<p>My D is trying to decide which 3 of the following courses to take Senior year: AP Calc, Honors Span 3, AP Bio, AP Music Theory, Hon Anatomy, or AP Psych. Her HS doesn't offer a lot of AP's, but she has taken the "most rigorous" schedule she could through Junior year. She is thinking of majoring in History/English/Political Science, and likes idea of either pre-med or pre-law. Looking at colleges, wants one which will prepare her for deciding upon either later, and also wants to plan first couple years of courseload with the same idea. She will probably apply to: Davidson, Vanderbilt, Hillsdale, Notre Dame, Washington Univ St Louis, Wake Forest, Furman, Centre, U Chicago, and Wheaton (Chicago). She has very strong SAT and ACT scores, top 5% rank, EC's, leadership, etc. Specifically, problem is whether to take the AP Bio considering Pre-med requirements--will this make fulfilling the Bio requirement for pre-med much harder by having to take a higher level course. Also, taking 3 out of the courses listed above means another really tough year (she doesn't need any of these to complete Honors diploma) with no study hall and lots of other time-consuming EC's. She is handling it ok but no free time!</p>
<p>Of course the answer really depends on other variables on your D's transcript and in her life, but off the cuff I'd think that AP Calc and AP Bio should be at the top of the list, followed by either H Spanish 3 or AP Art History.</p>
<p>AP calc, AP Bio and the Spanish are probably most important. They foundation courses. Many colleges have a language and math requirement and it's nice to be able to test/place out of the lower levels of even the entire requirement. AP Bio did something good for both my college students' course choices.</p>