Hello! I am a rising senior and I wanted to know if my schedule was on the right track to apply to a top-tier college. I plan on doing just AP Bio and my tech (I go to a vocational school) and then completing the rest of my classes at a local CC. The classes planned include the following:
A History of Genocide
German II
Statistical Methods
International Relations
Speech (to get my AA degree)
Ancient Western Civilization (I already took EUH 2001, so I now think I should do 2000 - both of these classes would be the equivalent of AP Euro)
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
I plan on majoring in International Relations and minoring in history in hopes of heading to Law School, hence all of the social science-oriented classes. I do not have an english class planned, and that is because I have already done four English classes (Eng 1-2, ENC 1101-1102), so I’m wondering if that is okay. Also, I was thinking about doing AP Macro and Micro through FLVS instead of DE Macro and Micro, but I am not sure if it is worth it or not. There’s probably a lot of questions to be asked, so please ask and I will be more than happy to answer them. Thank you!
My school offers like 6 AP classes and prioritize on DE, which is why I have so many DE classes. I have done AP French already, so German is just another language that I want to learn, rather than it being my foreign language requirement. I took pre calc, which is the highest math offered at school, and then taking stats DE (which I already mentioned).
AP euro starts in 1750. You may be better off taking philosophy and/or another history involving Asia or Africa.
@MYOS1634 thank you for that! I did not notice at all. I already took philosophy this past semester. I may still take Ancient, though, just depends on if I end up finding another class to take or not. There are regional Humanities classes that are offered, so I can take one of those if anything.
I agree with not needing ancient western civilization. Perhaps see if they offer a world civilization II and see if it focuses on non European countries if that is what western civ focused on. If your talking about both semesters maybe take German II the first semester and German Intermediate 1/German 3 the second semester instead of the ancient history. I would keep micro and macro at the CC but that is because I prefer in person to online classes.
Just a tip if you don’t know this already - for dual enrollment classes keep all your syllabi. When you are sending your credits to your post high school college to be evaluated they may ask for them even if you have an associates.
I do recall seeing that a few colleges expect to see math and English taken senior year no matter how many credits you have but don’t recall which colleges. I would check admissions requirements of schools your thinking about.
If you are hoping to get exempt from math in college - I know some will give credit for precalculus and some require calculus to be exempt. That may vary depending on major as well as school. I have no idea if they use stats as a math exemption.
Philosophy and Comparative Literature also “count” for English. If you have 2 colleges classes in English+ Philosophy from last year, I think you’d get a break on this, but Comparative Literature may work with your desired major.
BTW you don’t need to take AP Bio, unless you’re really interested - you could take APES, it’d be relevant to your major, or you could take Introduction to Environmental Science at your CC and have one more slot for another dual enrollment class (I second the idea of taking German 2+3 at the CC if it’s offered.) A class on WW2 in Europe may be a good complement since you took French and German. All in all this is a very ambitious schedule.
Be careful to keep your EC’s going at the HS or be involved at the CC since EC’s are very important for highly selective schools.
What colleges are you aiming for? Have you discussed budget with your parents?
To become an attorney later, Take as much writing as possible. If the economics is less writing then your other English options, go with more English. Attorneys must learn to write well, and read fast. Take classes that ask you to read at least six books a semester or more for high school classes. Take the hardest reading and writing classes offered. Also i agree that you should think about math and whether your math classes give you 4 full years of mathematics, which is required to get into top 20 schools, that would be strong for prelaw. Also science, how much science do you have under your belt? Again, some schools will expect three years of labs sciences even for a college English major, because thats what everyone else is taking with the IB high school curriculums today that require sciences. You are competing with students who have IB curriculums and broader AP curriculums that include more math and sciences than you may have. But you want to play to your strengths and interests, at the same time as getting a broad education in high school. ,( which seem to be history for you, very good depth there! )
@momtogirls2 thank you for your feedback! Sadly, the CC I dual enroll with does not offer any of those sorts of classes, although I would love to take them. At least for German, I planned on independently studying it after finishing with German II, being that German 3/ Intermediate German is not offered. As for math, I am just taking Stats because I find it to be closely related to my schedule, and I do not have a Calc class to take at HS because pre calc is the highest math offered. I am just making sure that I have a fourth math.
