I will gladly go to any Ivy league school. We are signing up for next year’s classes this week (I’m in high school), and these are the classes i am considering:
AP Human Geography
AP US Government
Honors Geometry
Honors English II
Biology
Spanish III
Photography II
PLEASE reply with opinions! And let me know if you would like to see my freshman (current) schedule, I will gladly reply with it. Is this schedule not enough, or too much?
AP US Government is a good first AP course. Human Geo along with Psych is one of the easier AP courses. If you have the option of taking an academic solid instead of Photography, you should. Is the sequence in your school Geometry sophomore year and Pre-Calc junior year leading up to Calc AB or BC senior year? The most advanced students in STEM fields will have Pre-Calc sophomore year, Calc BC junior year and multi-variable / dual enrollment calc senior year.
“I will gladly go to any Ivy league school”. lol.
Are you following your passions? Are you taking all of these courses for you and not just because it look good on your transcript?
If the answer to either or these were no, then you have some changes to make.
If yes to both you’re golden.
At school, we are required elective credits. I already have 3 out of 8, so I should get at least 2-3 more credits next year (which include spanish). Geometry comes sophomore year, then junior year I’ll take algebra II w/ trig.
@Wje9164be ^^^^^^^^^
@Coldsummer123 Haha sorry. Technically I would go to Princeton or Yale, and I also love Stanford (dream school - not ivy i know). I only said that because any of the schools are great and I would be happy there. All of the classes I have selected are things I am interested in. I regret that I didn’t take some of these courses in 9th grade. I do not feel challenged in algebra 1, so i want to take honors geometry.
@jrams7 There’s always the option to take a course over the summer. In fact, I would suggest it. Or maybe self study it. You can learn a whole lot about how you learn by how you react to a class without a whole lot of structure. If you’re interested in math and science, you could do this. However, if you’re not that’s 100% fine. You can do other things with that time. Join a club, start a business, etc.
Also, I highly suggest you take a closer look at these schools as many of them are very different.
@Coldsummer123 my school’s summer school lasts june 1-26. is a summer class very fast paced? thats less than a month to complete a full course
@jrams7 No idea. Depends on the school. Tbh, if you’re interested you can make it work. I’ve never taken a summer class but I’ve certainly self-studied quite a few. If you really want it you’ll find a way.
Your course schedule looks fine, however the biggest red flag is Honors Geo, which means you’re on track to finish at most with Honors PreCalc. Almost everyone at the Ivy League level has taken AP Calculus at least by senior year, if not in junior, sophomore, or even freshman year. Can you take a math course over the summer?
@goldenbear2020 wow… i never even considered this. I know people who are taking 2 math classes, this is a possibility too. I could also do a class in the summer. Is geometry a prerequisite of algebra 2/trig?
Geo isn’t a prereq for Alg 2/Trig but check your high school’s policy. I would strongly recommend either taking Honors Geo over this summer, or doubling up with Alg 2/Trig (in place of Photography) for sophomore year.
@goldenbear2020 do you think that stanford students also took AP calculus?
@goldenbear2020 could I do algebra 2 over the summer, then geometry during the school year?
What are you interested in? Are you a STEM person or a humanities person?
Many high schools have honors geometry as a freshman class, then honors alg 2, then honors pre-calc/trig or similar class that either leads to Calc AB or BC.
Calc AB as a senior is perfectly acceptable for a student who is a humanities person. Calc BC is much better if you are eyeing STEM majors - junior year is best, but senior year ok too.
@Jennings99 I was slightly held back on my math path because my teacher did not want me to move on to algebra 1 for 8th grade (ugh!). So i wish I was currently in honors geometry, but my path got screwed up. I could potentially take geometry over the summer and take algebra 2 during the school year. Would you recommend that?
I think that it would be good if you could take at least AP Calc AB, but I don’t know your school or the path you are on. It might be perfectly acceptable to take AP Stats as a senior for many if not most schools, and if you have an extraordinarily strong transcript (with notable extracurricular involvement and achievements) and are not planning on being a STEM major, this might be taken into consideration.
Are many of your high achieving peers taking honors geometry as a sophomore? Another thing that admissions officers take into consideration is what is typically done at your school. If most of your peers who are going to apply to ivies are taking a more rigorous math load, this becomes the baseline. Although I do think that STEM oriented kids vs humanities oriented kids are considered in context.
If you are capable of taking a math over the summer and it is at the honors level and will allow you to advance to the path to AP Calc (and if you think you could do well), I would consider doing this. Not just for competitive school applications, but because it is beneficial to have a year of calculus under your belt before college. Many colleges have core or distribution requirements and it is nice to come in with a solid year of calc.
@Jennings99 high - achieving peers are going to be in algebra 2, and summer school will not be honors courses (they are mostly for people who failed a course).
Before making summer class plans, check with your counselor to see if it can even be done. At my kids’ school, the only summer classes are either to make up failing classes or to take the required before graduating health classes. Apparently elsewhere, many kids are able to take any class they like over the summer, burin don’t know that it’s the norm.
What our school does offer for kids who want to take Calculus in high school is a doubling up either in 10th or 11th grade (algebra2&precalc). See if your high school has something like that. Ours has enough kids who do it that they have a double period class specifically for it.
@mom2twogirls ya! at my school, pre calc is a semester long class, so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep up.