<p>Hi everyone! I am a soon-to-be high school senior who is currently very stressed about the upcoming school year (as I'm sure many others are LOL) and in need of advice regarding my schedule.</p>
<p>Call me a wimp, but I am still recuperating from my junior year during which I took 3 AP Courses (US, Physics, English Language) and several honors courses. This year, I'm registered to take 6 courses on top of college applications and extracurriculars/sports, and I'm rethinking my decision. I know I want to take AP English Lit, AP Gov, AP Psychology, and AP Calc. I'm also slated to take AP Spanish (but I will probably drop down to regular level, because I have no time to become fluent in Spanish this year :s) and AP Biology. </p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, I'm in no way interested in taking AP Biology. Although I have succeeded in science and math courses, they just don't interest me as much as the humanities and I know that I won't be pursuing a science career. Would it decrease my competitive edge if I took AP Psychology and AP Human Geography for science credit instead of AP Biology? It's not the work that's daunting me, it's just that the content doesn't interest me and it won't help me with my major in college. I'm undecided as of yet, but I'm interested in English and Political Science (in hopes of pursuing law or education). My stats are decent (4.0 GPA; 34 ACT; 2180 SAT, 800 WR 680 CR 700 M with a possible retake) plus lots of extracurriculars, and I'm hoping to get a merit scholarship to a college and perhaps splurge for grad school. Specifically, I'm aiming for a college in NY (CUNY Macaulay Honors, Fordham, Adelphi) or in Boston (BU, BC, Northeastern).</p>
<p>Sorry for my essay; I'm just in serious need of advice! Thanks so much in advance for all of your help!</p>
<p>It may make you less competitive, but in this case I think taking the classes you want is better. For one thing you’ll enjoy your senior year more and a single AP class is not going to knock you out of contention for any school. Have you run the Net Price Calculators for your schools?</p>
<p>Yes, it will decrease your competitive edge, especially if you replace it with AP human, which most colleges don’t even give you credit for because its not up to par with the other APs.</p>
<p>Also most schools will consider AP Human Geo and AP Psych as social sciences, not sciences. As others have said, it will put you at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>LOL I may have exaggerated with the need to become “fluent” in Spanish, but the Spanish program in my school is very weak and I feel unprepared to be taking AP Spanish. I love Spanish and I would love to study it in the future; however, I feel that with all of my other AP classes and ECs and college apps I won’t have time to devote myself to the course. I would rather excel and progress naturally upwards by taking Spanish 5 than take AP Spanish only to get a poor grade. </p>
<p>Just a question, how significant would this disadvantage be? I have taken all the required “regular” sciences (for my state) in honors classes already and I excelled in AP Physics (although I hated every minute of it). As I’ve said before I would much rather take AP Psychology and AP Human Geo because they are more relevant to my interests and potential career path.</p>
<p>@"Erin’s Dad", how accurate are Net Price Calculators? I would love to try them; I just need to convince my parents to help me because I’m honestly unaware of our financial situation.</p>
<p>My daughter did not take a science her senior year (she took AP Physics B her junior year) and was accepted into an Ivy League school. Unless you are planning on being a science major, I do not think that dropping AP Bio is going to make much of a difference. The belief that one class is going to make you or break you is misplaced. You have a very strong schedule.</p>