<p>So far I have…
AP Calc AB
AP English Lit
AP Gov
AP Physics
Concert/Marching Band</p>
<p>Now I can’t decide between Anatomy/Physiology and Robotics/Programming (both are regular classes).
I’ve always wanted to go into the medical field, and much of my extracurriculars have focused around this, so I would think that anatomy would be beneficial and would look better on a college app. However, I’ve always wanted to learn about robotics and programming, but never found the opportunity until now (and I’m afraid that I might not have another chance to take a course similar to this). </p>
<p>From the viewpoint of an aspiring Stanford student, which class would you take?</p>
<p>Whichever one you want to take more, regardless of how it <em>might</em> affect your Stanford application. This way, it will make your senior year less stressful than it already will be (as studying will come more naturally). Also, colleges want to see that you’re passionate, not that you’re trying to please them.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that a lot of students, even at places like Harvard and Stanford, change their interests over their college careers, and so even if your high school record reflects a certain interest, it may not help you. For example my brother, who was accepted to Pomona College and Columbia (as well as a number of other places), was really passionate about competitive video game playing and design (and demonstrated this passion through his ECs and essays), yet specifically stated on his application that his interests were likely to change and he was unlikely to go into the video game industry.</p>
<p>I doubt it either would “look better” on your application. As zrathustra said above, what really matters is your passion/interest, because a)you want to have an enjoyable senior year, b)you do better in subjects you love, and c)you can show real passion for an academic field or a related career path in the essays.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I really appreciate your answers.</p>
<p>My passion really is in biology, and it’s likely that I’m going to continue with it into college. However, I am very interested to see what programming is like. My real concern is that it might not look good to skip a potentially valuable class just to experiment with a new subject for fun. If I took programming, I wouldn’t have any biology-related classes in my senior workload. I’m not even sure if I would enjoy robotics or not :)</p>
<p>Is senior year the right time to explore new subjects? Or would it be better to remain consistent?</p>
<p>If you aren’t sure that you’d like the robotics class, take the bio class. However, it will be unlikely that you will be able to take a robotics class in college (typically they’re higher-level computer science courses), so I would talk to the teacher and find out more about the course before making your decision.</p>
<p>The knowledge gained about programming will be tremendously helpful, even in bio. I don’t think anyone is going to over-analyze your schedule in the way that you have. They are just going to look at it and say “that’s a good schedule”, with either choice you make. Maybe the scheduling didn’t allow you to take the anatomy course… they aren’t going to penalize you for not taking that course, even if you didn’t take it by choice.</p>
<p>You’ll learn anatomy in college, most definitely.</p>
<p>Exactly. For the purposes of college admissions, either course will be fine. Take whichever one you’d rather take.</p>
<p>duckling: My S was a big Bio kid in highschool. He was 100% certain that he woud continue in college. Everything in his college resume, application, essay screamed ‘Biology’. As parents that always concerned us. We begged him to try some different classes in college this year. At first he was reluctant, but now he is so happy he did. And the funny thing is that he is taking CS 106A and loves it. As a matter of fact, he wants to be a CS major. Bio went right out the door…So I think its important to try different things. Move out of your comfort zone. You never know what you will find…You just may like it. (BTW he regrets not taking a CS class in high school. So many kids in the CS 106A class had lots of fundamentals and foundations that he didn’t have. Consequently, it makes it harder for him to compete. College is much much much harder than highschool. So even if your computer class turns out to be tougher than the anatomy class, it will never be tougher than what you will experience in college. So get it out of the way now and figure out if thats something you would want to pursue or not. You don’t want to figure that out in college, if you don’t have too.</p>