<p>I've miscalculated my work ethic/love for sleep this junior year by taking, out of 7 possible classes, 6 Honors/AP's with a study hall and let's say that didn't fare too well... I had basically no A's and even a C+, it was just too much work for me. I'm only posting this in the WUSTL forum because it's my dream school and I feel like you guys would give good advice, even if I don't belong here. :(</p>
<p>So after this "horrific" year I'm taking it more easy.</p>
<p>I speak English and Hebrew fluently so that's two languages. I took Spanish 3 Honors and I hate it, I hate the language and the teacher, and I found out I have the same teacher for Spanish 4!!! So I'm dropping Spanish. </p>
<p>The question is whether to take French 1 (I love french but I Hear first year high school language is pretty useless), or AP Gov and a study hall (AP Gov is one semester.) Government/politics is another one of my big interests and another AP is always good, but then I'd have no language senior year- is that ok? And I love french I really want to learn it, but Im really interested in gov too! AHH!</p>
<p>Anyways, my senior schedule would look like this:</p>
<p>French 1 OR Psychology/Team Sports
AP English
AP Gov/Study Hall OR Psychology/Team Sports
Astronomy/Drawing
AP Statistics
AP Economics
Interactive Graphics/Study Hall (probs another fun class)</p>
<p>I need a gym class, the interactive graphics class and the art class to graduate so we cant get rid of those and I'm very interested in astronomy and psychology. So French 1 or AP Gov?!?!</p>
<p>Thoughts? Too easy? Good balance after a super tough year?
Thanks!!</p>
<p>Seems easy with only one reasonably hard class (AP English). AP Stat, Gov, Econ are all considered the easy AP’s.<br>
Not to be rude, but Junior year is extremely important. If you got no A’s, you likely have no chance at Wash U, and taking it easy senior year is further evidence that schools will feel you can’t handle the academics.</p>
<p>As for your other question… if you really don’t want to take Spanish 4, I’d suppose AP Gov/Study Hall is better than French 1, but neither option stands out. </p>
<p>There’s also no such thing as “good balance after a super tough year.” Colleges look too make sure your senior year schedule is still challenging. I suppose it depends on what schools you likely see yourself getting into - which depends on your scores and GPA. I would rethink your philosophy if you want to try to get into a good university (atlhough as previously mentioned, with your junior year grades it won’t be great).</p>
<p>I dropped fourth year Spanish in order to take both AP Bio and AP Physics. Four years of language isn’t a defining point, its more important to show strong academic performance in a variety of subjects that interest you.</p>
<p>I respect you for putting yourself out there your junior year and loading up on that many AP classes. Having taken 6 AP classes in a year myself, I know what you mean by super tough year. The thing is though, there are bound to be many, many students out there who take the same schedule as you did and pulled straight A’s. Since you didn’t do anywhere close to that, you probably shouldn’t have “fun classes” in your schedule at all if you want a shot at a school like WashU, and at least definitely not first semester. </p>
<p>WashU will want to see evidence that you can handle college level work, and, unfortunately, thus far you haven’t really demonstrated that. </p>
<p>So its really up to you. I would say that, barring any ridiculous hooks or connections you have, there is a very very outside chance at you getting into WashU. That means that if you want to get a second look from the Adcoms, you’re probably going to need to load up on AP classes again, and pretty much ace them. Either way you go, best of luck in finding a great college!</p>
<p>I’m just saying, based on my admissions (not that I don’t LOVE Wash U so far… I can’t wait to be on campus for more than 48 hours at a time in the fall :D), I feel like it was definitely taken into account that I had a slightly easier senior schedule. I took 2 AP sciences junior year and just AP bio senior year (among taking all other AP classes possible) and my friends who did the opposite (just AP bio junior year and then the same 2 AP sciences senior year) did better in admissions. Obviously there are many other factors, but in general, I think colleges like to see the difficulty of your schedule INCREASE. They don’t like breaks. You will have 2.5+ months next summer when you will be bored as heck from doing nothing (I’ve been off for 3 days and I’m already lost without having any homework lol)… just take the extra APs it’s really NBD especially since senior year grades aren’t nearly as important as your other years’.</p>
<p>EDIT: Sorry I didn’t read the C and B thing. As would look much better in slightly less difficult classes. Honestly though I think the Cs and Bs already damaged your chances for Wash U. I know someone who had tons of ECs and APs but mediocre grades who got waitlisted and then rejected.</p>
<p>Chill guys, if you actually read my post you will see that I said that I already know I’m not getting into WashU, there’s just no forum for this kind of stuff and this section has given me good advice in the past.</p>