What were the biggest mistakes you made in selecting your course schedule for 10th-12th grades? What would you NOT do again? What was the single best strategic choice you made and why?
I would have taken more languages. Two years just isn’t enough!
4 years of one language, or take multiple languages at the same time?
4 years of one.
For me, it would have been not looking at what courses most colleges either require or recommend because it might not be the same as which courses are required to graduate from high school. I had to take a class my senior year when most of my classmates took it junior year. I’m lucky I realized it in time to take it, but it would have been better to take with my grade.
First, keep an eye on the target school you want and what do they NEED. Set your target being the match school, the realistic schools you like to attend. Don’t kill yourself with unrealistic choices. Then, goto the collegeboard website, type in the specific school and click on applying and the open the Academics/GPA tab and check out the requirements.
For top schools, you must have 4-yrs of English, Math, Foreign Language. If you are not going to be STEM major, then at least 3 years of social studies, prefer with 4. If you are going to be STEM major, 4 years of Science with at least 2 yrs of Lab. Some HS has a certain path print out for the kids to follow. But you have to remember that path is likely for the majority for the kids from your HS and not the top 5% there wanting to apply the Ivies and/or the top 30 Universities.
The biggest mistake my S and D made - esp. our 1st D - follow this path and not fighting against the prerequisites set by HS administrators.
Try to get your entire academic profile be ready for submission by the end of the Junior year. Senior year grades count but increasingly, schools are getting so competitive with the regular round of review that any boost from the senior year mid-year grade will be minimal (and not to mention the incredible stress you will have during the Oct-Dec timeframe with the college essays and the need to improve your senior year grades). Take as many AP classes as possible. In my S’s HS, they won’t let kids to take AP in 9th grade and only one AP in 10th. That has become an issue with some parents as nearby HS districts are allowing kids to take more APs early on.
If you can take AP classes early on, get APHG, APUSH, APSCY out of the way early (9 and 10th grade). Then AP Lang, AP (bio/chem/phys), AP AB, APEcon (Macr/Micro), AP WH for 11th… and AP Foreign Lang (or AP Lit), AP BC, AP (bio/chem/phys), AP Euro/AP Econ. For top schools, you need at least 7 APs (preferably under the belt during the review process). This is a profile for highly competitive STEM majors (and you can substitute the classes with social studies core if you are not a STEM major).
The biggest mistake is not taking enough foreign language, not vigorous enough a curriculum, and not getting the complete academic profile ready by the end of 11th grade.
Honestly, I wish I took AP Physics C instrad of orchestra sophomore year. We got a new orchestra teacher that year and I really disliked her. I did dual enrollment for my junior and senior year so the AP Physics would have gotten me out of most of the physics sequence and allowed me to take more advanced mechanical engineering classss sooner and more of them (and credits = $$).
Then again, my dual enrollment physics teacher encouraged me to take some great higher level physics courses that I probably wouldn’t have taken otherwise so I guess it all worked out. Still, that orchestra teacher was the worst.
What I regret the most, currently, is overloading myself senior year. I decided to make the brilliant decision to take 5 APs (4 of which are core classes) + Spanish IV Honors AND dual enroll for 15 credit hours in the spring, and despite the fact that I am earning very strong grades, at times, I am miserable trying to maintain such a schedule on top of extracurricular activities (which are almost non-existent at this point) and home life struggles.
Taking numerous random APs/dual enrollment for the sake of college admissions is disingenuous and is more trouble than it is worth, and the advice to “take as many APs as possible” is what has lead to so many sophomores coming on these very forums to share their prospective 6+ AP junior year schedules in which they’ve dumped their favorite ECs, commonly band or orchestra, or opportunities to take unweighted electives that they actually find interesting in exchange for the opportunity to squeeze in another AP (frequently, one like AP Environmental or AP Psychology). While I definitely agree that not having enough foreign language is a major problem that people tend to ignore, taking as many as 6 APs in one year is ridiculous and a recipe for failure and burnout. I don’t know what truth there is behind this, but there are diminishing returns, even at top schools, after taking eight to ten college-level high school (AP/IB) or actual college courses (dual enrollment) on one’s overall course rigor.
On top of all of this, if you’re actually aiming for top schools, then you will need to maintain commitment and time-intensive extracurricular activities on top of those courses and, depending on the year, SAT/ACT practice or college and scholarship applications.
Taking AP Calc without any basis in Calc this year. I haven’t been keeping up with anywhere close to the amount of work I’ve needed to do, and am very likely going to fail the class this year. Not great, no. Also, the taking of 4 other AP classes alongside that has been… a poor decision, I think.
Should have taken AP Enviro instead of AP Bio this year… Just trying to get by with a B in that class.
Taking advanced track in math and language (2 years ahead in both). Counselor said that they would try to figure something out for me senior year, probably not going to happen and I’m screwed
Take a look at this:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2055289-faq-high-school-college-prep-base-curriculum.html#latest
Mistakes I have seen people make:
Taking advanced AP classes before they are ready, e.g., taking AP Chem as a sophomore with no previous chem background
Taking DE classes but not the right ones. For a nursing major, you should be taking some science and math not sociology just because it is a college course.
As a sophomore, I don’t have any earth-shattering regrets, but I do have some things I would do differently if I could do them over again.
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I would have taken honors algebra 2 instead of regular. I’m not sure how well I would have done in honors, but considering that I took regular algebra 2 and maintained an A+ both semesters, the extra challenge in addition to keeping my “cohort” of advanced students that I was used to taking classes with couldn’t have hurt too badly. Yes, there were some positives that came out of regular algebra 2, but it took a serious blow to my self-confidence (the mindset that I’m not “smart enough” to take honors) and it kind of messed up the rest of my high school math plan.
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I would NOT have taken Natural Resources sophomore year (or any year, for that matter). I took the class with the assumption that it would be an elective science/agriculture class that would act as a regular-level environmental science class of sorts. In reality, it was the easiest blow-off class I’ve ever experienced. Sure, that A+ helped my GPA, but the class was a waste of time. It was primarily full of upperclassmen who neglected to try in their classes and who just needed to fill a slot to graduate. The work was basically busywork, and points given out were basically completion points because half the class didn’t actually complete their work. I did NOT work hard in that class, and I still easily passed with 100%. I wish I would have taken another class instead, like Organic/Biochemistry.
I’m a currently a high school sophomore. So far, I’ve had a few regrets.
- freshman year: should've taken geometry instead of geometry honors since I didn't know that geometry honors would be phenomenally hard, and I ended with a C+ both semesters
- freshman year: should've taken Computer Science Honors instead of Choir. In eighth grade, I was naive and took Choir just because one upperclassman told me that music looked good on college applications.
- sophomore year: should NOT have taken AP Euro. I plan on going into STEM and nothing history related. I thought that I would take AP Euro because I liked AP World History, but I didn't know that I only liked WHAP (mainly because of the teacher and the content) but did not like AP Euro (because of both the teacher and the content). It has turned out to be a complete waste of time.
- sophomore year: should NOT have taken APCSP and should have taken APCSA instead. I took Computer Science Honors the summer before sophomore year and thought that it was a bit difficult, so I thought that taking APCSA would be too hard. I should've not questioned myself and should've taken APCSA, because APCSP is way too easy. If I had taken APCSA during sophomore year, then I would not have to take it during junior year and would be able to take AP Stats during junior year instead.
I really regret these choices, but I can’t change anything now, so it wouldn’t be worth it to fret over it. Oh well. Mistakes happen, and I’ll just learn from them.