Two Questions regarding AVID, Honors English, Honors Biology

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, I have a question. Again, if this is on the wrong forum, MY BAD. /.\
My course selections for Sophomore year at my Highschool (I'm a Freshie, btw) and the classes I'm interested in are:
Geometry 1C
English 3H
World History 1C
Biology 1C, OR Biology 1H
Art
a coding pathway that my school offers, and/or AVID</p>

<p>These are the questions I really would like answers for:
What's harder, Honors Biology, or Honors English?
Do colleges LIKE that you've took AVID in highschool for a year or four?
Is AVID really that... important?</p>

<h2>Based on your experience in college, Would you wish that you've taken AVID in highschool?</h2>

<p>The reason I'm asking these questions is one, I'm really trying to take my first honors class, and I'm REALLY good at Science and English. I manged to get a B+ first semester of English 1C, and I missed an A by 2 points. (-.-) and I'm aiming for an A this semester highschool year.
I'm also good at Science (side question, If you didn't take Biology freshmen year, do they look at middle school science grades?) I managed straight B's. I would love to know which class is harder, and if you don't like the way I put my question, let me put it this way, HOW HARD ARE THEY? lol.
As for the AVID part... <em>sigh</em> I'm really giving up on this class. It's really bringing me down this freshmen year in highschool. My AVID teacher is COMPLETELY stupid (I swear to you she is. this is her first year and she's clueless of everything.) and I failed the class last semester. I really think it's a waste of space, but I'm asking you guys if it's important or it's a nice view for colleges because there's this other teacher who teaches AVID that I LOVE. She's my volleyball coach, it's her 8th year teaching AVID, and she's awesome. And I could ask to take her for AVID next year instead of this stupid teacher (sorry for my hate, but I really hate her.) but I don't want to waste space in my classes for my A-G requirements hunt for classes when I could be taking classes I need to ace. hence why I'm asking this.</p>

<p>PLEASE help me out. I'm in a real pickle here >.<</p>

2

<p>bump…</p>

3

<p>1° If you intend on attending selective colleges, you should take as many Honors classes as you can handle. Is your GPA 3.2 or above? Because you’d qualify for some UCs then; even if your goal is CSUs, with the impaction, Honors classes will be slightly weighted and will help you.
Talk with your current English and Biology teachers: do they think you can take Honors version and get a B or more? If so, try to take both; if not, take one of those.
2° Take AVID. It’ll be very important for college as it’ll signal you for special scholarships and free special support; if there’s a good AVID teacher, do your utmost to take his/her class. Figure out a way to get the best possible grade even with the bad teacher this year - universities won’t care that the teacher was bad, all they’ll see is that you stopped trying and got a bad grade. Plus, a D can destroy your GPA and an F means you need to retake the class (which, I assume, you’d want to avoid at all costs :p)
3° What kind of class is the “special coding pathway”?</p>

4

<p>Ok. first off, I think you went to FHS (you will know what that means). If I’m correct (and please don’t verify because you don’t want stalkers following you from the internet), I had the same AVID class three years ago, during my freshman year. </p>

<p>For your first question, it all matters on what you like. If you like Math/Science more, figure out which subject it is you like and follow that path. It doesn’t have to be Honors Biology, it can be Chemistry or Physics instead. If you want to be a Computer Science like me, it is all about the physics and biology doesn’t mean anything except for a requirement. If you like english more, do honors english and prepare for AP English during junior year. </p>

<p>Colleges don’t favor nor hate AVID. It is just a class that prepares students for college and also participates in community service. Colleges are more interested in you meeting requirements and taking classes that align with your major as well as things such as community service and other sports/fun things (this is one of the benefits of AVID). Again, the key theme is to have a general idea what you want to do in college (not a specific major, just whether or not you want engineering, business, humanities, or arts) and set up your sophomore year schedule to reflect that idea (like if you want economics or business, you take more advanced math and AP Macroeconomics). </p>

<p>Looking back, it is not worth the effort to take AVID for more than a year. My friends who took AVID for multiple years ended up wasting their time on saturdays and sundays being “the face of the school” and doing all of these weird projects about college admission. While that sounds great, you will NOT be working on your college essays, you will NOT be learning to make strategic decisions about boosting your college chances and you will NOT be meeting with the teacher on the regular to learn how to improve your college applications. </p>

<p>As for your volleyball coach, I would not recommend being in her class. If you screw up in her AVID class, it will have negative effects for you both in class and on the court. She might not trust you/be more critical of you/refuse to write a potential letter of recommendation. This same effect will occur if you screw up on the volleyball court.</p>

<p>The most important question to ask is “Does this activity or class that I’m about to do have any relevance in the college admission requirements or class for my major?” If you’re into biology as a potential college major, then Honors (and later AP if you’re up for it) Bio all the way. However, AVID is, to me, a filler class that just wastes space on your schedule that you could’ve used to better your transcript for colleges. Taking the AVID class from your volleyball coach is good for your relationship, but honestly you will leave in three years and you will put yourself in greater danger of losing your relationship if she is both your coach and teacher.</p>

5

<p>@MYOS1634 Thanks for the response. And This “Special Coding Pathway” is this program that guarantees you a career in the future and my dream is to go to UCSD which actually has Computer Majors and Programming majors that I would love to take in the future. But I won’t go there until I start making a change now.</p>

6

<p>@cdrake3 Lol, First of all I don’t go to this FHS (assuming this is a highschool) And there’s more than one school that has crappy AVID teachers you know -.- haha
I do like Science more. I just need to get more of a grip of highschool to actually get a route to where I wanna go in the future</p>