Her counselor can mention in the rec letter, too, that a schedule conflict forced her into a lower level class than she preferred.
It won’t hurt her – colleges understand this stuff. And if it makes you feel better, many colleges give the same class credit for AP Lit and AP Lang, so at those schools, it only benefits you to take one or the other.
Your D is definitely not alone. Both my kids wanted AP Lit, but because of scheduling issues, neither one was able to take it. At our school, none of the other senior English classes are weighted in any way (they are all just regular non-honors). So my D26 (whose stats are similar to your D’s) is stuck in a non-honors English option for senior year.
I’m sure this is the case for many, many students.
What is the current advice here:
Does student need to take a science in 12th, if student has Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and AP Environmental (4) already on high school transcript? Bio was high school level but taken in 8th.
Student wants either business or communications at reach school.
Does it appear on the high school transcript?
Is Bio on the actual high school transcript in the way that (at least at some schools) algebra/other high school math or first level LOTE might be?
It may depend on the college. I know some universities do look at math or LOTE taken in middle school, but that’s always followed by higher level classes of the same subject in high school. I am personally not familiar with colleges talking about recognizing other subjects taken in middle school. If that were my child aiming at a reach, I’d be inclined to suggest they take a science class in senior year, just like they would generally do 4 years of math during high school regardless what level they reached in middle school. For many colleges 3 years of science is fine so depends where you’re aiming. Just my 2c.
My D26 attended two colleges this summer, one had a key etc. the second one only had a Digital ID on phone to scan to get into building and purchase food etc. I asked he what she preferred and she preferred the phone option. I was a little worried because she does always seem to be running on zero charge 
My experience of teens and early 20 yo’s is that they are much more likely to lose keys, cards or wallets than their phones…
..and colleges all have key replacement fees of varying amounts of course.
Yes, there is Alg I, Bio, and Spanish I on high school transcript with number grades, but not GPA credit. There is a note that they were taken in middle school.
Student is willing to take science, and requested AP Bio, but her schedule has Organic Chemistry (post AP). I am concerned no other AP level science fit….3 of her classes are only taught in one section. She is probably just going to take it, I just think it is a lot of work for a non stem major, might make her look like she is premed or something, when she is not.
Thank you for your comment and I feel much better about her not taking AP Lit.
She could still take AP Lit but she has to drop a class which she really wanted to take just for fun. I think she earned it after all the hard work throughout her school years although she’s not done yet.
I knew that by having AP Lit on her course work won’t give her any benefits in today’s college admission, however, I thought that it might hurt a little, if anything.
Senior year can be stressful and if there’s a class she wants to take for her own enjoyment, she definitely deserves it! 
The classes they take for fun can also help to distinguish kids as individuals… and that just might be the thing that makes an admissions officer more interested in your kid. You never know. 
D26 started her Senior year last week! So far so good but going to be a busy year with 4 AP classes and an early bird 7am start. Luckily she is out at noon every day! My D26 is being recruited for soccer and just verbally committed to her top choice school this week…Grinnell! Kind of weird knowing where she is going before the applications are even in! Totally different from my older 2 and all the stress of college apps. D26 will be applying early decision in November. We are super excited for her and glad to have the recruiting behind us. Such a stressful process! We started it 3 years ago.
Captain’s log, star date 8.6.25. 
Today, D26 completed the counselors’ online questionnaire on SCOIR. Yours truly had to explain that a lot of the questions were not “just for the heck of it” like The Child thought but actually had a purpose…like gathering info to help them write a counselor LOR or gathering info for them to help you find additional colleges to explore during your search of where to apply.
To this The Child responded with:
Happy to report that The Child wisely chose to listen to her wise and all-knowing parent when answering the question about any challenges you’ve had or if there’s anything you’re worried about, The Child included info about the myriad of things she got sick with during 10th grade (resulting in missing over a month’s worth of school days) AND mentioned her worry/concern about being able to find a senior project to do during Trimester 3 when she’s going to have foot surgery and won’t be able to walk on 1 foot for 6-8 wk after.
The Child reported to this star fleet captain today that they all find out tomorrow which teachers are writing their LORs. And at that point, there will be a LOR request form for each of the 2 teachers for each student to fill out (this is how the student formally requests it, plus they have to talk a little bit about themselves).
Husband is disappointed that Child does not want to live at home and attend ASU. Eldest Child (D24) bluntly reminded Husband that:
Meanwhile, Child informed Husband that she didn’t want to live at home during college and she thinks she should live somewhere else so this has resulted in:
And Captain Janeway here is like:
But I don’t entirely have my act together because apparently in the Middle Eastern History class tomorrow they’re going to have a reading assignment that will require the 2 books that we learned about needing to purchase on the 1st day of class last Thurs…and I haven’t bought those books so Child chose to buy e-book versions of them on Amazon and now I owe her $25. 
And I still need to buy the College Essay Guy book for the college counseling class, but I’m kind of stalling until the counselors tell us it’s needed soon.
