Hey everyone! So ultimately it’s time to sort out my classes for highschool, but I’m really uncertain of what to take. I KNOW that I’m taking honors Science, World History, and English. (Please note that AP classes are not offered until junior year at my school) So, my question is, if I don’t take honors math, are my chances dwindling? I’m in all honors classes at my middle school right now, and all of the classes are painfully easy except for math. I know I would harm myself by taking it as an honors class, but well, what I ultimately want to know is if it would harm me just as well if I didn’t. Thanks for any input!
I would try honors math to see if I’m able to handle it; you can always drop down into standard if you find it is too difficult. If you want to get into an Ivy-caliber school, taking the most challenging courses available to you is mandatory.
Being brutally honest, when applying to Ivies, most of your competitors are probably two years ahead at math at the very least, taking Honors Algebra 2 in the 9th grade and ending high school with AP Calculus BC or DE Calculus III, and if you aren’t even able to take or do well in Honors level math, set your sights lower.
(take my advice with a grain of salt; I am a high school senior who applied to only two in-state, somewhat selective colleges and I am nowhere near AP Calculus)
What’s your current GPA? What would your schedule look like Freshman year?
Look at the pinned thread in the forum about what a HS curriculum should look like.
Don’t start off thinking Ivy.
The hard work in finding a college isn’t in having dream schools - everyone has dream colleges and they’re all the same. It requires zero thinking The real work is finding actual safeties and matches you like that are affordable. Borrow a Princeton Review’s Best Colleges and find 5 colleges in your state/region that you’d never heard of, as well as 5 OOS colleges with a 40+% acceptance rate that you like. Plan to go visit your flagship, a national LAC, a regional university, and a directional (“Southeastern state”) at some point before the end of sophomore year. Try to think about what you like: lots of people milling around? Interactive classes?
(Junior year get your own Fiske guide, but it’s unnecessarily detailed for a freshman).
@MYOS1634 Great post. But I think that it’s fine for a freshman in high school to get acquainted with the Fiske guide as it will expose a young student to hundreds of colleges & programs and encourage the student to consider a broader range of colleges & universities.
I do want to touch on @r2v2018’s comment. The math level is dependent on major. Yeah, if you’re a math or engineering major, most do take up to Calc AB/BC and up, but if you’re doing something with art or English then you’ll be fine with Pre-Calc or AP Calc AB.
Currently, I have a 3.9 unweighted. Freshman year, like I said, honors english, environmental science, and world history. Regular math, though. I haven’t gotten my schedule yet, but I’m planning on taking Italian l (we can’t take honors italian yet), creative writing, audio video, intro to human behavior, and I believe I requested another elective but I can’t think of it off of the top of my head. I’m in all honors now and the highest at my hs for freshman is honors level, not ap. Ok, it’s good that I don’t have to take honors math because I know that it would be way too much. Even three honors classes I feel as a freshman can be a lot.
If you do want to apply to an Ivy, I think it’s safe to say that you do need to take Honors-level math in order to be considered a competitive applicant, regardless of major, but like I said, I’ve never applied to an Ivy myself and I can only go by what I have seen on decisions threads on this website (which may be unrealistic for obvious reasons, but I digress).
Also, the rigor only gets harder from here. Wait until junior year when the APs start piling up. Like I said before, the schools you are looking for reject much more people than they accept, and among the rejected/deferred applicants are people with near-perfect unweighted GPAs, time-consuming ECs, and exceptionally rigorous transcripts with college courses (dual enrollment) /college-level high school courses (AP/IB) approaching, and often exceeding, the double digits. I would imagine that being unable to say that you took the most challenging courseload available to you (in terms of your core courses) puts you at an extremely unfavorable position at schools with such well-qualified pools of hopeful students.
Take a look at the hs preparation your targets recommend or require. Don’t guess. And over time, they want rigor. You’ll need to decide whether that’s worth it or you want to pile on electives. Middle school is middle school, high school will be harder and what it takes to get into a tippy top is even tougher. Most kids aren’t taking enviro as freshmen, they start with a core lab science, so they can manage in AP later.
There are no shortcuts.
Have you taken foreign language 1, biology, and algebra1 in middle school?
Your typical Freshman schedule for a top 50 university/LAC would include biology or chemistry depending on what you took in Middle School, foreign language 1or 2, algebra 1 or geometryH or algebra2H, English 9H, world history honors (or ap human geography), and two electives each semester (unless your school requires PE/Health).
I believe I stumbled upon a thread where OP said they would be taking regular Algebra 1 freshman year, and they said they were considering Italian 1 here.
Spanish is the only language available at my middle school and we can’t test higher for Italian, which is what I want to take. It’s honors Spanish, by the way. I don’t know if it’s considered to be Spanish 2 or not.
Biology isn’t offered, just honors science. As a freshman you can only take environmental science, honors is possible, but nothing more. I’m taking algebra l honors.
I take two electives each semester, and gym and health. We can’t take more than two electives, and we have to take two electives.
Can you list all your HS level classes so far?
Honors math besides Geometry is not much different from regular from what I have seen. It may be different at your school.
Compensate in something else. If you are in the 25th percentile in some place, be in the 90th in another. If you take regular math, CLEP out of Intro to Psychology it, and then pay for Dual Enrollment Abnormal Psychology or something (AN EXAMPLE). Then you stand out.
I’m planning on taking intro to human behavior right now, and so I’ll be on the psycology path, and I’m hoping for strong science courses.
English is my main focus though, as well as World language. I skipped a year of English and I’m takimg as many rigorous English courses as I can.
I don’t know if my classes count as “high school level” or not, so I’ll just list the honors classes:
Honors Science
Honors Civics
Honors Algebra
Honors English
Honors Spanish
Honors Technology
Honors GTT
They don’t really specialize as to what course level (like Biology ll, Algebra I, etc) sorry if this isn’t helpful.
I agree that Honors classes are generally not much harder than regular classes; however, they usually serve as prerequisites for important higher level honors and AP classes. Also, the problem with compensating in other areas is that when you apply to an Ivy, you will be competing with a whole bunch of people who don’t really even have to compensate–they’ll be very strong in all core areas.
See if you can take Spanish 3H and take Italian 1 as an elective. For your other elective, Intro to Human Behavior.
See if you can take Geometry Honors and Honors English for Sophomore year.
Make sure you are taking the Math, English, Foreign Language, Science and Social Studies at the highest level you can do well in as described in: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2055289-faq-high-school-college-prep-base-curriculum.html