Hello, all. I need some advice on classes to take next year. To sum it up, I want to do a full AP schedule sophomore year. My intended major in college is business. Planning to take AP Calc AB (or BC if I can skip), AP Chemistry (taking chemistry right now as a freshman), AP Computer Science A (I’m in AP CSP this year), AP World History, and AP Lang with my other class being a PE period. Would love to hear insight from you guys on what to adjust or add or fix. Thnks
Is this a typical sophomore schedule at your high school? It wouldn’t have been permitted at my D’s school.
If you take this schedule, are you at risk of running out of any of your core subjects before graduation? What would you take for an English class as a senior if you take AP lang as a sophomore and I’m assuming AP lit as a junior?
Where is your foreign language class?
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Need to see plan for next three years to be most helpful.
Agree you need foreign lang. You will have to have bio, chem, and physics in HS too…so why take AP chem in soph year, after taking regular chem as a freshman?
How many AP courses do the top 10% of students in your HS tend to take in their four years?
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I would not skip ahead in math. The only students who could possibly succeed taking Calc BC this early would be students who are VERY good at math, and these are specifically the students who are likely to be using calculus quite a bit in the future.
I by the way was a math major. I did not take calculus until I showed up as a freshman in university (at MIT). This did not stop me from majoring in math, and did not stop me from using calculus a LOT including for other math classes, and for physics classes, and on the job after graduation. Since you are considering being a business major, I will point out that I also used some relatively difficult advanced mathematics in some economics courses, such as econometrics.
How did you do in the prerequisites for calculus? This includes algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and precalculus. Did you take all of these? Did you get solid A’s in all of these? These are very important for anyone who wants to jump into calculus early, or take calculus at all.
I think that taking all AP classes your sophomore year of high school is risky. I also think that it is unnecessary. I do not think that this will gain you much, and there is the very real risk that you will find yourself to be overwhelmed. It is much better to get an A in a class that you are ready to take, rather than jump ahead, get a B or a C, and find that you are not fully prepared to take the next class in the same sequence.
And I also wonder what you are taking in the way of languages. As a potential business major, it is at least reasonable to expect that at some point you are going to be dealing with people whose native language is not English. Even just being able to speak a few sentences in someone’s native language is valuable, and can help to make the point that you are willing to put in some effort to communicate with people from other countries and from other cultures.
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Why?
You should replace that with AP foreign language.
In all seriousness though, you’re missing a foreign language. Plus bio and physics are more important than AP Chem at this point.
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If your high school’s BC course assumes starting from where AB ends, do not skip.
Will you take all three of biology, chemistry, and physics (they do not all have to be at the AP level) in high school?
What level of foreign language will you complete in high school?
AP CS A is mainly of interest to those likely to be CS majors (or adjacent majors like computer engineering or data science) in college. If none of these majors is of any interest to you, then it may not be that important a course compared to others you may take.
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What does your guidance counselor say? Start there.
What does your current math teacher say about whether or not you are ready for BC Calc?
Why the rush here?
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I agree with everyone else. First, you should make sure your progression is approved by your teachers and counselor. No need to rush.
Second, the “safest” thing for kids interested in selective colleges to do is make sure to keep reasonably progressing in all five core areas all four years. This is “safest” in the sense that will fulfill both the core requirements and core recommendations at the vast majority of selective colleges.
Among other things, this means consistent non-native language study. And it means making sure you have taken all three of Physics, Chem, and Bio at the HS level.
Of course many people vary from this sort of program in some way and end up at a selective college. But if you can, why not make sure you are in a position to not have to worry about this at all when choosing colleges for your application list?
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This sounds really, really stressful. And I would imagine you think this schedule means that you will be a shoe-in for a T20, but guess what. It doesn’t. If the goal in doing this is purely for admissions purposes, you risk burnout with no ultimate payoff. If you are doing this because you are truly passionate about all of these topics and are quite advanced in all areas, fine, but then why are you asking strangers to validate you?
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Congrats on your obvious drive to take a highly rigorous schedule. I think it’s great that you want to challenge yourself academically.
Now, a few things to think about. GPA is critically important for the T20 schools you are aiming for. I think it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll be able to handle this proposed schedule and still end up with all A’s and 5’s on the AP exams. A better approach would be to take just a few AP courses and ace them and the AP exams.
Also, as others have mentioned, T20 schools will want to see 4 years of foreign language as well as one year each of chemistry, physics, and biology
Given all this, here are some possible schedules you could consider:
Tenth grade:
- Honors English 10
- AP Calculus
- Honors Biology
- AP World History
- Honors foreign language
- gym
Then for 11th grade, you could take:
- AP Lang
- AP Calc BC? AP Stats? Multivariable?
- Honors Physics
- APUSH
- Honors foreign language
- arts elective
For 12th, you could take:
- AP Lit
- rigorous math class
- AP Chemistry
- AP History of some type or AP Psych
- AP foreign language or APCS
- easy elective
This would be a highly rigorous schedule, but would allow you to have a better chance at being successful.
