High School Student Aiming for Columbia [TN resident, 4.0 GPA (4.74 for UTK), 33 ACT, political science and statistics, <$15k (Columbia NPC $10k)]

Only for STEM majors.
Non-STEM majors ( as per the 2025 catalog above) need to take 2 science courses of their choice from the list. Review the link in case I missed something but even Honors College non stem students don’t have to do the 2/linked sequence thing as far as I can tell.
I think the APES exam would grant you one course equivalent of you score a 3, and 1course+lab/field if you score a 4 or 5. That leaves one other class of your choice - they have honors classes for non STEM majors and honors classes for STEM majors, don’t mix them up :grin::joy:
Thinking ahead wrt Law School, you should try and take another class in the department of Environmental science, environmental studies&policy, or Geography (physical or urban…) etc, regardless of AP credit.