<p>I am a homeschooled rising senior, and next year I have the option of removing some AP courses from my schedule in favor of more rigorous alternatives. Here’s my current schedule:
–AP English Language and Composition
–AP Environmental Science
–AP Macroeconomics (one semester)
–AP Statistics (one semester)
–AP Studio Art: 2D Design
–Calculus-based Physics (taking AP Physics C exams)
–Computer Science with Theory
–Economic Applications of Game Theory (one semester)
–Topology (one semester)
–WOOT</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m considering removing AP EnvSci, AP Macro, and AP Stats and replacing them with more rigorous courses. </p>
<p>Some possible replacements include Data Science (Caltech’s edX course and Coursera’s 10-course specialization), Astronomy (MIT OCW and Coursera lectures supplemented with a textbook), some subcategory of psychology (not sure; already took AP Psychology), another computer science course (maybe cryptography, compilers, or NLP), graph theory (unsure of resources), abstract algebra (MIT OCW w/ AoPS Group Theory), or a second semester of topology (unsure of resources; possibly including research).</p>
<p>I’m really considering Astronomy, just because it sounds more fun than AP EnvSci, but I’m not sure that will justify the extra work. Do you think colleges would prefer to see AP classes or challenging non-ape?</p>
<p>EDIT: I just realized how pretentious this sounds. In my defense, the APs I am considering eliminating are commonly regarded as the easier AP classes.</p>
<p>They want you to take the most rigorous classes available, which means AP classes in a lot of cases, but apparently not yours. This sounds fine.
[-X </p>
<p>Take out enviro and replace it with a comp sci class (compilers seems most useful for a university track), keep Macro, and replace stats with some math class (not to be shallow, but pick the one that’s the most complex/sounds the most complex)</p>
<p>I removed WOOT and AP Environmental Science in favor of Astronomy, Compilers, and Olympiad Geometry. What do you think of the following schedule?</p>
<p>–AP English Language and Composition
–AP Macroeconomics (one semester)
–AP Statistics (one semester)
–AP Studio Art: 2D Design
–Astronomy
–Calculus-based Physics (taking AP Physics C exams)
–Compilers (one semester)
–Computer Science with Theory
–Economic Applications of Game Theory (one semester)
–Olympiad Geometry (one semester)
–Topology (one semester)</p>
<p>Forget AP Stats and do WOOT. AP Stats would be a waste of time for you since you have so much math already. </p>
<p>@ClassicRockerDad: The reason I originally included stats in my schedule was because it is a branch of mathematics that I know next to nothing about, and I feel like it could help prepare me for college science classes. When I first mentioned dropping it, I was (secretly) planning to self-study for the exam over the course of a few days, but I’m not sure I would remember the material later that way.</p>
<p>Additionally, my weakest area of competition math is definitely geometry, so the AoPS Olympiad Geometry class should help me, and next year’s WOOT includes multiple weeks about number theory and algorithms. While those classes would be fun and I would probably do very well in them, they wouldn’t help me very much since those are my strong suits.</p>
<p>Plus, my mum likes Olympiad Geometry because (1) it’s cheaper and (2) she’s heard me say that I suck at geometry. ;)</p>