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I teach APCSA in Texas. I know some students who can handle this kind of workload. They exist but very rarely, I think about 5 out of 1000. It’s doable but you have to be very good at many things - very solid knowledge foundation (not just all As but scoring 1400 in PSAT 10), time management, self-regulation, emotional balance, etc., and you need two strong support systems, one at home and one at school (friends and teachers).
Regarding the courses you plan to take, I think APCSA is the easiest; AB/BC could be “not hard” if you can score perfect on PSAT Math or miss just one question; Chemistry could also be “not hard” if the teacher plans well; WHAP and Lang both have a lot of work and there’s no way around it even if you read fast and write well.
This schedule will leave you almost no time for any meaningful EC, which has negative effects both on your growth/character-building and your holistic application package.
I see some juniors taking this workload every year; however, junior year is known as the hardest, and the mindset is different. It’s more like the darkest time before dawn, the last turn before light at the end of the tunnel, etc. Sophomore year is supposed to be fun and enjoyable.
Please think about your plan several times before you decide, and make sure there’s a way to back out of some of the AP classes when you change your mind.
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I’ve found that this is heavily dependent upon the teacher. And to be fair to teachers, it’s a lot of work if they’re preparing you adequately for the exam.
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Hello, thank you for all the replies, you guys are awesome at advising and explaining adjustments to my schedule. To clarify few things: our school offers the IB program (going for full diploma), I am taking spanish one online currently and planning on Spanish 2 next year (or very rare SL Spanish as i know sophomores in it) in replacement for PE (switch to online PE), it’s my first time hearing about balancing your course load for all four years of high school, and i want to take HL math senior year. I’m in a pretty competitive school, they have sent students to almost every t20 college, and there’s a bunch of competition in my class/grade. I understand now that my current planned course load may not be ideal at all, and i plan to make adjustments ASAP. If there’s any more advice, I’ll be really glad to hear it.
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What would your four year schedule of classes be? It is difficult for others to help you without that context of your intended four year schedule.
Note that IB math A&A HL is not necessarily more advanced than AP calculus, although it may include additional non-calculus topics and be a greater amount of work (IB courses seem to have a reputation of being a lot of work).
Sounds to me like you are at a school where you’ll have strong counseling….please use it.
This may have been addressed above, but will your school allow sophomores to take AP Lang? That’s typically a junior class, and AP Lit is typically for seniors. At my kids’ school, advanced students take honors English in grades 9-10 and then the APs, and there’s no flexibility on that. In fact, at our highly regarded public school, very few freshmen and sophomores take more than 2-3 APs by the end of sophomore year – the balance of available advanced courses shifts from honors to APs in junior year.
I agree with others that a foreign language is essential if you’re thinking of applying to highly selective schools (and really, it’s important regardless). It would be much better to take Spanish as a class in school and not online. I think that’s more important than fitting in AP CompSci right now. You should plan to get to level 3 or preferably 4 in Spanish.
Will your school allow you to take PE in the summer? My kids’ school allows kids to take PE online in the summer (it was basically honor-code workout logs and a few quizzes and other assignments), and that’s how my kids were able to fit in extra academic and elective classes during the school year.
A lot can change in just a few years. Don’t plan for a specific major now – you’re in 9th grade! Just plan to get the best well-rounded education you can, and challenge yourself without overwhelming yourself. Burnout won’t help you at all. You don’t have to take all the APs, and you don’t have to get a jumpstart on them in 10th grade.
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I understand you’re looking to max APs, but success is far more important. Colleges would rather see a mix of APs and Honors with all As rather than all APs with Bs because the workload crushes you. Talk to your counselor about what constitutes a school’s definition of “max rigor” when they send materials to colleges. My D28 is choosing junior year courses and her counselor actually advised against 5 APs rather than just 4. She is a very high achieving student and every 10th grade teacher is recommending AP in their particular subject, but that doesn’t mean taking them all is a good idea.
Agree that two CompSci courses doesn’t gain you a lot, especially because AP CompSci is one of the “easier” APs. Get in your biology in 10th grade rather than a second Chem, and plan for Physics in 11th. Let them see a foreign language on your transcript. There’s no benefit in jumping to Calc BC, you’ll already get to high level math by 12th if you’re in Calculus as a sophomore.
Give yourself room to breathe, to be well rounded with ECs that you enjoy, and take care of your mental health.
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OK, so this is important information. The good news is the IBDP is an extremely well-respected curriculum by US colleges, and in fact I think it is fair to say it is typically considered more rigorous than even most AP-based college prep curriculums. Among other things, if you do that program you really don’t need to worry about loading up on APs beforehand. Note also that Groups 1-5 are essentially the same five core areas as in a traditional US high school curriculum, so doing IBDP satisfies that same basic requirement of having progressed reasonably in all five core areas and being well-prepared for continuing your general education at a selective US college.
With all that context in mind, I would circle back to the idea of working with your teachers and counselor to make sure you are doing what they think will help you be best prepared for this program at your school. The rigor of the IBDP curriculum is no joke, and you want to be methodical about making sure you do as well as you reasonably can throughout the program.
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Please keep posts focused on the OP and their questions. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.