I’ve only chosen 2 honors and 1 AP (Human Geography) course for my first 2 years of high school. I have gotten all A’s for my semester averages, but I have taken a lot of regular classes, which I was able to sleep through and easily get A’s. I now realize my mistake, and will be taking harder classes next year. I want to go to USC, or Miami University (Florida). How will my ignorance of choosing easy classes for the first 2 years affect my chances. Will colleges care about the increase in the class difficulty? I have gotten a 31 on the practice ACT, and will take it again junior year and the real ACT senior year, with increasingly better scores.
They will at least note it. If your grades come out just as high, then that’s even better. As far as your chances, I’m not the right person to judge.
If you choose to take regular classes and you highly exceed in them, sure it may or may not hurt you, depending on the officers. Get a high ACT score, do good in clubs, etc.
Your Junior year will be more important than Freshman or Sophomore years. Understand that school is going to get a lot more difficult when you add more AP and honors classes, and do the best that you can. Make sure to apply to a couple of affordable safety schools and you should be fine.
The more important AP and Honors classes, such as core APs and advanced high school math classes like Pre-Calculus and Trigonometry, are most frequently taken junior and senior years, so I don’t feel as if you’ve hurt your chances dramatically. However, understand that you will never be on equal footing with students who have taken rigorous courseloads all four years of high school with similar grades to yours.
I would not expect you to have taken any AP classes as a freshman/sophomore so you are fine.
If you are doing well inyou classes now, can you talk to your GC about moving up to honors?
or if that isn’t possible, talk to your GC about what you need to do to be recommended for honors next year.
What math classes have you taken?
What Science?
I’ve taken honors Algebra I, regular geometry, and honors biology and honors chemistry
I think you’ll be okay. Just choose a more rigorous schedule next year. USC and the University of Miami are still possibilities, especially if you get a 31+ on the ACT.