And it was 115 at our house today. So it’s like being on Tatooine. Like this part of Star Wars: A New Hope when C3PO was wandering around in the blazing sun with no hope in the world. We are totally ready for summer to end now.
Okay that fever dream mashup of Star Trek, Spongebob and Star Wars really worked for me. 
So, I have conflicting thoughts here. My oldest wanted to study linguistics or classics in college. She was on the fastest math track and ended up taking a post-AP (multivariable calc) her senior year. She had to have a math, but the only other option was AP Stats, and she was strongly warned that it would look like a “step down” after Calc BC her junior year. Plus, it was a small cohort of students that were on this track, and she was determined to stick with it (the other eight students in the class all intended to be STEM majors, lol).
Did she enjoy? No, not really. But she got a decent grade, and she got into a Top 20 school – where she is now double majoring in linguistics and classics. We have no way of knowing how much that class helped her college apps, of course.
In your kid’s case – I’ve heard organic chem for someone who isn’t interested is…ooof. Probably not the most fun, and it will be a lot of work. But I don’t know if not taking a science at all senior year will hurt her.
My D26 made the choice not to take a social studies her junior year because she really wanted to take an honors class called Construction, Engineering & Architecture. Her counselor advised against it, but she did it anyway. But then, she’s not aiming for any reach schools – and she has an idea of how to explain this choice in the supplemental essay for the most reach school on her list.
I wouldn’t worry about what rigorous courses will make her look like. Schools are looking for kids who are taking the most rigorous coursework available to them. It also shows they are intellectually curious and could likely handle a major change or taking a totally different minor in college. Not a bad thing. My senior is looking to major in public health or public policy and is taking Multivariable calc (already took AP Stats and BC Calc) and physics C this year along with a DE French class (post AP French). My daughter is not concerned she will look too STEM. She has extensive ECs in her area of interest. In high school, it’s best if they can take the five core subjects all four years.
I agree with everyone about rigor- I believe that was a big factor in S23 getting into the program that he did even with a lower GPA and no SAT/ACT score.
However, having said that, D26 is not taking a math this year because the only option available to her is Pre-Calc and she barely survived trigonometry. We decided her mental health and her GPA was more important. She is taking Environmental Science as well as Psychology, Sociology, Into to Philosophy, AP Lang and Honors English IV, along with several electives that are important to her major (Creative Writing, Media Production, Acting, Photography). So while she certainly wouldn’t get into the more selective colleges, it’s good enough for the schools where she’s applying.
We’re the same kind of thinking with C26, though their strengths are the opposite.
On rigor… I’m always conflicted on this because yes absolutely if you can you should if you’re aiming high. But holistic admissions always throws curveballs, as we saw with D19 getting admitted to NYU while classmates with better rigor, more APs and higher GPAs weren’t. (And her ACT was at the 25th percentile for the prior year but ended up being one point below that when they released the stats for her admission year - testing still required then). So yeah the flip side of go for high rigor when you can is also - shoot your shot for a reach or two, because you just never know what speaks to admissions.
Her reaches are Marist and Ithaca- she’ll definitely be applying to them. She MIGHT try for Pitt, but I’m torn because it feels like throwing money away.
The other thing she is wrestling with is whether to retake the SAT. She has so many other things that are a higher priority for her- school summer work, volleyball, Common App essay, and theater that she doesn’t want to take away from those by studying for a test that’s optional anyway. I am leaving it up to her but I told her that the deadline for the September test is August 29; she has to take a practice test before that date and score at least 100 points higher than her current score in order for me to pay for it. We’ll see what happens.
Some progress on common app though not essays yet! Activities section is done (I would still like to read it over) and started on the awards. There are two national level awards which is kind of cool even though they are not the top level in either of those - magna cum laude on the national Latin exam (idk how impressive this actually is?) and national merit commended - which I guess they need to wait for official confirmation before being able to put that in, but the cutoff has been released and they are above it. They won’t make NMSF in California. I think at this point the only rolling admissions on their list is the auto-admit safety so there’s not really a rush to get any apps in, but I would just like most of the work to be done before what will be a busy senior year gets underway. Goal for today is finish awards section and do SRAR, and hopefully some work on at least one of the essays. Annoyingly, they reset the students’ passwords each year and they only get the new ones next week, so they cannot go into Maia to update anything on there yet.
Like @sbinaz I think it was said before, I really wish we could just fast-forward through this process!
Colleges do like to see NLE awards from what we’ve been told, and from my D22’s experience. My D26 is also listing them – she has two summa (8th and 10th) and two magna (9th and 11th). Debated whether to put the 8th grade one in there, as I know the overwhelming advice is to not, but my D22 had four summa including 8th which earned her a nice award book and a chance for a scholarship, etc. – so figured it was okay to mention.
Also, D26 heard yesterday at her common app workshop that her school had an easy way of filling out the SRAR (now renamed STARS) – she was advised that students should NOT fill it out themselves, but rather ask the school to do it. Maybe check with yours to see if you have something similar? The only school we need it for is Pitt.
