<p>Did all of you guys take or are going to take a full schedule for your last year in high school? Does the University of Chicago or other school look down on people who don't take a full day of school? Any info. whould be nice.</p>
<p>I didn't have a full schedule second semester because I already had more than enough credits from taking classes at a university. I think as long as you've taken enough credits and you're taking very hard courses you don't need a full schedule.</p>
<p>I will have a full schedule first semester, and a mostly full schedule second. It's not because of college, surprisingly. These are just classes I want to take.</p>
<p>I doubt they will care. My S filled his last semester with photography, drawing, etc. courses, only one AP course.</p>
<p>hmm idad...but dont colleges look at what courses you take, and put a heavy emphasis on how hard you challenge yourself? i dont know about you, but i made sure that i didnt give any impression that senior year was going to be my slack off year. just giving another side to this question</p>
<p>I took a bunch of CC classes; I basically had nothing left to take at HS. Something tells me that so long as you aren't slacking off, you will be fine.</p>
<p>on the counselor recommendation for chicago, it asks your counselor to rate your courseload as hardest/moderate...so on. It actually splits them into two categories:</p>
<p>Senior Year
before senior year</p>
<p>I'm not sure that means they are paying attention to senior year's difficulty, or if they're assuming that senior year courses will generally be easier than the prior 3 years. assuming they mean the former.</p>
<p>I just looked through every form on the Uncommon App and UChicago specifically asks your counselor about the rigor of your classes the first three years of highschool and then specifically about the rigor senior year.</p>
<p>So I'd suggest taking at least some serious classes.</p>
<p>yeah, whatever you do, don't take FEWER AP courses than you did junior year. it's important just to not go down in rigor, unless you have good reason (eg, not that many AP classes left to take at your school)</p>
<p>Who is to say art and photography aren't rigorous in their own way. And, I believe Chicago is interested in students who are well rounded as well. It turns out, my S found he had a real talent for drawing/painting he would not have realized if he hadn't taken it. Sometimes it is good to explore and not get caught up in the more & more AP classes pursuit. All his classes to that point were either honors or AP. His favorite course was a philosophy & literature course, which was not either, he took senior year. He enjoyed being in a class with students from a range of backgrounds, races, ethnic groups, income, etc. It was taught discussion style and those who could read more were allowed to and encouraged to do so. Topics could remain in focus as long as there was good investigation without the race to cover everything before the AP test. He loved it. He had only one AP class his senior year, and that was statistics. As an aside, his HS requires every student to take at least one year-long vocational class as well. He took auto shop, turned out to be a great class, and has served him well indeed.</p>
<p>I think what matters is that you don't come across as just a lazy student who simply went to HS 'cause it was the law and your parents made you. I had only 3 classes my entire senior year, since that's all I needed to graduate. however, to offset that, I was at an internship for 30hrs/week, and wrote extensively about it in my app, and truly dedicated my heart to it... making it my defining experience of my HS years. I don't think that anything you do with honest passion, and do put work into it, will count against you.</p>
<p>Well said.</p>
<p>same here, great post</p>
<p>Hi everyone I am going to be a senior at Northside College Prep in Chicago and I was thinking about applying to U of C. does anyone have any comments on the workload, social life, rigor of getting accepted? Any reply would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.</p>
<p>From what I hear, the workload is intense, the social life is whatever you make of it, and the rigor is selective but not unbearably so.</p>
<p>Anna - your college counselor should know a lot about us and about students who came from Northside before you. Ask her how they've been doing, if they liked it, what their impressions were.</p>
<p>And take a full day senior year. Seeing "early release" or "free period" multiple times, and then no corresponding community college classes or internships really turns us off.</p>
<p>anna_36: maybe you should look at the posts from the class of 2009...most of us can only give u a sense of the "rigor of getting accepted". in terms of workload, social life, etc, we only have a general idea of whats to come ; D</p>
<p>I'm lost on how to schedule my senior year. A couple of the classes i want to take only happen in a few periods so i will have to drop one or do something. Should i drop my AP Spanish class and replace it with AP physics as a science since i haven't taken physics. Or should i take AP Biology and keep AP Spanish and not included AP physics. I have already taken Biology "H" in ninth grade and i took Chemistry "H" and Chemistry "AP" in tenth and eleventh. So what should i do?</p>
<p>What should you do? What do want to do?</p>
<p>You should look up [url=<a href="http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_07/exam-credit.pdf%5Dinformation%5B/url">http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_07/exam-credit.pdf]information[/url</a>] about AP credit. AP Physics only gets you credit for the 120s sequence, while physics or chemistry degree requires at least the 130s. AP Spanish can get you out of the competency requirement, but you'll get no credit. If you think you're good enough at Spanish anyhow you could just take the competency test during O-Week. AP Chemistry gets you credit for an intro sequence, but again not the one majors need to take. AP Bio gets you out of all but one quarter of biology.</p>
<p>There you have it.</p>
<p>So what if you're not taking any cc classes/ doing an internship but all your classes are AP? Is it still a bad idea to not take a full schedule?</p>