What should I do for senior year?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I have a bit of a unique situation. I go to a vocational technical school for healthcare sciences. In our senior year, we can either stay at our school or take our classes at the local community college (County College of Morris, actually a pretty good school as far as community colleges go). Obviously I have a while to think about this, but some insight would be helpful, especially from an admissions perspective. I think I could make either situation work and enjoy it, so I’m really thinking about the pros and cons as far as getting into colleges (I’m looking at some of the top LACs). Also note I’m planning on majoring in Neuroscience.

Here is my schedule for this year (junior) and how my senior year courses would probably look if I stayed at my school (also just an FYI the healthcare classes that are marked with an asterisk are a part of my specialized curriculum and count as honors classes on my transcript as we get college credits from Rutgers University for them):

Also note that my school only offers 2 AP classes: AP Physics 1 and AP Calculus AB.

Junior year:
US History 2
Honors Precalc
AP Spanish Lang (taken online)
AP Physics 1
Honors English 3
Nurition*
Medical Math*
Health and Wellness*
Intro to Clinical Research*
Anatomy & Physiology 1*

Senior year:
Global studies
AP Calculus AB
Honors English 4
Honors Environmental Science
French or Chinese 1 (unless I take AP Spanish Lit online or something)
Maybe I could push to take an AP science online??
Certified Medical Assisting (actually get certification)
Anatomy & Physiology 2*

Now if I go to the community college:
Senior year:
English Composition 1 (S1)
English Composition 2 (S2)
Class for phys ed requirement (proabably aquatic fitness or tai chi) (S2)
Lifetime Wellness (S1)
Cell Biology (S1)
Anatomy & Physiology 2 (S2)
Calculus 1 (S1)
Calculus 2 or maybe CS (S2)

That’s just the courses that my school will cover. I may pay for additional credits because I really want to take American Sign Language and maybe a pysch or computer science class. It’s like $150/credit or something so I think I could probably afford one extra class a semester. Do you think taking 5 classes a semester is doable if I’m still keeping up with my extracurriculars and doing an internship?

One big question I have is that if I only take one semester of Calculus at community college, will it count as a 4th year of math? Or do colleges really want to see a full year of math?

Basically, from actually looking at a break down of each year, staying at my school will give me a broader range of classes, but at community college I think the courses I’d be taking would be more advanced. Which do you think colleges would like more?

Sorry this is a lot of information and I’m a bit scatterbrained but if you have any questions ask away!

2

1semester ofcalculus in college =1 year of HS math :), 1 semester of English composition should also count as 1 year of English - check with your HS.

You would need to take one more humanities class though - right now, with only 3 academic classes (Phys Ed doesn’t “really” count for college) your schedule is a bit light.

What is “certified medical assisting” - what does this consist of?

What percentage students get 3+ in AP Calc?in AP Physics 1? What percentage get a 5?

If you go the CC route, a good alternative may be:
Semester 1
English Composition 1 (S1)
Lifetime Wellness (S1)
Cell Biology (S1)
Calculus 1 (S1)
History or Arts/Humanities class (Philosophy or Ethics tends to “look impressive” if you think you can handle it. Also, there may be fewer students - always try to find discussion-based classes for Humanities and check RateMyProfessor.)

Semester 2
English Composition 2 (S2) <- probably not necessary, check with HS => replace with ASL?
Class for phys ed requirement (probably aquatic fitness or tai chi) (S2)
Anatomy & Physiology 2 (S2)
CS (S2)
Psychology

3

If you don’t mind my asking is it MCST? I live so close to that school and CCM! We’re also the same year - both juniors! One of my friends that I played club volleyball with is a junior and goes there too! Sorry that got me really excited haha. As for the classes, I think it really depends on what you want. Colleges will not punish you for not taking courses your school does not offer. However, if you want to challenge yourself and really take harder classes than community college might be a good route. If it was me, I’d want to stay at my school my senior year with all my friends so I would enjoy senior year however if my friends were not going to be there because they were taking community college and I felt that would be better for me, I would do that. I also agree with the revised community college schedule suggested above.