Seeking input on senior year course selection

Applying to College
1

My daughter is a current junior and will register for next year’s classes soon. Now I know course selection is best discussed with the school counselor, but she attends a large public high school in a dead broke school district, so the counselors are not helpful. Hence I’m seeking advice here from the knowledgeable online community.

D has great academics, already finished 4 AP classes, Chinese, Chem, Physics 1, WH, scored 5 on all. This year she is taking 4 AP classes, Physics 2, Eng Lang, Calc BC, and Econ (2 exams), on track to score all 5’s. For senior year, she plans to take Physics C, Psychology, and CompSci.

The issue is with her English and math classes. Since she’s in Eng Lang this year, the natural sequence next would be Eng Lit. But she is a pure STEM kid and doesn’t want to do Lit. Instead she favors an honors class on speech/debate and public speaking (which really is more helpful and useful to her). For math, her school does offer AP stats, but for some reason that class is considered a joke by upper class students and the teacher is “mean”. So instead she wants to take an honors advanced math that focus on problem solving skills and is taught by the math team coach.

My question is: would taking two honors classes instead of two AP classes senior year be viewed negatively rigor-wise by the most selective colleges? Right now the downside I see is with weighted GPA which affects ranking somewhat, but she’ll be top 2% for sure.

Just for background, D has a 36 ACT (one sitting), SAT subject math II and chemistry both 800, 4.0 uw GPA, and an AIME qualifier. Her current reach school is MIT.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

2

For English, you may want to find out of the speech / debate / public speaking course is considered a “real” English course by colleges. It is possible that it may be seen as more of an elective course rather than a “real” English course.

For math, AP statistics is not generally considered that hard a course; if the advanced math course focuses on such things as proof writing and solving difficult problems, that can be more helpful in the future if she wants to go into math, computer science, economics, or statistics (where highly advanced math is used). She can take calculus based probability theory and statistics in college.

3

http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/prospective/credit/ap.html indicates that only math and physics C are worth subject credit at MIT (some of the others may earn elective credit).

http://web.mit.edu/commreq/students.html#freshman indicates that students who score a 5 on either AP English do not need to take the placement exam (FEE) that determines whether their first CI-H (communication intensive, humanities / arts / social studies) course must be a CI-HW (extra emphasis on writing skills) course.

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@ucbalumnus Yes that speech/debate class is indeed an elective and not a “real” English class. But D already has taken 4 real HS english class, 3 honors and 1 AP, so it should meet any college’s requirement. I’m just concerned that she is not taking the most difficult class available (because she doesn’t like literature).

The honors advanced math class is definitely deemed more legit than AP stats at her school. It’s a two part two year sequence. D is taking part one this year, only 15 students in class, 11 seniors, 4 juniors. In just the EA cycle, 3 were admitted to MIT, 1 to Harvard, and 1 to Stanford. So daughter is very motivated by such incredible results and wants to take part two next year. She is taking double math this year (calc BC and advanced math 1) so I’m not worried about her math rigor. It’s just that fewer AP classes in senior year than junior year may seem odd for the most ambitious -:slight_smile:

5

It’s not odd. For Seniors, in addition to the regular courses, there is also the hidden course, College Applications and Essays, and colleges know that. Regardless, 3 vs. 4 is not a deal breaker.

Assuming that the GC rates the schedule as “most rigorous” (and with 11 AP’s it should be rated as such), an AO is not going to do a deep dive into the schedule by year. Although your daughter will spend hours and hours on the application, the AO will spend 12-15 minutes reading it tops.

Many students applying to top schools do not take both AP Lang and AP Lit for the reason given above that many colleges will not give credit for both.

And will likely be viewed by AO’s as such, or at least on par. Many HS’s offer courses without the AP designation that are as advanced or more so than AP.

Neither the English not the math selection is worth worrying about.

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In other words, she doubled up on “real” English courses one of the years (not counting the speech/debate course she will take senior year)?

7

Does she have room in her schedule for both the advanced math and AP stats? I don’t know what major she is thinking about, would it be useful? As you mentioned, teachers make a difference. I would check with the guidance counselor confirming “most rigorous” schedule to put your mind at ease.

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@ucbalumnus She never doubled up on English classes. She took a HS English class in 8th grade (her HS also has 7&8th grades when students can take classes that counts as HS credits. Funny thing is she took honors bio in 8th grade, the teacher was so crazy that it “ruined biology for me” (daughter’s own words). So she ruled out premed at the end of 8th grade!

@jcmom716 she does have room in her schedule for AP stats but she doesn’t think it’d be worth the time given the mediocre teacher. It’d be like taking AP just to look good on the transcript. She plans to major in STEM so Stats is definitely useful, but she’ll likely find the class higher quality in college.

@skieurope thanks so much for mentioning the fact that many students don’t take both both AP Lang & Lit even for the most elite schools. This really is my main concern, that she is not taking the hardest English class in senior year. But since she’ll go for STEM, she has taken the hardest math and science classes, so hopefully it’d be OK.

9

You may want to verify with the admissions offices of the colleges of interest that the high school level English course taken while in 8th grade does count toward high school English requirements, or that the AP course or sufficiently high AP exam score automatically fulfills “4 years of high school English”.

On the math, it sounds like the honors advanced math course is the better choice, based on your description that AP statistics would be “like taking AP just to look good on the transcript”.