<p>My d is in HS and is planning to do pre-med in college. She is strong in math and science- but I don't think she knows if she wants to do her undergraduate in an engineering field or in something along the lines of a "Human Biology" major. We live in the midwest and plan for her to apply to surrounding state universities that have good honors programs, and to also apply to Cornell and Amherst college.</p>
<p>I just wanted to get some thoughts on an idea we had for her schedule. She is only a sophomore now, so we have some time to figure this out. She took the ACT at the end of her freshman year and got a 33. She is currently tied for first in her class out of 700 students. We think her rank will fall to top 1% because she has to take non-weighted dance class to be on the dance team- she will have done this her freshman, junior, and senior years. She is also participating in community service and does competitive dance at a private studio. </p>
<p>She has the option of getting an EMT certification her senior year in high school. This would take the place of 2-3 other courses (probably weighted, ap courses). </p>
<p>Her schedule through junior year:</p>
<p>Freshman Year
Algebra II English 9 Honors<br>
Chemistry Honors<br>
World Geography Honors<br>
Spanish II
Dance
Careers/ Dance Teaching Assistant
Health (summer)</p>
<p>Sophomore year
AP Chemistry
AP Art History
AP Statistics
Etymology- 1st semester
Trigonometry- 2nd semester (condensed course of trig & pre-calc)
English 10 Honors<br>
Anatomy & Physiology<br>
Spanish III</p>
<p>Junior year
AP Calculus A/B<br>
AP Lang<br>
AP Biology<br>
Physics Honors<br>
Spanish IV<br>
Dual Credit US History
US Gov; online (one semester)<br>
Dance</p>
<p>Choice "a" for senior year:
EMT Certification
AP Calculus B/C<br>
Dual credit English<br>
AP Physics<br>
Organic Chemistry (one semester)
AP Econ- macro or micro (one semester)
AP Spanish<br>
Dance </p>
<p>Choice "b" for Senior year:
AP Psychology
US Gov (one semester)<br>
AP Econ- macro (one semester)<br>
AP Calculus B/C<br>
Dual Credit English<br>
AP Physics<br>
AP Spanish
Dance</p>
<p>Any thoughts? Her class rank will fall if she takes one less AP. Dual credit courses are not weighted as much as AP- so her rank will fall a little when she takes these as well. Do you think she should skip the EMT and go straight for academic courses only? Her goal is to get into honors programs and to get some scholarship $; getting into an ivy league not important to her. </p>
<p>Any advice is appreciated.</p>
<p>Thank you :)</p>
<p>Nothing she does in high school will affect her eligibility for med school admission. </p>
<p>Med schools only look at activities/coursework from college and not any farther back. Well, unless it’s something pretty exceptional like published research or an Intel finalist… Or if she has any dual enrollment courses. (Which then are included in GPA calculations for med school admissions.)</p>
<p>EMT-B (I assume she’ll be doing basic–which is the entry level for EMT.) is a pretty useless credential for med school admissions, IMO. It’s easy to come by and does not impress adcomms since they see so many EMTs, CNAs, phelbotomists, medical scribes, etc as applicants. An EMT is only valuable if she actually does something with it. i.e. works as paid or volunteer EMT. And then the prinicipal benefit it gives her is clinical experience and maybe a topic to write about in personal statement for med school admission.</p>
<p>Also EMT certification and licensing requirements vary from state-to-state. Even if she takes and passes the national exam (which is not universally accepted), she may not be able to get credentialed outside of the state she took the EMT class in. Also EMTs require recertification/relicensing every 3 years so she’ll need to actively maintain her credentials during college.</p>
<p>Now if you want advice/chances about college admissions–you should probably ask in College Admissions forum</p>
<p>[College</a> Admissions - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/]College”>Applying to College - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>or possibly the High School Pre Med forum:</p>
<p>[High</a> School Student Topics - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-student-topics/]High”>High School Student Topics - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>If she is just starting her sophomore year now, and you’re already looking at options for senior year, I think you’re looking too far ahead. She has at least a year and a half before this even becomes an issue. A lot can change in that time, and I don’t think it does a lot of good to look quite that far.</p>
<p>Also, if her goal is a good school with a good scholarship and an honors program, taking 1 less AP course her senior year and being ranked 2 vs. 3 will be probably make absolutely no difference whatsoever.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Everything that has happened to me wrt my dream to be a physician/scientist started with the work I did in high school. (probably even before that) A good foundation in high school sets the tone for success in college and beyond.</p>
<p>
I was asked questions about high school rank, gpa, etc. on secondaries this cycle.</p>
<p>@momofsmartdancer, a few suggestions. Taking AP Calculus AB then BC the next year makes no sense to me. The two are not a sequence. AB is usually taken by seniors who are unsure of their abilities and is then followed by Cal II in college. You can take BC either junior or senior year then start with Cal III in college.
Unless your D has some great interest in being an active EMT, there is nothing to be gained by doing this.
Which AP Physics? (B or C) I recommend “C”. Also, why take Honors Physics first? My first Physics class was AP Physics C. I had no problems with it. </p>
<p>
I totally disagree. My high school had everyone file a 4 year plan and this was very helpful in ensuring that students didn’t waste time taking classes they didn’t need and not missing classes they did need. Good planning also allowed me to graduate after 3 years instead of the usual 4 years.</p>
<p>plumazul-</p>
<p>I really do not understand their course sequencing in math at our school district. She did an accelerated Algebra 2/ pre-calc last year as a freshman. Since they covered some of the material that they usually cover in a year long pre-calc class, they have advised the higher ability students they should NOT take any math their first semester of their sophomore year and instead take the trig class the second half of their sophomore year. I really don’t understand the point of accelerating them if they are just going to have them not take anything for a semester…
Regardless, I will look into your suggestion about doing the calculus BC class next year. I do know that students are allowed to take a university class if they run out of math classes to take at our school district. However, I think they discourage it and I suspect that at our somewhat rural school district, they might stereotype that a girl who is on the dance team and not on the academic superbowl should not be accelerated in this manner. I ran into problems with them in the past trying to get her accelerated into an AP course as a freshman- it was a no go on this…</p>
<p>In regard to your question about physics- she will be taking Physics C after taking the Physics Honors class. Taking the Honors class is required at our school. I asked the same question as you about the need for this class because I thought the one physics class I took in college was super easy. However, since I did not go past that I just was not sure about this matter. They tested her math IQ at school and she tested at 148. Do you think I should try to get her advanced in these areas?</p>
<p>BTW- they would not let her take AP World History as a freshman; she ended up getting a 100% in the honors geography class… so they are very stubborn about providing challenge to their gifted kids in high school and seem to prefer to hold them back so as not to give them an advantage over the rest of the student population. They provide AP classes to the entire student population and there is no real standard to get into one of these classes. Likewise, they will not let a gifted student take them earlier than any other student.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help and your input!</p>
<p>I agree that it is important to have a sense of direction for the remainder of high school, and it’s fine to look ahead, but realize that it’s all open to change. It seems she has a pretty clear direction, and this is mostly a matter of whether EMT or more AP is a better choice as a senior for a potential pre-med. Am I interpretting this correctly?</p>
<p>I also sympathize with what you’re saying about not having enough opportunities for gifted students in HS - I’ve been there. It still seems like your daughter has a LOT more opportunities than many students, especially for a “rural” school district. I ended up running out of math at my school, for example, and had to take online university math courses.</p>