Hello my Junior year schedule would be:
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP Economics
Honors English 11
Spanish IV
US Gov / Public Speaking
Is this too easy? Should I take AP English instead of honors, and replace electives with AP Physics 1? My goal is Stanford.
Too easy? I am wondering if you are serious. If you are, the answer is no. Three APs, Spanish four, and honors English is not easy. Aye carumba.
But you really should take AP Lang if your school offers it. Very few students get into the most selective schools if their school offers AP Lang and they skip it.
If “AP English” is AP Language then I would switch to AP English. It is probably one of the most useful AP courses for kids going to college.
That said, this is not an easy schedule. If you end up switching in AP English, you may want to identify upfront which class you would drop and replace if you discover the courseload is too heavy. I would drop the AP class with the worst teacher.
I recommend easing up on the courseload if you find yourself regularly staying up past midnight to finish schoolwork and sacrificing sleep. I know “students do this regularly” but that doesn’t mean students should to do this. A big part of growing up is knowing your limits and knowing when to push and when to back off then.
(always have a Plan B)
Thanks everyone for the replies I really appreciate it. My dream school is Stanford, so I’m willing to make many sacrifices. I will definitely take AP English 11 based off your responses, leaving me with 4 AP’s under my belt. I am very interested in STEM, so I want to take the most challenging science and math courses in high school. Should I replace my 2 electives: US Gov and Public Speaking, with AP Physics 1? That would allow me to take AP Physics 2 senior year. Or is 5 APs too much? Thank you
5 AP’S in NE year is way WAY too many.!!! In reality 4 is too many . There is NO benefit to stuffing your transcript with AP’s in a misguided effort to "impress "Stanford or any other college.
Your GPA is likely to tank, which trust me, Stanford does NOT like to see.
This is what their admissions office has to say about what they look for: BELIEVE them.
“Grades earned over the course of a term, or a year, and evaluations from instructors who can comment on classroom engagement provide us with the most detailed insight into a student’s readiness for the academic rigors of Stanford.”
“Choosing Courses
We expect applicants to pursue a reasonably challenging curriculum, choosing courses from among the most demanding courses available at your school. We ask you to exercise good judgment and to consult with your counselor, teachers and parents as you construct a curriculum that is right for you. Our hope is that your curriculum will inspire you to develop your intellectual passions, not suffer from unnecessary stress. The students who thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP or IB, Honors or Accelerated class just because it has that designation.”
"We want to be clear that this is not a case of “whoever has the most APs wins.”
http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/prepare.html
Spread those AP classes out. Take AP English and AP Physics your SENIOR year. And perhaps AP Spanish then too.
Interesting. Should I drop AP Chemistry for electives? It’s just that I look at Stanford’s Class of 2020 Results and everyone accepted took a lot of AP’s. I don’t want to be the outsider.
Have you spoken to your guidance counselor about this? Along with your ambitions?
Yep
Take a course load that you can comfortably handle and do well. No stranger on a message board can tell you whether a particular schedule is too easy, just right, or too challenging for you. Only you know your strengths, weaknesses, other commitments, and limits. We can’t say whether or not your grades are likely to drop with 3 or 4 or even 5 AP’s. Slackermom offers you good advice.
“But you really should take AP Lang if your school offers it. Very few students get into the most selective schools if their school offers AP Lang and they skip it.”
This is simply incorrect. Ad cons from competitive schools look at grades for evidence you will do well in their school. They want to select students who took a rigorous curriculum and were still able to be involved in other activities (so not just grade grinders). They want students with intellectual interests not those whose major goal was simply to get the highest grades. It is true that colleges look at whether the guidence counselor viewed the student as taking the most rigorous curriculum given what was offered. But, by “most rigorous” they don’t mean the “hardest” or the “most APs”. They don’t mean taking every AP class available and they don’t mean you should take every class at the highest level offered even if it will be meaningless to the student. That term should be “reasonably rigorous” because that is what they are looking for.
Naturally a student pursuing a major in language should take AP language if their high school offers it. And a student in the humanities should probably take AP language. But a student in STEM who has a booked schedule, would be better off taking higher level courses in STEM than taking AP language if their reason for taking the AP Language is only because they believe colleges are looking for it. I know many students at Ivy League schools and at other competitive schools whose high schools offered AP language but who opted not to take it.
Sometimes people on this site post information based on their own limited experience-their own personal experience from when they applied to college and the experience of their peers. They may have gone to a high school where there is a student climate that fuels taking every AP and always taking AP language. And they may notice that all the students who got into highly competitive colleges were in their AP language classes. But that is because their high school had a student mentality that drove that to happen-not because colleges drive that. They don’t.
@JLBball5 , what did he recommend?
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP Economics
AP English
Spanish IV
US Gov / Public Speaking
I would think about this schedule…but what Math will you take next year?
Should you take Calc AB this year and BC next year?
Or can you take Multivariable at your local CC?
If you do, would a stanford even take the credits?
Would you really want to start as a freshman jumping into Differential Equations?
My guidance counselor said I am borderline between AP English and Honors and it is up to me. I got B’s in honors english 9 and 10. I feel AP English is a very valuable class. But would it hurt my GPA?
My class schedule:
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics l
AP Economics
AP English (Or Honors)
US Gov / Public Speaking
Spanish IV
And yes bopper I plan to take Calc lll my senior year. Thank you for the comments everyone
Guys should I take AP English or Honors English? Im so lost please help.
“My guidance counselor said I am borderline between AP English and Honors and it is up to me.”
then take honors English next year and AP english your Sr year.
its better to have great grades all the way through HS, than to get B’s or worse in the toughest classes available your Jr year.
Colleges look at ALL the classes you have/ will have taken, NOT just what you have completed by the end of your Jr year.
so as I said before, SPREAD the hard AP classes out-
there are no prizes for taking more many AP classes in any one year, or overall- than you can EASILY handle[ i.e get A’s in them]
Just do honors english. AP calc BC and AP chem are a lot of work alone, and micro can be depending on the school( my micro class certainly was). Especially if you’re weak in English, AP lang along with that schedule will be killer.
I’d say take AP lang or lit senior year(lang is easier). A lot of schools don’t give additional credit for taking both.
Honors English is fine.
Can you take AP Lang senior year?
Along with Calc III and one more AP, it’d be plenty.
If you got B’s in Honors English, your GC recommends Honors English, stay on the Honors track in 11th grade. For a second opinion, ask your English teacher. I suggested AP Lang only because I like the curriculum that emphasized writing different types of essays, not for the AP designation.
Three AP classes and Spanish 4 is a rigorous and challenging schedule. Do not pile on the AP coursework. It doesn’t do anything. Again, you should not be sacrificing anything for a “dream school”. Assume you will be rejected by Stanford (by the time you apply, Stanford will likely be rejecting over 95% of its applicants) - would you be happy with your high school life? Too often, we see students who are rejected by all their reaches lamenting their sacrifices (friends, sleep, classes they wanted to take). No one wants that to happen to you.
OP, @SlackerMomMD gives good advice- take it! Also read [url=<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways%5Dthis%5B/url”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways]this[/url] and [url=<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula%5Dthis%5B/url”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula]this[/url].