Should I drop one of my AP classes from my senior schedule?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

My AP classes next year will be

AP Physics C (Mech. + E&M)
AP Calculus BC
AP Lit
AP Govt
AP Macro
AP Compsci A
AP Spanish Language

Should I drop one? I’m worried that this will be too much, especially with all the college applications I’ll have to do. Then again, I genuinely want to do all these classes EXCEPT AP Lit, but practically everyone at my school takes it, so I wouldn’t want my counselor to say my schedule isn’t rigorous.

2

Senior grades don’t matter too much, so even if you slip up a little it’s not a big deal. If you find them interesting, might as well take them, though Physics C and BC are fairly dense courses

3

You have plenty of rigor. I don’t know you personally as a student, but you could easily drop an AP or two and still be very rigorous.

4

If you can handle AP Lit and do well, it’s advisable to take it as long as it doesn’t negatively affect your other APs. I guarantee you that you will not like taking English classes at universities. If your major only requires you to take one or two English classes, then using AP Lit to get credits for that one or two English classes is a great deal for you.

5

I’d disagree - it all depends on how good the prof is at teaching. I’ve had multiple great English courses in college (way better ones than high school).

Keep in mind that many colleges will not take AP Lit in place of an English requirement. You can search the specific school to see if they would count it.

6

I would say that a lot of classes would be more desirable if the prof is very good at teaching these classes. I think you are confusing AP Lang and AP Lit for English requirement.

7

Are you looking at going into a STEM field? If so I think you could easily drop econ/gov and/or English. Especially if you did ap euro or APUSH already. Also what tier of colleges are you applying to?

8

@bvo112 At some colleges neither of them will replace a college English requirement. If a school requires you to take an English course before graduating then AP Lit (or AP Lang) won’t necessarily fulfill it. At my college only foreign languages and math/science APs count for anything. We have three English-related requirements and, unless you’re transferring or some other circumstance like that, you need to take the courses through the college.

Of course it varies based on the college.

9

Thank you guys so much for all the responses!

I’m planning to major in Aerospace Engineering. I hope to get into a top tier school, with my top ones being Stanford and MIT, but I also have matches and safeties like UT Austin and UTD (Texas applicant).

My current AP classes are

AP Physics 1
AP Chem (worst decision ever - jk, it’s just hard lol)
AP Lang
APUSH (hoping the transition to gov/econ is easier since this is a bunch of work)

AP World (5 - sophomore)

I definitely want to complete most of my humanities requirements, so I guess it would be advisable to take Lit, I just don’t know if it’s worth all the work, especially if I won’t end up getting credit like @Lagging said. I’m currently managing my classes okay with all A’s, but I still feel swamped.

10

Stanford won’t give you credit for AP Lit (https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/transfer-credit/advanced-placement/ap-credit-chart). The humanities/general ed requirements have been changing almost every year, but to my knowledge AP Lit hasn’t let you out of any requirements in recent years. Also note though that the humanities requirements are already pretty minimal at Stanford.

I can’t speak about MIT or your matches/safeties. In my opinion, if you don’t want to do the work and don’t have much interest in the subject then don’t take it in AP.

Here are the main points I see about the topic:

  1. Your rigor will be lower with 1 less AP
  2. You have a rigorous schedule already so colleges will likely not be concerned about rigor
  3. You want to enjoy senior year and could be strengthening your app with the free time
  4. These colleges reject applicants with more APs than you have and also accept applicants with fewer APs - there’s more to your app than AP Lit so it’s doubtful the determining factor in your admittance would be that class. Pursue something you love with the extra free time.

I go to a top tier school and didn’t take an AP English course my senior year. I have many classmates who didn’t as well. It’s not a requirement.

11

I seriously doubt any college counselor would say that a schedule with 6 AP’s is less than “most rigorous.”

Same here. Many colleges don’t give credit for both Lit and Lang anyway. And as others have stated, and is certainly true of my college, any AP English course will not always exempt you from the colleges gen ed/writing requirement.

12

I think you should be looking at AP credits policy of your matches and safeties, not at Stanford and MIT. Getting into Stanford and MIT is already as hard as it is so taking AP LIT or not won’t matter for those schools if you don’t get in the first place.

13

BC and Phys C both help each other in terms that the topics covered in BC apply to C