<p>I realize that it's very important to have a challenging courseload. At the same time, I'm pretty involved in ECs and I really don't want to be churning out 8 hours of homework a night...
I am debating whether to take four or five honors as a freshman...and one of those will be hon. precalc, which is supposedly one of the more rigorous math classes.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to be significantly involved in debate, science fair, olympiads, and a few other activities.</p>
<p>So which classes did you take, as a freshman in high school? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I sincerely hope that you are not an eighth grader planning out your schedule to maximize your chances for Harvard during freshman year.</p>
<p>To answer your question, I took the straight honors track at my school (some sort of algebra, English, Spanish, World History, Biology), along with some courses that dealt with my private interests, like Orchestra and Web Design. However, my classes weren’t on the skill level of precalculus - I will be the first to tell you that my math skills suck. From my experience, doing any olympiad and a boatload of other ECs is suicide; my country track meet and the actual Science Olympiad always fell on the same darn Saturday - it was quite stressful running a race and competing at the same time; I don’t recommend it. Pick a few ECs and excel at them - don’t scatter all over the place and attempt to be a jack of all trades.</p>
<p>If you do, you’ll end up like the iPhone: good at everything but excellent at nothing.</p>
<p>Do not base your high school career solely on getting into one school especially if that school is Harvard. A good adcom will see through “This will look good on my application” and 93% of people applying to Harvard are dissappointed. If you put yourself through four years of of loading up with ECs that you don’t like and then don’t get in you’ll be far beyond disappointed. My advice is do what you want to do, and when it comes time to write your apps put down those things that you did and enjoyed. Then whatever the result you will not have any feeling that the past four years will have been in vain.</p>
<p>I have to second YankInLondon’s post. My D did not concentrate on getting into any one school and while she enjoyed doing a variety of things, she took two areas (music and one sport) and showed a true passion for those in terms of involvement and achievement. She was not a recruited athlete or musician, but I am sure excelling in those areas did not hurt. Getting into H and P was a wonderful surprise which she worked very hard for but did not have as a singular goal. Last year the son of someone we know with academics equal or superior to my D, did not get into any Ivy (applied to all) and we wonder if was because the admissions staffs sniffed out that he had done everything just to put tthem on an Ivy-bound resume.</p>
<p>Four honors classes seem just as impressive as five honors classes. Your freshman year class choices will make little impact on your overall application, so plan a schedule that you feel is the best. Remember that GPA is more important than class rigor, and that high school freshman year is a happy time.</p>
<p>Oh my God I totally thought this was a post about Harvard undergraduate freshman year courses until I saw the second post and reread. The Honors Precalc thing threw me off a little, but hey, I’m ignorant, maybe these things are true.</p>
<p>It’s really not about Harvard or any school in particular, it’s just the general question of how much freshman classes matter. </p>
<p>Thanks for the input everyone.</p>
<p>Honors Algebra 2
Honors English 1
Honors Biology
Honors US History 1
Orchestra-This is just because I like playing the violin
PE/Health-Mandatory
Chinese 3
Honors Chinese 4</p>
<p>I’m a freshman right now</p>
<p>I totally agree with TheYankInLondon. There’s nothing you can do to guarantee your admission into Harvard or any of the top schools, even if you take fifteen AP classes and are president of every club and organization in the school. </p>
<p>If you spend your high school career doing things solely to get into a particular school or subset of schools, 1) The adcoms will likely see the lack of passion in your app, and 2) No matter who you are, there’s a really high chance that you won’t get in (it’s just a sad fact of life), and wouldn’t you have rather spent your time in high school doing things you enjoyed?</p>
