Hello! I am a sophomore who is very passionate about animals and music who wants to go to Cornell with an ultimate goal of becoming a veterinarian. Because of this, I want to have the best possible schedule. I wanted to do this after my second quarter grades came out, but the deadline is coming up really fast and I want people’s opinion on this sooner than later
These are my 1st semester grades (the 2nd quarter grades are projected)
English 10 (no honors)- A, A+
World History (AP exam not required but highly recommended)- A, A(+?)
Pre-Calc Honors- A, B+
Chem Honors- A+, A+
French 3- A+, A+
English elective (unique to my school so not revealing name) Honors- A+, A+
Music Theory (prerequisite to AP class) A+, A+
Gym (required)
Health (required)- NG, A+
Orchestra- A+, A+
These are the classes I’m definitely taking next year-
American History (AP exam not required but highly recommended)
AP Music Theory
Gym (required)
English elective
Orchestra
AP Physics 1
I know you don’t know me in person, but would you suggest I take
- AP Lang or English 11? (heard AP Lang is A LOT of work)
- AP Calc AB or BC? (heard people get C’s in BC O.O)
- AP Bio or Chem?
Please keep in mind that I will be busy during junior year, as you know that I would need to study for the SATs and/or ACTS. I also plan to volunteer at a bird sanctuary and an animal shelter and shadow a veterinarian regularly if I can find the opportuntity. I also play piano and violin and have a couple of ec’s in that area. Oh, and I also plan on signing up to the Columbia Science Honors Program, but we’ll see how that goes.
Since I’m already here, I might as well put up my projected senior schedule.
English 12 or AP Lit
Soc electives (to satisfy requirements)
Multi-variable Calc (if I take BC) or AP Stat (if I take AB)
AP Bio or Chem (whichever I did’t take junior year)
AP Physics 2
English elective
Gym (required)
Orchestra
Med Tech (elective)
Sorry that it’s super long and for the typos, and thank you for any feedback 
The order of AP Chem vs. AP Bio is a personal preference. I’d suggest doing whichever one you feel you can achieve the higher grades your junior year, as colleges will only see mid-year senior grades before RD decision time.
Cornell, like many top schools, will give AP credit for AP Lang or Lit, but not both. Personally, I am not a big fan of taking an AP class for which I may not receive credit, unless I were really interested in the subject. The advantage of taking AP Lang as a junior is that, if the course is taught well, it really helps make you a better writer, which will be invaluable for writing college essays (and a good life skill as well). Unless one of your mysterious English electives focuses on writing, you might want to at least consider AP Lang.
If you were to take Calc AB as a junior, is BC as a senior not an option, or does your school only offer it as a comprehensive class incorporating both AB and BC in one year?
Definitely take AP Lang. I was debating between AP Lang, Junior English Honors, and English-11… I went with AP Lang, and for me at least it wasn’t nearly as much work as I thought it’d be. I am not even that interested in English but the teacher (again, for me personally) was fantastic and my writing improved tremendously. Also, most of our work was long term… Our teacher would assign a paper a week or more in advance, same with assigned chapters in books, so it gave me a lot of freedom to manage my time (just don’t procrastinate).
I’d recommend taking BC Calc, our as @skieurope said find out if you can do one after the other. At our school, only the people who were at the lower end of PreCalc H do poorly. If you are getting A and B+ you should be ok for a solid B average in BC and B+ or A in AB. There is a decent curve at our school so you might want to check on that too.
AP Chem vs Bio doesn’t really matter, but I’d say that since you’re coming right from Chem H (with good grades too) you should go with AP Chem b/c it will be fresher and it seems like you are already strong in Chem so it shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve heard that the comparable difficulty of those 2 APs varies a lot by school, but at mine at least AP Chem is a lot less work (hw) than Bio but about the same “test” difficulty.
@skieurope @Saj3118 BC at my school is a comprehensive course which condenses AB into 4 months. I asked my teacher and she said nobody does AB then BC. Also I don’t think there’s a curve.
The english elective (the same elective all 4 years) is a class where you can basically create your own project and carry it out, whether it be a novel, short story, poems, etc. So I guess it focuses on writing, but it’s not like you’re taught anything from the teacher. I do have a lot of interest in writing (or why would I take this elective all 4 years?) and I’ll definitely consider AP Lang, though the workload is like doing 2 essays a week while finishing a book all post-ited in 2 weeks on top of daily hw- I just don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the workload.
