<p>This year, I desperately tried taking an AP Comp sci class instead of the required Health class, and failed miserably, which my counselor noticed because my grades were straight A's, with all my honors classes, and a C+ in AP Comp sci, and dropped the class from my schedule like a hot potato. Since I dropped the class a bit later in the game, I had to settle with a free period, and wait until 2nd semester to get a class, and since the required Health class is 2 semesters, I have to take one semester during the summer. The only way I make up the credit to get my GPA to a 4.0 is through my extra speech and debate class.</p>
<p>Anyways...</p>
<p>I was wondering, the summer after my freshman year, should I take chemistry over the summer? My school offers this program where you could take online courses with a private school that has an online program. You will get the credits for the course, and you can move onto the next course, AP Bio. I feel like I am a little behind against all the other students in my grade, and I want to raise my chances of getting into an Ivy League. Is this a good idea, or should I just take Honors Chemistry next year? </p>
<p>I would take Honors Chemistry. Being ahead doesn’t matter because colleges don’t judge you based on other students at your school. They judge you for you and for everything you’ve done. </p>
<p>There’s no reason to take an online class over the summer unless it will put you ahead of where you otherwise would have been by the end of your senior year. If you’re concerned about being behind, it would probably be better to just take two science classes in the same year or semester.
Colleges aren’t going to hold random required classes against you. You’ll have to take them eventually, so you might as well take them when everyone else does.
Selective colleges will try to judge you in the context of the opportunities you had. High school seniors have all kinds of different backgrounds with different advantages and disadvantages, so colleges don’t judge them all by the same standard. They look at class rank (when it’s available) and course rigor relative to the school because they want to compare you to people who were presumably born under similar circumstances, i.e. your classmates. Typically colleges will know which AP courses are offered by a given high school, but they won’t know how many students take them unless it’s also on the school report.</p>
<p>I took chem over the summer to jump to ap chem this year. At the beginning of the year the next level class will be insanely difficult because there is no way that you can cover a years worth of material in 2 months. Do not do it.</p>