DS24 is setting his schedule for senior year now and his advisor suggested:
AP Stats (He is in AP Calc AB now and his school doesn’t offer BC)
AP English language (DS likes the teacher and knows him well)
AP Chem (Also likes the teacher and has her this year for honors)
Required 12th grade lifeskills class
Honors Physics (Calc-based, no AP offered)
He has three years of Spanish completed this year and has taken three APs this year (Calc AB, Econ, and US Government).
He’s also an athlete so his advisor recommended this schedule as the most rigor she would suggest that still meets what he needs to graduate. It’s science and math heavy because that’s what he is interested in and his school has a concentration requirement.
Is this considered a rigorous enough schedule for selective colleges?
If his advisor is recommending that schedule, then you could ask her is she is going to check “most rigorous schedule” on the GC form she’ll be filling out with her recommendation. If she is - then the schedule is rigorous enough.
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Where is he planning to apply?
No, most colleges would not consider this to be a great schedule. They generally want to see the 5 cores (math, science, english, foreign language, and social studies) all four years.
If he is going to skip a core, as he is in not taking Spanish, he needs to replace it with a different core, which he did with a second science. But he should be taking some kind of social studies class. Colleges want to see more that just covering the high school’s minimum requirements for graduation.
Even if the guidance counselor says it’s the most rigorous schedule, the admissions officers will easily see from his school profile that there were more challenging and/or other core courses available.
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The problem is that to meet the concentration requirement, he can’t take both a social studies and another year of foreign language. He wouldn’t meet the concentration requirement if he did that as he would have to drop one of the science classes. He is limited by the number of available class times in the day.
So with this limit, are you suggesting he add another social studies/history class or AP Spanish?
Yes, I don’t think he should drop both. I think he should add either a spanish class or a social studies class.
(Are you saying it’s possible to add one of those and still take both sciences? I want to make sure I am understanding the constraints.)
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Students are evaluated in terms of what is available at their school. Will his GC consider this the most rigorous possible schedule? Also, how selective are the schools he is considering? Does your HS typically send kids to selective schools?
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Yes, there are typically several students who get into very selective schools. The majority of the class gets into schools in the 20-40% acceptance range. The bottom 40% gets into schools with over a 50% acceptance rate.
I can’t tell if she is hesitating with this schedule because she knows he’s an athlete or if he’s just taking more than his peers. He is one of only three kids in the class who took AP Calc as a junior.
I will have to ask the advisor. I’m not sure. There are 6 hours in the day, so I don’t see an obvious reason why he couldn’t without asking her first.
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Are only 5 classes allowed?
What level is this year’s Spanish course?
What social studies courses have been completed through this year?
How many courses are needed for the concentration requirement?
He needs 2 and half classes for the concentration requirement. AP Chem, AP Stats, and Honors Physics will meet that with an extra half credit as they are all full year courses.
He took Spanish III this year (no honors offered). The only Spanish class left is AP Spanish.
He took AP US Gov’t and AP Microecon this year. Each was a half-year course.
He is taking 6 classes now. I will have to ask the advisor if he can take 6 next year. She balked at that when he asked for the science classes. I don’t know why. He’s doing very well. She said something about him being overloaded but I don’t know what she means.
Seems like it would be best to add a sixth course, either the next level of Spanish or a social studies course, if aiming for the most selective colleges that look for rigor.
Do the chemistry and/or physics courses selected require extra periods at this school?
That’s a good question. Thank you. I will ask. If she says he has time in his schedule, he could take either AP Spanish or AP US or World History.
Has he had any kind of US history? Some colleges (usually state universities) want the social studies courses to include US history, at least for applicants residing in the US. So if he has not had any kind of US history, taking that for the sixth course may be needed.
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You have to take US history to graduate in our state. Always interesting to see how different requirements are from state to state.
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Yes, he took honors US history in 10th and world history in 9th. His HS requires 3 years of History/Econ/Government to graduate. One year has to be US, one world, and one US Government. He will finish that requirement this year but can elect to take a fourth year if his schedule allows.
Most selective schools require or expect 4 years of social studies and 3+ years of a foreign language. You can look at the common data sets of schools he’s interested in to find out what is expected or encouraged, but you might need to add one or both of these.
Is there any way he can take the life skills class online over the summer and satisfy the requirement that way? I ask because my kids take the required PE and Health as online summer courses so they can make room for more academic classes and electives that interest them during the school year. This sounds like an equivalent requirement, so it’s worth checking out.
If he can take a sixth course and chooses social studies, are there other options beside the semi-duplicative (of courses already taken) AP US and world history courses?
I absolutely agree with this. Your student will be evaluated based on what’s offer at the school. If the counselor couldn’t check off on it then ask the counselor what it would it take.
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He could take AP Macroeconomics but that is only a one-semester course. He could possibly take AP Psychology. The school also offers AP Spanish. His school also offers a personal finance course but there is no AP level. I would love for him to take that but worry that the lack of an AP label would hurt his rigor perception.
The problem with personal finance isn’t that it’s not an AP class, it’s that it isn’t a core class.
These don’t need to all be AP classes, but he needs more core classes.