Hmm, personal preference. Heard most people at my school go with Chem first, but I think I’ll do Bio just to be a rebel 
Well I don’t know where you go to school, but at mine AP Lang work is pretty much: Essay due next week, finish half of the book in 3 days, that’s it" … Also, AB and BC calc overlap so I doubt anyone does them one after another, which is corroborated by your teacher. AB is just Pt1 and Pt2 of Calc, while BC is Pt2 and Pt3. At my school PreCalc teaches you enough of Pt1 that you go into BC with a solid foundation, maybe it’s more difficult at your school because they don’t do that? Anyway, AP Physics is probably the hardest class you’re taking so don’t worry too much. I’d also highly recommend AP Stats, loved that class and it was one of the most useful classes I’ve taken. Hardly any work (just 10pgs of textbook reading a night), tests not too hard, but a really good class.
Since you’re getting A+ in HChem, I’d suggest AP Chem. However, AP Chem AND AP Physics is a bit of an overload.
Go for Calc BC if you can but ask your math teacher if she thinks you can get a B+ or higher in it - and the conditions for “dropping down” to AB. Ask her also if the AB-> BC option might nt be offered, ie., you’d cover AB thoroughly over one year, then in BC you’d do the 4 month review and move on to the rest of the syllabus. Another option, if there’s a community college nearby is to take AB at your HS, and calc 2 at the CC.
Since you’re clearly building a competitive schedule, I assume you’re aiming for TOp 25 universities/LACs. These will want to see your foreign language up to level 4 (or AP).
If the workload for AP Lang is as heavy as what you said - 2 essays a week + 1 book IS a lot - you could take English Honors, especially since you have the famous unique English elective that shows you’re not a slacker in English.
It’s AP Physics 1, not AP Physics C. YMMV, but AP Physics 1 is not as time consuming as AP Chem; I think they are OK together.
Thanks for the responses guys really appreciate then
@Saj3118 At my school people either do AB or BC right after PreCalc Honors so I would hope that PreCalc prepares us well.
lol everyone complains how hard AP Physics 1 is at my school 
Also do you think that if I take BC, then I should take out Med Tech senior year and take Multi-var calc and AP Stat at the same time?
@MYOS1634 if I were to say that I got an A+ for Honors Living Environment (basically just bio) freshman year would that change anything?
I will definitely ask if I can drop down to AB after the school year starts.
About the foreign language 1) my schedule is already full and 2) I REALLY dislike learning foreign language I know that that’s reallly bad and that this is gonna come back and bite me sooner or later but I already stopped taking chinese (my native language) classes outside of school because I just couldn’t handle it.
Also there is no english honors AT ALL in my school- just AP, regular, and a class specialized for people who need help succeeding in english class
If Chinese is your native language and you’ve taken French up to level 3, you actually have an out! => take the Subject test in both and score as high as you can. Yup, it’s very rare to have students applying with two good Foreign Language Subject scores (640+). Plus, if you score high enough, you may even get some of the college graduation FL requirement waived (in part or totally - it depends on the college).
Have you taken the Chinese SAT Subject test? If not, pencil it in for November. AND of course, schedule French for May or June (check that it’s offered on one of these dates).
This way, you won’t be penalized and you don’t have to take French 4 (nor Chinese.)
Ask if you’re allowed to drop down from AP Lang to Regular but plan to take AP lang if at all possible. Because English Regular + no foreign language (even with the score) would portray weakness in languages and it wouldn’t be good. :s
You don’t need AP Stats; it’s a math class that’s lighter than calculus, for students who want to major in social sciences or can’t/won’t take calculus. It doesn’t “add” anything. Even if you plan on studying economics, colleges will want you to take the calculus-based stats class…
If everyone thinks AP Physics is super hard, then definitely don’t take it alongside AP Chem. Doubling up is not necessary and this schedule could well be an overload.
@MYOS1634 alright will consider that option.
But I plan on taking AP Physics both years (1 and 2). How would you suggest me taking AP Physics 1 and 2, Bio, and Chem before my high school career ends? Or do you have a better option?
I talked to my precalc teacher and she said that for prevet you only need to take calc 1 (and thus only AB) and that I should take AB to focus on sciences (she knows cuz she used to be in prevet herself)
Any thoughts on this?
AP Calc AB is perfectly fine, especially if you can focus on the sciences and take more than one at AP level AND do very well.