Senior year schedule after killer junior year?

My son is killing himself right now in his junior year with AP Bio, AP Physics, and AP Government, along with two honors classes and one non-honors class. For his senior year, he plans to take AP Environmental Science, AP Psychology, and AP Human Geography, along with one honors and one non-honors class. I was concerned that his senior year might look too light compared with this year, as those APs are not known to be too difficult. Thoughts? He plans to go pre-med but is very wary of AP Chem.

I don’t think he needs to take AP Chem; he will already have two AP sciences under his belt by the end of junior year. If you’re worried about his schedule being too light, maybe talk to him about upping the rigor. It is a bit of a leap backward to go from AP Bio and Physics concurrently to APES, Psych, and HUGE.

Up to him.

He purposely loaded up this year but I think is looking forward to a bit of a break next year. I was just worried what the colleges would think. Thanks, mohammadmohd18.

What level / course will he reach in English, math, and foreign language, and has he taken any chemistry at all?

Admissions officers do pay attention the rigor of the senior year courseload. IMO the best person to speak with is your son’s guidance counselor. His schedule will be viewed in the context of what courses are available at your son’s high school. If he is applying to the top tier colleges it is important that the guidance counselor check off that he has taken the most rigorous courseload available at the HS. Ask if your son’s proposed schedule will be sufficiently strong for him/her to check that box.

My own opinion is if your S is considering a STEM major he should try to take calc in HS (even if he re-takes it in college).

If your son is interested in life sciences/medicine, I would highly recommend that he take AP chem in high school. AP chem is typically considered a tough AP class, yet the curriculum taught by AP chem from ~September through the AP exams only covers one college semester of general chemistry! Having taken AP chem, AP bio, and AP physics when I was in high school, I can honestly say that AP chem prepared me the best for undergraduate science classes. If he takes the AP exam, gets >3 and gets college credit for the AP class, that’s great, but even if he gets <3, doesn’t take the exam, or attends a college that doesn’t give credit for AP exams, at least he will have already been exposed to the first semester of general chemistry when he gets to undergrad.

I also agree with happy1 that, if possible, he should take calculus.

I would also recommend re-taking AP Chem even if he gets >3. That was my D’s AP Chem teacher’s suggestion – she said that every college teaches chem with a slightly different emphasis and felt that it is best to start the sequence from scratch at the school if the plan is to continue past Chem 1 on the college level. My D found it to be true and was glad that she re-took Chem 1 at her college. (FWIW our HS does not require AP students to take the AP test so she didn’t bother).

He can try the college’s old final exams if he is unsure whether he knows the material well enough to skip the courses he is allowed to skip with AP credit.

However, since medical schools often do not accept AP credit for pre-med course requirements, if he does skip one or more introductory general chemistry courses, he will likely have to substitute additional higher level chemistry courses. The same goes for other pre-med course requirements like English, biology, physics, and math (calculus and/or statistics).

Thanks, all. He took honors chemistry last year. He was not planning to take a language senior year (which I disapprove of).

I would recommend calculus (honors or AP AB is fine) and AP Chemistry. He could take AP Human Geography, one honors and one non honors. AP Human Geography is more a 9th/10th grade “AP Gateway” class so it should be more like having 2 AP classes, 2 honors, and one non honors.
Taking a foreign language senior year will help him not be too rusty for his language placement test during orientation, so that he doesn’t have too many semesters of a foreign language to take to graduate from college.