@MYOS1634 Comparative Lit does not seem to be available to me, but the closest I can get is English Literature 1300-1800. Are there any other general courses that you know of that can be considered an English course? There is Ethics & Critical Thinking available, if that counts.
I wanted to take AP Bio because it is a rigorous course that I personally want to take, and by taking the test and possibly getting a 5 (hopefully), I can use those credits as my science credits for CC, which leaves me two class slots. As mentioned earlier, German 3 is not available for me, and the WW2 class you speak of sounds great, except there is no class of that sort available.
For this post specifically, I was referring to reach colleges that I would love to attend, like Top 20 schools. Putting my schedule around those expectations may make my other choices “easier” to get accepted to, such as UF (in-state), as well as GWU and American. I have not discussed costs with my parents, but I am hoping FA can make costs much easier for us wherever I decide to attend.
@Coloradomama thank you for your input! I have taken a total of five math classes, going to be six with Stats. For science, I have taken Physical Science (which for some reason counts for HS, even though I took it in 8th), Bio, Chem, and then going to take AP Bio. But yes, the competition I have is what worries me! :)) I just want to make sure the schedule I have is up to par with other students who are in IB or have a bunch of APs!
English Literature 1300-1800 wouldn’t really help but Ethics may.
For your desired major, your schedule is very appropriate.
Keep in mind that doing all dual enrollment and AP is very rigorous. I, too, am a Florida HS student (senior about to graduate) who took all AP/dual enrollment senior year + level IV foreign language and it was definitely time-consuming. You will need time senior year for senior activities and college/scholarship applications.
@MYOS1634 I can do ethics then. It was a class I wanted to take and ended up dropping it from my schedule, but I can add it back. Would the regional humanities classes mentioned earlier also count or no? There is also English 4 at school, but I feel like that wouldn’t look rigorous enough.
@r2v2018 Yes DE is definitely time consuming! This past semester I had a full day at HS as well as four DE classes, three of them being on site. Three days of the week I would get home at around 7 just from classes alone, which was not easy at all. May I ask the number of APs you took senior year? Because I have been considering adding an AP or two, but I’m not sure if I would be exceeding “rigorous” and going towards “burning out” lol
Yes, the regional humanities class would count.
All in all your schedule is good.
I don’t if I’d take AP Bio though - you may be good with one semester of intro to environmental science at the college, if you could take it in the Spring it’d leave a period in the Fall for your college apps.
@MYOS1634 Yes I understand. I am actually on a block schedule, so AP Bio would be done second semester, so it would not interfere with college apps or anything like that. I actually have no classes first semester at school, besides my tech, which takes two periods (7-10am), and then I’d head to CC. Second semester I have just one empty slot, and the only possible AP I could take would be Chem, but that with bio would be way too much I think. I took Psych and the history class at CC, which would be the equivalent to AP Psych and Euro. There is also Comp Sci, but I don’t see any reason to take it.
I took 5 APs over the course of senior year and I dual enrolled for 9 credit hours in the fall (3 classes) and 15 credit hours (5 classes) in the spring.
2 of my APs were semester classes, so it wasn’t as awful towards the end of the year (except for the fact that I was really hating life in early-mid May due to AP exams), but I would still say that it was pretty terrible overall.
You aren’t doing anything as reckless as I did, so I’m sure you will have less problems. Your schedule seems very reasonable.
Ok then, it sounds excellent (although 7 am to start class is awfully early). You absolutely do NOT need to take AP Chem on top of AP bio!!! Your schedule as is is already super rigorous, matches your academic interests and strengths, and is well-balanced.
@r2v2018 that sounds insane! Glad to see that you got through that, because I am sure it was crazy difficult! Maybe I should just stick with AP Bio and nothing else lol because I planned on doing FLVS for some APs but it does not seem like the brightest idea. Thank you for your help and best of luck in college!
@MYOS1634 Yeah I wish I did not have to wake up so early! But yes that is exactly what I wanted: very rigorous, showing my interests, and being well-balanced. I always read threads on here and see people have like AP Calc and all of these other APs that I do not have under my belt and it always discouraged me, but I am glad to know that I have just as good of a schedule, but mine happens to be more unique lol!