possible, one more of your classes should be “honors”. If you’re aiming for a mid-tier state flagship a schedule with 4 regular/2 honors will be perfectly fine but if you’re aiming for a top 50 university/LAC it’d be disadvantageous to you. An exception would be if your high school doesn’t offer more.
Since you’ve always been good at math, why not take the Honors version of Precalc, for instance?
If your sophomore schedule included double science/regular (including physics, always a plus), Honors English, Honors Math, AP History, Accelerated Spanish or Spanish III (indicating you “skipped” a level through summer coursework, ie., that you’re a good learner and show initiative, rather than that you’re slow-ish with your FL curriculum), you’d be fine in terms of “rigor”.
Now, if your high school is high performing and its regular classes are the equivalent of honors elsewhere, with the only choices being “regular” or “remedial/general”, then things should be fine, but ask around how these “regular” classes are treated by colleges and whether your guidance counselor will check the “most rigorous” box on the School Report for such a schedule.
There are no history classes offered to freshman and my school only offers 4 levels of Spanish: Spanish 1, Spanish 2, honors Spanish 3, and AP Spanish. Also, my school tremendously lacks honors classes. There are NO honors maths, sciences, or electives.
This is the new schedule I'm considering:
-Chemistry (NO HONORS PROVIDED, NEEDED FOR AP CHEM)
-Honors English 2
-Advanced Algebra 2/Pre-Calculus (NO HONORS PROVIDED)
-Spanish 2 (NO HONORS PROVIDED AND MY SCHOOL DOESN’T ALLOW ME TO SKIP)
-AP World History
-AP Statistics
This schedule would involve four accelerated courses. My school has no honors science or math courses. Only regular and AP. My school only offers honors geometry, biochemistry, and biology for science and math classes. Everything else is regular or AP.
I’m pretty sure colleges will understand that your school is lacking in honor courses.
I think that schedule is pretty good too, but why take AP Stat?
I like math and I want to achieve 12 AP classes by the end of my high school career.
Law of Diminishing Return after 8 APs (or so I’ve heard) but I guess you want the AP Scholar Award.
What do you mean by “Law of diminishing return”?
4-8 APs= good for you (expected at top colleges). After 8 APs: not very useful for college admissions, the more you add to 8, the less they add to your application and the more they eat into what could possibly be more important such as ECs (although up to 10 you still get points for rigor, especially since the only choices at your school are regular or AP).
Okay. LOL. I won’t push it, but why is 10-12 bad?
It takes up too much of your time which you could have spent pursuing a couple of activities in-depth. In-depth activities (vs. attending a bunch of club meetings from 3;25 till 4) are what top colleges want, and these take initiative, time, and dedication to sustain, develop, push to impact level. Even if they’re not time consuming “per se”, they do require you to think about them a lot. There’s only so much time in a day. And if you are at the point when you have to cut down on too many things (including sleep) then it’s taken as a sign you probably shouldn’t be going to a top 25 school. In short: no overkill; learn to save your time for what matters, to keep schedule spaces when nothing’s scheduled, to have fun.
@MYOS1634 Don’t some people have a lot of “all-nighters” at colleges, though?
Not the ones who get good grades… Those who do “all nighters” tend to be well-meaning slackers. They’ll treat the syllabus as indicative rather as a contract as to what the professor will do and what they will do. They’ll come to office hours just before the test, not when the previous one was returned with a B-. They’ll have an excuse as to why their paper is late and be shocked when they are downgraded one grade for lateness. They won’t be up to date with their reading and they’ll try to cram 6 chapters in one night, hence mastering nothing. They’ll try to do all their problem sets right before they’re due and make 4 am mistakes.
There shouldn’t be more than one all nighter per semester, if that, and only during finals, otherwise you’re managing your time poorly.
@MYOS1634 OK, how much sleep do college students usually get?
Well, it depends! LOL…; what a broad question!!
College schedules are different from HS schedules.
They’re no longer regulated by parents so college students have to learn how to regulate themselves. This goes through trial and error. 
Typically, you start your classes at 10 (or 9, sometimes). You have 2-3 hours of class a day, sometimes a lab, lunch whenever you can grab it at the cafeteria while reading the campus paper or whenever your friends meet to eat together, add your work study job for 1-2 hours, a club or two or practice or rehearsal, starting on your readings or finding information you need at the library, and dinner. After dinner you may have intramurals, club meetings, and study groups till about 10 or 11. Then you start homework in earnest and go to bed at 1 or 2. Expect about 5-6 hours of hw per day. Sometimes people shower at 4pm or midnight (because there’s a line to take a shower at 8). Almost no one goes to breakfast, some people roll out of bed and go to class, some in their pajamas with hair sticking out 
(not at SOuthern colleges like Sewanee or Washington and Lee, where students are expected to be dressed up with pressed khakis and button down shirt or dress and make up), although most people get ready and grab a cereal bar and keep oj in their minifridge, then grab a coffee cup on their way to class. ROTC cadets get up super early so that they need to be paired with early risers, not night owls (almost all college students are night owls). Then there are sexile issues or b/gfriend issues which may affect sleeping patterns, noise in the dorm which may also affect sleep. If you can’t get enough sleep due to your roommate, that’s a valid issue to bring to your RA. Avid videogame playing also affects how much sleep students are getting, not to mention partying on Fridays and Saturdays which may result in students sleeping off half their weekend.
Sleep deprivation becomes an issue during finals, of course, but still most students who know how to manage their time get 6 hours of sleep a night even then. Although some students love to brag about all nighters (at some colleges, it’s like a badge of honor), in reality those aren’t anywhere as common as one would be led to believe, and in my experience are a bad sign.