<p>I will be starting as a sophomore this fall at a somewhat rigorous high school (I know you already dismissed the rigorous part, but its legit at IMSA, my school). I am very interested in computer science, and rather good at it. I might even try for the IOI (olympiad in informatics). My school has quite a few computer science courses, but you can only take them in junior and senior year,and my junior year’s gonna be unfortunately stacked. How can I balance going to a tough school and focusing on that elusive 4.0 while pursuing what I like? Any advice is appreciated 
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<p>I attended a magnet school and I personally found that I had the most amount of time during long breaks and summer to work on cs projects (like video games and apps). You will need to manage your time well and multitask in order to make room for programming. I’m an entering college freshman (cs major at Cornell) and I know in high school I would spend my 10 minute breaks in between studying to work on one section of my game and I found if you break things up in chunks and create study periods throughout the day and afterschool, you get your work done and have free time to do things you enjoy. For example, study for 30 minutes, take a 5 minute break to work on something, then continue study. Then, on the weekend, devote most of your time to programming and cs stuff. </p>
<p>Have you think about summer or online classes? That would be one remedy when it does not fit your schedule. Check if your school district offer that. My D could not take the AP CS due to a stupid principal’s class scheduling idea (putting multiple AP in the same slot). It was too late to do anything when we found out and that was her senior year. At the end, it does not affect her application to any engineering school she applied though.</p>
<p>Well if you are ‘rather good at it’ then this probably won’t help you, but you can sign up for Harvard’s intro CS course online at any time and finish by the end of the year:</p>
<p><a href=“CS50's Introduction to Computer Science”>https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx/harvardx-cs50x-introduction-computer-1022</a></p>
<p>But I don’t totally understand what is really driving this question. Are you concerned with finding the time? Do you actually need more instruction? Or is it more that you want to take CS classes so they are on your transcript but can’t fit them in?</p>
<p>If you are already ‘rather good’ at CS, then just do it. I don’t see the issue.</p>
<p>There are lots of great CS courses online at edX, Coursera, etc.</p>
<p>@ormdad by ‘rather good’ I was trying to express that its not that I’m looking for help with the learning part but need help finding time. It’s sort of like how people ask how to make time with a bunch of extracurriculars
I think @JanAnna did a good job of answering that question.
@billcsho thanks, I didn’t think of that</p>
<p>@josephhutter12 Are you attending Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy? According to the course catalog, you can take some computer science classes in sophomore year. Computational Thinking, Web technologies 1, and Robotics Programming are available for sophomores, with no prerequisites. </p>
<p>@vniatge you have to get explicit consent from higher-ups. Anyway, if I care enough about cs I should make time, so this whole thread sort of sounds pathetic. Thanks to anyone who responded</p>
<p>If you want to self-study:</p>
<p>Some course materials of interest:</p>
<p><a href=“CS10 Home Page”>http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/archives.html</a> (overview for raw beginners to CS and non-CS majors)
<a href=“CS61A Home Page”>http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/archives.html</a>
<a href=“http://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci0170/”>http://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci0170/</a>
<a href=“Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare”>http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/</a></p>
<p>Some books of interest:</p>
<p><a href=“http://composingprograms.com/”>http://composingprograms.com/</a>
<a href=“http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/”>http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/</a></p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>Who cares about a 4.0?</p>
<p>It’s not the end-all and be-all of life. Trust me on this.</p>
<p>Try edX or Coursera</p>