Senior Year Schedule Help :)

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hi. I am unsure of my schedule. Over the last two years I have only taken two APs. AP Bio last year and AP Chem this year. While my APs are not vast, all academic courses at my school are honors. My lowest grade that I have achieved was freshman year (B+ in Spanish). I got a 96 in AP Bio and I have a 97 in AP Chem. My lowest grade right now is an 88 in Spanish (it should balance out with my first semester grade of 95). My unweighted GPA is around 3.9 to 3.98.

So now since you know my grades and the classes I have taken. My schedule is: AP Psychology, AP Physics I, AP Calculus AB, English IV honors, 2 arts and weight training.

Since I have taken only one ap in the past for each year, three is probably my limit. The other option is: AP Psychology, AP Physics I, English IV honors, Stat honors, Calc Honors, and weight training.

I am looking to go into Pre-med. I haven’t taken that many APs because I do not see the point in taking ones that do not interest me or apply to my desired field of study. I am not sure what is best. I do know that you have to take calculus in college, but medical schools sometimes frown upon using AP credit (so I am not using AP credit for any of my classes).

I should also mention that I want to get into more extracurriculars next year that interest me, so I am trying not to overload myself too.

Thanks for the help!

2

I’ll give you reason to take AP courses “that don’t interest you or apply to your field of study”

  1. Most (if not, all) colleges have some kind of gened program that you must complete (an assortment of classes, which includes English, Math, History, Science courses) IN ADDITION to whatever your major requires. It doesn’t matter that you won’t major in history. You’re gonna be taking some kind of Social Studies/Humanities class. You’re not majoring in English? You’re gonna take an English class anyway. Same with Math.

I’m going to give you a hypothetical situation here:
So let’s say you HATE english courses with a burning passion and you get a 5 in AP Lang. Since you have this 5 in AP Lang, you get college credit for that, so you don’t have to take English 101 (part of gened). This opens up your schedule - either you can take some other class that you want to take or you just have that free time for whatever.

The AP credit thing varies by school, as certain schools don’t accept certain credits.

by the way, “pre-med” is usually NOT a major or minor. There’s a pre-med track that you can do - but it needs to be alongside a major. So, for example - if you decide to do Biology as your major with a pre-med track, you’re still going to be dealing with a few English, History, Math classes whether you like it or not.

tldr: AP credit is just a good way to get those general requirements out of the way b/c you’ll have to deal with them one way or another.

  1. I want to also point out that if your school is offering a lot of AP courses, and you’re choosing not to take them (regardless of your reason) - the adcom will question why you aren’t taking those courses. Unless your school doesn’t offer many APs to begin with, your counselor cannot mark you off as taking “the most rigorous course load possible” - which will only hurt you.

  2. Your AP credits could come back and help you. This is unlikely, but there have been cases where a student was short of a few credits before graduation due to miscalculations or whatever - and the school took the AP score to fulfill the credit requirement.

These are just some things to consider.

I don’t know how much truth there is to this statement, but why would a med school be so bothered at you using an AP History credit or an AP English credit (as I said earlier - you still need to do gened)? I’m just curious.

3

I mean some medical schools do not like it for pre-requisites such as science and math classes, like AP Calculus.

I do realize that pre-med is not a major or a minor. I am looking to major in biomedical sciences.

If I were to take any social science classes, I would take psychology or sociology in college. In that case, my AP psychology credit will apply.

If I were to take an AP course, I would like to enjoy it and make sure I do well. I don’t see the point in taking 5 APs or more if you are going to ace them. Shouldn’t you only take hard classes that you enjoy? I would bet, and I have heard this too, that an English course in college will be a lot easier than AP Lang.

Either way, I think you missed the basis of my question and the fact that I want to do more outside of school. I take the classes that interest me, not AP human geo or AP world history that I have no interest in doing, and do more extracurriculars outside of school. Anyways, my main question was about AP Calculus and if it would be better to take Calculus Honors and Statistics instead because that would give me more variety, and I know that statistics is helpful in the science fields.

Oh, and I am applying to a Florida state school because I am pre-paid and I do not want to incur any debt. I don’t need to worry about taking enough APs to get into the school I want to or even the honors program. All I care about is learning the topics that I want to learn. Isn’t that what school is about in the end? That being said, which of the two options would be the most helpful, knowledge wise, for the future. Either way, I will end up taking calculus again in college whether I take AP or not because I feel that it will be better to get a more solid background. That is why I am not using my AP Bio or AP Chem credit

4

No and no. Gened is NOT an option. It will most likely be REQUIRED and AP Psych may not cut it for them - Depends on the school, so go check that out.

Okay, fine - I get this.

Wait, what? If someone is capable of taking 5 AP courses and acing them, then why shouldn’t they - unless they’re concerned about extra time?

