Senior Year Schedule

I’m entering my senior year this fall and I go to a pretty competitive high school–you can’t have a high ranking unless you take AP classes. A lot of the people I have been talking to are taking 6-8 AP classes next year alone. I have taken 5 already, and was planning on taking 5 next year. Should I take more APs to be competitive in college admissions? I don’t expect to get into the Ivies, but I’d like to go to a highly regarded school and be eligible for big scholarships at state schools. I have 8 spots available in my schedule so I am taking band, gym, AP Econ, AP Gov, AP Stats, AP Comp Sci Principles, and I am planning on taking AP Lit. However, everyone I’ve talked to that has graduated has said that the AP Lit teacher is absolutely terrible. I could take Honors Brit lit, but I’d be losing an AP credit. I could also take AP Environ Sci or AP Human Geo, but they are only offered as cyber courses. Advice please?

No. Taking even nine AP classes is sufficient enough for high school. Don’t forget, there are students who take “only” seven AP classes throughout all of high school and are getting admitted to Ivies left and right. The important thing in choosing your coursework is making sure that whatever class you choose relates to your future college career and is rigorous, not overwhelming.

I suggest take out AP Lit since many colleges will give you sufficient credit for AP Lang alone (I’m assuming you have taken AP Lang). You don’t want to add unnecessary stress especially the last year of high school, since you know that the teacher will be bad.

My advice is to not add AP human geo or AP enviro sci because they are on the easier side of the AP spectrum so colleges will see right through you and know you took those just for the AP label. Unless, of course, one do those two courses actually related to your possible major and you just have to take one of those…
Also, since they are cyber courses, you could be using the time you spend doing one of those cyber courses to instead develop an extracurricular more (even though it’s too late at this point) or do other things such as spend more time working on your apps or essays.

Good luck!

Thank you very much, this is very reassuring! I was concerned I would fall behind if I didn’t take more APs!

Five APs is absolutely insane. I would say the most you should take at once is four. Consider this: one AP course is an hour of homework every night. That said, you’d be having five hours of homework every night plus dinner plus free time and ECs. From what I’ve heard, people taking that many APs don’t really do ECs and don’t have much of a social life. That said, if you’ve taken APs before, do either three or four. If this is your first time, only do one or two. Take the ones you feel most confident about. If you’re just taking an AP course to have your application look good, that’s a recipe for disaster. There have been students who tried to make their resumes look really good by doing all APs and then they crumble. Even if you take three APs, chances are you’ll get a good scholarship at your state university (Assuming you don’t live in California or anywhere where your flagship is one of the most prestigious in the world)

No problem @PAgrad2019

Top colleges only expect 4-8 APs or equivalent (IB, aice, dual enrollment…) Over ALL of high school. Taking more will NOT help you get into college - especially electives or AP lites.
Top colleges expect you to have 4 years each of English and social science/history, each of bio, chem, physics+1 more, math through precalculus or calculus, and foreign language through level 4 or AP. Your APs should primarily come from that group (ie. AP Lang, APUSH, AP gov, AP physics 1, AP foreign language, AP calculus, etc.) The other APs are complementary and should not get in the way of the core classes above.