<p>Work to find your passion, and do things that genuinely interest you. Find productive and unique ways to utilize your talents. If you do that, you’ll often find that it naturally creates a better college application than you could have if you tried.</p>
<p>Agreed. Chill on college for now.</p>
<p>If it helps, my freshman year schedule went like this (I have been waitlisted at Harvard, btw):
Honors Geometry
Honors World History
Honors Biology
Honors Spanish II
Honors World Literature
Sacraments/Hebrew Scriptures
Drama/Health and Fitness</p>
<p>The health and religion courses were required.</p>
<p>Our 9th grade curriculum is pretty much decided for us, but here you go.</p>
<p>To explain some things before I start, honors is a multidisciplinary program with 3 classes. The top 80 students in 8th and 9th grade participate in it. Outside of that, the “honors” level is called AA. Through 9th grade, for most people, there is no choice in language as Latin is required 7th-9th. We are tracked in math in 7th grade (though I was actually tracked in 5th grade). Phys Ed. is required and scheduling forces everyone to have study hall (in other words, it’s not strictly for slackers).</p>
<p>9 Honors Modern History
9 Honors Latin III
9 Honors English
Biology AA
Physical Education/Study Hall
Senior Orchestra
Algebra II AA </p>
<p>Other people from my school who have gotten into Harvard have had pretty much the same schedule, except that they took art or band rather than orchestra, and one of them may have been in the more regular track for math, taking Geometry AA.</p>
<p>I got into Harvard from Ontario, and my freshman year was almost nothing but mandatory courses. I also should say that applying to Harvard wasn’t even on my radar until December of my junior year, so you needn’t obsess over it at all from your very first steps into high school. That’ll only set you up for disappointment. I took:</p>
<p>Grade 10 Academic French
Grade 9 Academic Science
Grade 9 Open Phys. Ed.
Grade 9 Academic Geography
Grade 9 Open Dramatic Arts
Grade 9 Open Instrumental Music
Grade 9 Academic English
Grade 9 Academic Math</p>
<p>(Academic = Honours)</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it! Freshman year is there for you to get ready for the true high school experience 
It is way too early to be thinking about getting into Harvard. I know I will sound hypocritical when I post my freshman schedule though:</p>
<p>AP Calculus AB (5 on AP exam)
AP U.S. History (5)
Honors U.S. History Support
Honors Spanish 1
Honors Spanish 2
Honors Chemistry 1
Honors English 1
Honors Discrete Math</p>
<p>My twin sister and I had to literally fight the school system to get those AP classes. Thankfully we did, and we showed them that it was justified.</p>
<p>But all the best of luck leatherlibertarian! You will do great! 
Hopefully, we both make it into Harvard I’m applying this fall, and I am terrified…</p>
<p>hmm…</p>
<p>french 2
anatomy and physiology (college course)
gym
honors global history
ceramics
studio art
honors geometry
honors bio
home ec
honors english</p>
<p>My high school don’t offer any honors classes & they don’t offer AP classes to Freshmen at ALL. </p>
<p>So I just had to take
Band
Physics
English
P.E.
Spanish
Pre-Calc</p>
<p>The best thing to do is focus on growing and developing, so that in 3 years you will be a more mature person and student with lots of cool things under you belt. Anyway, I can give you my schedule.</p>
<p>Geometry (accelerated track, no honors available)
Chemistry (accelerated track, no honors available)
Honors English
Honors Global
Honors Spanish II
Mixed Choir
Womens Chorus
Band
P.E.</p>
<p>(On a side note, I clicked on this hoping it would be Harvard students saying what classes they took frosh year…)</p>
<p>You probably have enough examples, but here is what my freshman year schedule looked like (I had ZERO honors classes). I was accepted to Yale EA. I also agree with what many of the above posts said. You really shouldn’t be worrying about getting into Harvard or any top school freshman year. I was more focused on making new friends and adjusting to high school in general at that time.</p>
<p>Health/PE
Biology
Geometry-(I can’t believe people are taking pre-calc as freshmen!I took it junior year :O)
Chinese 1
World History
Art 1
Freshman English
Orchestra</p>
<p>EDIT: Sorry for posting. Didn’t realize that this was a 3 year old thread! :(</p>