Here are the classes I’ve taken so far. And for senior year, those are the classes I’m considering taking.
Freshman Year
AP English Language and Composition: A-
Honors Algebra 2: A
AP Environmental Science: A
AP Human Geography: A
Spanish 1: A
Physical Education: A
AP Art History: A
Sophomore Year
AP English Literature and Composition: A
Honors Precalculus: A
AP Statistics: A
AP Biology: A
AP World History: A
Spanish 2
Physical Education 2: A
Junior Year
AP Seminar Note: This counts as an English class at my school
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Psychology
AP US History
Pre-AP Spanish 3
Senior Year (Just Ideas! Comment any others!)
AP Research Note: This counts as an English class at my school
AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism
AP European History (or maybe AP Econ?)
AP Spanish
College Organic Chemistry 1 and 2
College Human Anatomy & Physiology 1 and 2
*Study Hall (would this look bad if I took a study hall instead of another class?)
Will colleges consider AP seminar and research as “English” courses? Although you may get some “credit” for having taken both AP English courses, it may look odd that you may be seen as having only two “real” English courses.
If you want to be a pre-med, grades in college courses will count toward GPA in medical school applications, so you need to earn A grades in them to avoid reducing your GPA for pre-med purposes.
@ucbalumnus that is a good point. I’m not sure how college view “English” courses. Additionally, I will make sure to get A’s in my college classes. Thanks for the quick response.
You may want to ask your colleges of interest what they consider your situation with respect to English to be.
If they consider it to be insufficient, then you may want to try to fit in higher level English electives (if your high school does not offer them, consider college English electives).
You may also want to find out from your counselor whether others in your high school with the same pattern of English and “English” courses you have were admitted to your colleges of interest.
For the California UC’s, AP Research is considered an Interdisciplinary course which fulfills the College prep electives requirement but not the English requirement. You should follow @ucbalumnus advice and contact the schools of interest.
Do not take Organic chemistry - it’s a weeder even the strongest university students fail, meaning that as a high school student it’s the surest way to kill any hope you might have to get into any Med or DO school.
Your schedule looks like overkill. As Stanford put it “it’s not a game of who has the most AP’s, wins”.
My recommendation for junior year is to replace AP Psych with a regular or honors English class, this way you’ll cover any college that doesn’t see AP Seminar as “English”.
For Senior year:
AP Research
AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism
AP European History (or maybe AP Econ?) (AP Euro is generally seen as more rigorous than AP Econ, so choose the class that offers the best balance)
AP Spanish
Regular or Honors English
Fall: College Calculus-based Statistics or Biostatistics (be careful to get an A in it)/Spring: College Anatomy&Physiology 1
Study Hall to deal with College applications
AP English Language and Composition - 4
AP Environmental Science - 5
AP Human Geography - 5
AP Art History - 3
AP English Literature and Composition - 3
AP Statistics - 5
AP Biology - 5
AP World History - 4
I would also vote for checking if you interest schools will accept 2 years of English plus 2 seminar as the same as 4 English. If they don’t, I would add some college English (comp and lit) to even that issue out. It is an academic solid scedule. You can probably take some classes that are a little outside the AP classes to show more well roundedness.
@Nickih I think it’s an amazing idea to take out some of the AP classes next year because I’ve only got an A- in 1 class before this year and now I have an A- in AP Seminar, a B+ in AP Calculus BC, and another B+ in AP Physics C. It’s not looking great for my GPA this semester. I’d like to enjoy my senior year.
I think this is the conclusion I’ve come to. It’s really easy compared to this year’s schedule, but I’d like to enjoy senior year a lot more than I’m enjoying junior year right now.
AP Research
AP Economics (I’m not taking AP Euro anymore because I’m already overwhelmed and I want to enjoy senior year)
AP Spanish
College English Composition 1 and 2 (Instead of AP Physics C because the mechanics part is already hard enough)
College Human Anatomy & Physiology 1 and 2
Advanced Physical Education (lol this class is weighted as an honors class at my school… how!!!)
Study Hall
why the College Human Anatomy & Physiology 1 and 2? Agree that if you are premed, any grade you earn would be part of your med school application GPAs, but most everything you learn would be likely long forgotten should you ever make it to med school in 4 or more years. In addition wouldn’t the simple hassle of commuting to and from college campus for course take away from opportunities to enjoy senior year. Isnt there some other hs school you could add?
I’m not a big believer in choosing courses based on what colleges (beyond the minimum they list and anyone would take anyway). Which courses to do you think will serve you well in the long term. What do you think you will pursue in college. If it is any STEM (including econ here) related area, then you should definitely favor STEM over humanities courses now. In that case, I’d go for AP Research and make sure to add math. That’s not because schools like to see that but because you will need that if you continue in any STEM related field. As you probably know, anatomy is a big memorization task which takes a lot of time for some and is really easy for others. Which is true for you? Adjust accordingly.
OP will have already completed calculus BC and statistics, probably the highest available in high school without going to college courses. However, some colleges may want to see a senior year math or math-heavy course (sometimes a course like physics or CS is allowed, for example).