<p>Hi, I am a current junior and am planning my senior year schedule. I would like feedback on whether this is a good schedule or if I should switch out some of the courses. All honors and AP classes in my school are weighted the same, by the way. </p>
<ol>
<li>Multivariable Calculus with Linear Algebra (weighted and dual credit with the local community college)</li>
<li>AP Macroeconomics/AP Microeconomics </li>
<li>AP Environmental Science</li>
<li>Honors Essay Writing/English Literature (both weighted, one semester each)</li>
<li>AP Computer Programming</li>
<li>Spanish 4 (weighted)</li>
<li>Gym (Mandatory in my state)</li>
<li>Lunch</li>
</ol>
<p>What do you want to do? If you are interested in a STEM major/career, I’d want to see a more rigorous AP science (bio, chem, physics) in place of AP ES. If possible, that is.</p>
<p>I am interested in science, but I have already taken both AP Bio and AP Chem but I truly dislike Physics (I’ve taken Honors Physics already) so I would not want to take AP Physics C. A professor got me interested in green chemistry as a potential career path so I thought taking AP Environmental Science would help me figure out if the subject is interesting. Granted, the class is not going to represent green chemistry exactly but it is a similar field.</p>
<p>For 99% of the colleges, your proposed schedule is very strong. Not knowing where you’re planning to apply makes it difficult to comment on whether it is strong enough/balanced enough for the 1% of the colleges that are very selective. Are you planning to apply to any of those?</p>
<p>My current junior year schedule is shown below and I have maintained strong A’s in all of these courses except for an A- in my AP English Language course. For comparison, do you think my proposed senior schedule will be rigorous enough?</p>
<ol>
<li>Spanish 3 (unweighted)</li>
<li>AP English Language </li>
<li>AP Biology</li>
<li>Computer Programming 1 and 2 (one semester each; unweighted)</li>
<li>AP Chemistry</li>
<li>Lunch</li>
<li>AP Calculus BC</li>
<li>Gym (Mandatory)</li>
</ol>
<p>For the three most selective colleges (Stanford, Harvard, Duke) on your list I would focus more on core courses, and defer the electives (e.g. environmental science and economics) to college. In practice you won’t get (or want to get) college “credit” for them since they’ll be taught at a much deeper level in college.</p>
<p>Instead, if your school offers them, I would encourage you to take AP Physics, and a high-level history course (ideally one with extensive reading and writing). I’m not sure if your Spanish 4 leads to an AP exam. If it doesn’t and AP Spanish is offered I’d take that, and take the exam. The one AP course that always gets your college credit is foreign language.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice, fogcity, but I cannot take AP Spanish as our school requires us to take both Spanish 4 and 5 before we can take the course.</p>
<p>We could technically have taken Spanish 1 in junior high school and start at Spanish 2, but that would only let us go up to Spanish 5. AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature have been newly added for next year so most people were caught unprepared. A few people are going to take it, but they’re quite excellent at Spanish and took placement tests to jump straight to Spanish 3 in freshmen year.</p>
<p>The only thing I might consider is that you seem to have a very science/math oriented schedule without much in the humanities. If computer programming isn’t a necessity, I would think about replacing it with a course in say music, art, or something of that sort that interests you and gives you a broader scope.</p>
<p>I’m building my senior schedule now, can I get some feedback?</p>
<p>AP English
AP Computer Science
Honors Economics
Honors Public Forum Debate
Honors Hawaiian History
Newspaper III
Literary Fantasy
American Satire
Ceramics</p>
<p>My school only allows me to take 9 solid credits, and those are filled up by the AP and Honors classes.</p>
<p>Both your junior and senior schedules and its soild. I would switch AP enviromental to something else, maybe AP stats or AP physics. From what I hear it’s a joke AP, at least in my school. Good luck!</p>
<p>Sorry I just saw your post about how you don’t like physics and want to try environmental. In that case go for it. It is an AP after all and it would be beneficial to you to see if you like that field.</p>
<p>Hey everyone. Thanks for all of your advice. I have made my final course selections for senior year. The only change I’ve made was switching AP Environmental Science for AP Statistics since it conflicted with AP Macro/MicroEconomics so I won’t be taking a science next year. I will have had 5 years of science from freshmen to junior year (Enriched Chemistry, Enr. Biology, Enr. Physics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry) so I think it won’t hurt me too much to not take AP Physics C. Anyway, it turns out our teacher for AP Physics C can’t really teach very well so I would have had a harder time trying to learn it now than in college.</p>
<ol>
<li>Multivariable Calculus with Linear Algebra (weighted and dual credit with the local community college)</li>
<li>AP Macroeconomics/AP Microeconomics</li>
<li>AP Statistics</li>
<li>Honors Essay Writing/English Literature (both weighted, one semester each)</li>
<li>AP Computer Programming</li>
<li>Spanish 4 (weighted)</li>
<li>Gym (Mandatory in my state)</li>
<li>Lunch</li>
</ol>