Science or Math

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hey,

So I was deciding on my senior year courses and wanted some advice.

I will be majoring in finance, and have taken 3 years of science, 3 of english, 3 of math (precalculus) and 7 social studies (4 of which were AP)

Now for next year, my school does not offer any fourth year science courses except AP Physics, and my counsellor says its important to take 4 years of science. So is it more important to take 4 years of science or can I just take 5 credits of math with better grades in those classes.

Next year I will be taking these AP’s for sure

AP Research
AP Calculus
AP US GOV
AP Comparitive Gov.

The choice now is between

AP Physics

or

AP Statistics

  • AP Computer Science (instead of my study hall)

I am not the greatest at science and think it will drag my grade down from instead of an A in AP Stats to a B/C in Phys.

So its either AP Physics making 4 years of science in High school or AP Stats and Calc (with a better GPA) making 5 years of math and 3 of science.

I hear it is extremely important to universities to have 4 years of science and 4 years of math. I am applying to top 20 schools, so keep that in mind.

2

Take a look at the course work you’ll need next year for the schools you’re thinking of… will you need the Stat credit?

3

Our experience was that most of the competitive schools want to see 4 years of science. Go through the admissions websites for your top choices and see what they say. They may say it’s not required but preferred.

4

Were the three sciences you already took one each of biology, chemistry, and physics?

5

More preferred than a better GPA with 5 years of Math?

6

Yeah… Plus my high school does not offer anymore unless it is an AP

7

No, I don’t really need the Stat credit, but i’m thinking of it as a replacement for dropping AP Physics.

8

I understand that you want to do AP Stats so it can go on your college resume. However, you’re already taking AP Calc. Therefore, I’d strongly recommend you take AP Physics if you had to choose between the two. A lot of the top 20 schools want to see 4 years of math AND 4 years of science, so if you think of taking 5 years of math, you’ll only get 3 years of science, which may hurt you. Therefore, I strongly encourage you not to take AP Stats as you already have an AP math course.

9

I agaree…take AP Physics…it will give you the most options when you are looking for colleges.

10

AP physics 1?