Senior Year Schedule Help

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Basically, my school doesn’t offer too many AP classes so there aren’t very many options. My main debate is whether or not I need to take a science next year, I really don’t want to but I have only gotten 2 years of lab science, and I think it is recommended I take 3. This year I am taking AP Bio, so my only other option would be to take Physio or environmental science. I am also debating whether or not to take AP Econ, which would only be one semester. The teacher is really bad and everyone in it is having a really hard time, but again there aren’t many AP’s and because I am taking 3 this year I want to take 4 this year, just to have that upward trend.
If I take a science, I won’t have a free period where I TA or something like that, because my schedule would be full. I don’t have on this year, but I feel that because I have a job where I work 10 hours a week, and am an athlete, school on top of college apps next year would be very overwhelming.
I would love some feedback, thanks for all the help!

Schedule #1
AP calc
AP Lit
AP Spanish
Gov/Econ
Physiology
Adv. Journalism (School newspaper)
ASB/Leadership

Schedule #2
AP calc
AP Lit
AP Spanish
Gov/Econ
TA period or AP Art History (if offered)
Adv. Journalism
ASB

Schedule #3
AP calc
AP Lit
AP Spanish
AP Econ/Gov
TA period or Physiology
Adv. Journalism
ASB

2

Schedule 1 is good, schedule 3 is very good if you take physiology.

3

So I should definitely take Physiology?

4

Yes, 4 year colleges will want to see 3 years of science as a minimum (4 is better, and bio/chem/physics +1 is the optimal combination, but if your school doesn’t offer these, it’ll be okay, just make SURE your GC indicates those classes were not available or you couldn’t take themall due to schedule conflicts.)
3 v. 4 AP’s won’t make or break your application though. So if you feel schedule 1 is better, go ahead with it. The only downside I see is for you, depending on whether non-AP Econ/Gov will include students who don’t pay attention and too slow a pace, or whether AP Econ/Gov would be too much work. When in doubt, always choose the best teacher.

5

Thanks! This helped a lot. The AP Econ teacher is really bad and has no experience teaching the class, and many kids are complaining about how unfair the grading is and how it just sets you up for failure. I am going to talk with more seniors about whether or not they recommend it though.

6

I am not worried about the difficulty of the class, more worried about the unfair grading policies and the bad teacher. I really don’t want to be in a class where the grading is arbitrary and unfair.