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.