Yes - I realize that I didn’t actually answer your question, but I honestly don’t think it matters which schedule you go with, so I’m sorry, I should’ve mentioned that. Either way, you’re looking at a fairly average course load. One has the AP Math (which is a core class) but two art classes and weight training. The other has an Honors Core math, and elective math, and weight training. Both schedules have fairly easy classes that may give you work, but will be easy to keep an A. So surely you’ll have a lot of extra time to pursue ec’s. The second schedule seems better for your case, b/c you say you’re gonna do Calc in college regardless of which schedule you do. Honors Stats will probably be easy, but more fulfilling than doing 2 art classes.

Actually, I just noticed something - your schedule options seemed off to me and I just realized why. Why does your first option have 7 classes and your second has 6?

1: AP Psychology, AP Physics I, AP Calculus AB, English IV honors, 2 arts (I’m assuming you meant 2 art classes?) and weight training

2: AP Psychology, AP Physics I, English IV honors, Stat honors, Calc Honors, and weight training.

Yes, I understand this. I didn’t take AP Psych despite the fact that 90% of students at my school take that class - because I have zero interest in that course and it’s lite anyways. However, you are opting for the easier options when your school offers more rigorous options. Nothing changes the fact that colleges will look down on this. Not only that, you COULD’VE dealt with these classes that you don’t care for in HS, but now you have to waste a semester in college taking these courses when you could’ve just shafted them with AP credit. I’m not talking about AP Bio or AP Chem, I get why you don’t wanna use your credit. I’m talking about those classes you don’t like - but could fulfill credit and therefore not have to take them in college.

That’s cute, but naive - you have college for just learning about what you want to learn.

To some degree, yes and no. I hate math with a burning passion, but I had to take it - it’s a requirement; nothing will change that - I HAVE to learn it even though I wish I didn’t have to. It has nothing to do with my major and yet it’s still a requirement. Same with my friends who HATE social sciences courses, they were forced to take US History/Government/World History b/c it was a requirement.

I’m just saying that if you get AP credit now, you can get rid of requirements in college and then you can take MORE classes that you actually care about. High school courses are limited, but there will be thousands and thousands of classes that you can take in college that would actually be relevant to your career aspirations. However, you made it clear that you don’t care about this so I’ll back off on making this point.

5

You need to understand how premed works in college: as you wisely noted, med schools frown on your using your science/math AP credit. So MOST premeds (… those who make it) take AP classes to “preload” their GPA. They take AP English THEN English Composition, AP Calculus THEN Calculus 1, AP Psych THEN Psych 101, AP Bio THEN Bio 101, etc, to insure themselves an A and have the highest possible GPA before it gets destroyed by Orgo.
Your classmates will all be top 20% from high school. Only the top 20% of these have a shot at med school. And only half of these top 20% of the top 20% will get into even one med school. The average grade in Bio 101 may well be 46, even with half the kids starting with AP Bio under their belts.
So, you need to beef up your credentials to survive that first year in the top 10-20%, not only in the sciences and math, but also in English, sociology, and psychology (+ a diversity-focused class), all required for med school.
When it comes to your senior schedule, the first one is better, especially if one of the arts classes is an AP art/music class since med schools won’t care if you take the credits. Same thing for AP history.
DO take a statistics class in college (whether you’d need a preparatory stats class in HS is up to you).
Finally, if you’re eligible or close to eligible for Honors College, do your utmost to get it: Honors Students tend to get better grades in their Honors Classes than in their non-honors classes, so being in the Honors College not only adds distinction to your curriculum, but actually helps your GPA. (If you don’t care about the thesis, you can quit Honors after 2 years, no biggie).

6

@MYOS1634 Thank you. I meet the requirements for acceptance into the honors college for where I want to go. It says on their website at USF that if you meet it, you will receive an acceptance. I am not too worried about my ability in English because at my school we have had a good English background even without AP English. I go to a private college prep school where all the classes are honors. I had an incredibly difficult English teacher last year, but he prepared us well. My current teacher has written a letter of recommendation for me already, and said in it that I was his best student and had the highest grade in all of his sections of English III honors. I would say that my preparation is pretty good for English.

I have heard that Orgo is insanely hard, too. For the AP History classes at my school, the problem is that some are taught by teachers that do not teach well. I figure, while I could get it out of the way in high school by taking an AP, I might want to take a history in college that would interest me. Maybe something more specialized like a varied religious history course that goes over the main religions or something that has to do with Greco-Roman religious history. I find the Greek gods very fascinating. Do you think that would be the best course of action, to wait until college and take one of those history courses that might be more enjoyable or get it out of the way now?

7

^In that case, it sounds like the best course of action for you personally is waiting till college to take a first-year history seminar (it’s likely to be offered through the Honors College). :slight_smile: