I’m going to be a sophomore this year and I’m trying to get ahead in my class. I take all honors classes and I’m taking APUSH this year. I looked at the schedule of one my friends and they are taking 3 AP classes next year. I can only take one AP class because I have to take gym (required class in order to graduate). I’m very nervous because I don’t know if I’m doing anything wrong. I calculated my average gpa if I get all A’s throughout high school and take the maximum number of AP classes available and it came up to about a 4.5. High school is becoming more and more competitive and I’m very stressed and nervous. Am I on the right track?
Keep this in mind:
- You will get into college. There are 3000 colleges in the US.
- You need to balance challenging yourself with overstressing yourself
- It is more important that you do well in fewer APs then poorly in more
- You are evaluated in the context of your school and its requirements
- It is very normal to take honors and maybe or maybe not an AP course sophomore year
- There will always be smarter kids than you
- Don’t make HS entirely about college…use it to explore other areas as well.
- Also don’t make everything about your GPA…like if you are interested in Photography take a Photography course instead of just taking something that will be weighted that you hate.
- You are doing fine! You are on the right track!
Definitely you don’t have to compete with everyone. There will always be someone smarter than you and someone more stressed out than you somewhere in the US, and if you go to a “most selective” university such as Harvard or Stanford there will be a lot of them. Pretty much everyone who goes to Harvard or Stanford or MIT was at or near the top of their class and thinks that they will be in the top 1/2 at university, half of them are wrong. The numbers that I have seen suggest that of the students who want to go to the most selective universities there are probably many more who get stressed out and suffer from serious stress related illnesses than there are who actually ever attend an “Ivy League or equivalent” university.
A better approach: Find your own pace and take this at your own pace. Take as many APs as you want to take. Keep ahead in homework, pay attention in class and participate in the ECs that you want to participate in. Then find a university that is a good match for you and that appreciates what you have done. There are thousands of universities in the US, 100 more in Canada, and many more overseas. You will find a good fit if you look for it regardless of whether you take zero APs or 8 APs over four years of high school (and the more APs you take the better your chances of having real difficulty).
The very fact that you asked this question makes me think that you are thinking realistically and sensibly about “what is the right pace for me”. This suggests to me that you are doing very well and are on the right track. Good luck and best wishes!