<p>To those students who got into Princeton and other great schools at the same league:</p>
<p>Suppose at yor Junior year, you took the following courses:
<p>Even with this course load, could you have still be able spend significant time on your ECs daily? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Depends on what you mean by “significant.” I took three of those AP courses my junior year (Lang, Calc AB, Chem), US history honors, and two music electives, and I had absolutely no trouble committing time to extra-curriculars. I could’ve done more. If I had taken the additional AP Spanish, USH, and Bio, I could see it being tougher and a bit more stressful, but I wouldn’t have had to sacrifice my important commitments (marching band, concert band, jazz band, math team, and after-school tutoring) which, in the end, are the only ones that matter (they’re the only ones I put on my application, too). Princeton and other top schools don’t care to see that you’ve done every club your school offers: they want to see passion and commitment to a few activities. Having too many, I’ve heard, may suggest the applicant has spread themselves too thin, though I’m not positive.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>For me, AP History and AP Biology would have been the only classes in which I didn’t already know the material, so yeah I could have still committed ample time to EC’s. That being said, it’s definitely a challenging courseload by any objective measure. And I’m not sure it’s all that helpful to ask other people how they would have done. If you think you’re can handle it, go for it. If not, don’t. Taking one extra AP really is not going to make your application significantly better. Doing poorly in all of your classes because you’re trying to balance 6 AP’s with EC’s could make your application significantly worse.</p>
<p>It depends on your school. I’d say if the AP classes aren’t time-consuming, go for it. If not, just study on your own and take the test. That way you can do everything you want without having any binding commitments.</p>
<p>Personally I took a very similar schedule when I was where you are: AP chem, bio, physics, calc AB, Span Lan, Eng Lit, Econ, and Envir. Sc. As long as you are willing to be really disciplined about devoting time to your week to week problem sets, studying etc, you should have some time to go into some kind of activity in depth.</p>
<p>Well, with this course load, do you think you would have enough time to spend in ISEF Research, or STS research, or anything like that?</p>
<p>you have time to spend on the extracurriculars that really matter to you. if you really care about the research then you’ll make time for it, but if the only real reason you’re doing the research is to enter some competition that you probably won’t win and really doesn’t help that much in the long run (and thus your heart really isn’t in it), then you’ll have some problems.</p>
<p>I took six APs (senior year, juniors can’t take APs except in special circumstances) and I played a sport, coached a rec team, was President of two kind of wishy washy clubs, and Captain of an intense extracurricular. It was doable time wise, and I did okay in my classes, but I honestly would not recommend it, I don’t know if it was worth it.</p>