Course Selection in High School

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hi guys, I’m new to the forums so please excuse my potential layman tendencies :stuck_out_tongue:

I am a sophomore this year in an Illinois public high school. I’m in a gifted and talented academy. My issue, however, is in choosing electives. I always try to exercise all my options in order to be favored among college admissions (my dream school being Harvard College). Below, I will post my current (and future course selection):

9th:

  • Gifted Algebra 2
  • Gifted Scientific Inquiries
  • Gifted World Literature
  • AP World History
  • Spanish 2
  • Fundamentals of Human Anatomy
  • Foundations of Health Care Science
  • Freshman P.E.

10th:

  • Gifted Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry
  • AP Biology
  • Gifted American Literature
  • AP U.S. History
  • Honors Spanish 3
  • Honors PLTW: Principles of Biomedical Science
  • Sophomore P.E.
  • Sophomore Health

11th:

  • AP Calculus B.C.
  • AP Chemistry
  • AP Language and Composition
  • AP European History
  • AP Spanish Language and Culture
  • Honors CNA***
  • Junior P.E. Leader

12th:

  • AP Statistics
  • AP Physics
  • AP Literature and Composition
  • AP U.S. Government and Politics
  • AP Macroeconomics
  • AP Spanish Literature and Culture
  • Honors PLTW: Medical Interventions***
  • Senior P.E. Leader

My issue lies in the electives with the asterisks. I am interested in medicine and I plan to become a neurosurgeon in the future. I do an extracurricular called HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) at my school. To participate, you need to take a health occupations class the same year. I have been doing HOSA since freshman year and I want to continue to do it until senior year. However, I realize that PLTW (Project Lead the Way) courses do not hold as valuable an esteem as AP courses do. Should I schedule my electives to take AP Psychology and AP Environmental Science instead? If so, then I will have to drop the extracurricular.

These are the rest of my “stats” in order to chance me into Harvard:

Extracurricular activities:
9th:

  • Student Council (member)
  • Math Team (member)
  • INTERACT club (secretary)
  • Class Council (member)
  • HOSA (parliamentarian, chairman of second parliamentary team)
  • Science Olympiad (member)
  • Tennis (JV first doubles)
    10th:
    same as freshman year except:
  • dropped Student Council, Class Council, and Math Team since I was not as devoted and was spread too thin
  • joined as 6th board of chess team
  • joined as manager of table tennis club
    11th and 12th:
    probably the exact same as sophomore year except I plan to create a JROTC club next year to educate future ROTC members.

GPA:

  • unweighted: 4.00
  • weighted: 4.909

AP scores:
-AP World History: 5

SAT: plan to take it, prediction: 2340+
ACT: plan to take it, prediction 35
SAT Subject Tests:

  • Math 2
  • Biology (molecular)
  • Spanish (with listening)

Thank you very much for reading all this. Sorry for the bad formatting, I am doing this is a rush.
Again, I am looking for advice for my electives as stated near the middle of this post and to chance me for Harvard College in the future.