schedule advice

<p>i'm an incoming junior at a tough college prep school. i'm a good student, but i haven't taken many honors. the choices at my school, despite it being a college prep school, are really slim. i took 1/1 honors freshman year and 0/2 sophomore year. i had a 3.53 weighted freshman year (rough transition from elementary to HS) and a 4.2 weighted sophomore year (even without honors classes, my school's grading scale goes to 4.33 for A+s). </p>

<p>because i got straight As in all classes, i was eligible to take five honors classes junior year—bio, spanish, us lit/us history (interdisciplinary) and psychology. (not math because i took honors math freshman year, didn't do well, and dropped honors math.)</p>

<p>-didn't choose honors bio.
-most people who got into history/lit honors just wanted honors lit, and i was one of those people. some people only got into honors lit, and they signed up for that. so the people who were eligible for both but only wanted one got put on the waitlist behind the people who only got into one———and i didn't get it, obviously.
-taking honors spanish.
-taking honors psych, but it's only a semester. </p>

<p>the problem is, i feel like it looks kinda bad that i'm only taking "1.5" honors classes (APs are seniors only and barely any at that). i wanted to have at least one more. i'm not aiming for any university in the top 25 or anything like that—i really like case western/northeastern, maybe umiami (a bit of a reach ik) etc. , so do you think it'd be an automatic rejection for schools in that range? </p>

<p>LONG STORY SHORT: i feel like it looks bad, like i'm not challenging myself enough. do you think i should try to get into at least one more? and what if there's no way any can fit on my schedule? am i screwed?</p>

<p>This depends at what type of colleges you are looking at (the more competitive the college the more they will probably care about rigor).
That being said yes, you should challenge yourself more. If I were you I would take more honors classes, but then again I sign up for every honors class I can (including junior year I will have taken 10 honors classes and 2 honors/ap classes). My belief is that if you qualify for honors go for it, it will challenge you and allow you to learn more.
In terms of colleges it is more then likely the you will apply to schools that care about rigor, the fact that you did not challenge yourself sophomore year will hurt you. Take honors junior year.</p>

<p>sophomore year i couldn’t take any. to get into honors chem you needed an A in physics and i had a B. i dropped honors math because i tested into it but ended up floundering. i don’t know how it works at most schools or if it’s the same as at my school, but you can’t just sign up for any honors classes you want.</p>

<p>No, it is the same at my school, you have to test into honors and once you are in you must maintain certain grades. That being said you are essentially taking one honors class junior year, which is why I feel you should take more (especially because honors bio tends to be a joke). As for sophomore year you said you could have taken two and chose to take 0, that seems like it will be an issue when you go to apply to college.</p>

<p>I did not “choose” to take 0. I couldn’t take either honors math (because, like I said, I tested into it freshman year but ended up not doing well so I dropped the honors track) or honors chem (because you needed an A in freshman physics to get into it, and i had a B).</p>

<p>I would never choose to not take any advanced classes—that’s my dilemma now. I want to take them, but they won’t fit into my schedule and/or were full, so I’m kind of at a loss here.</p>

<p>indirectly you chose to take 0, since you didn’t follow the paths by getting B and dropping</p>