Which courses your top 1% student is taking?
It depends if a student does do summer work or not. The most rigorous schedule a student can take at my school as a sophmore, without summer work, is AP European History, Precalculus Honors, Chinese II Honors OR Latin/Spanish/French III Honors (depends what language), Chemistry Honors, PE (semester), Health (semester), two semester long electives, and English 10 Honors.
However, a student who has completed summer work is taking a courseload that looks like this: AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C, English 10 Honors, Latin III Honors, AP Computer Science (online), PE (semester), Health (semester), Theater 2 as a semester elective, and General Art as a semster elective.
It depends on their courses the students take freshmen year. The tops students in my class right now are registering for all the AP’s the school offers for sophomore year. The GATE students also have an advantage as they are one year ahead from the rest in the math sequence.
An example of the Top 1%
Gate Student:
Probability/Stats or PreCalc or PreCalc Honors
English Honors
Mandarin 2 or Spanish 3 or AP Spanish ( if your a native speaker)
AP World History
AP Chemistry
P.E or Sport
ROP or Magnet Program
Non Gate Students:
Algebra II or Alg. II/Trig
English Honors
Mandarin or Spanish
AP/Honors Chemistry
AP/Regular World History
ROP or Magnet Program
P.E or Sport
A close friend who got into Harvard (now attending), as well as MIT, Cal Tech, Colombia, Stanford took this as a sophomore:
PE (required)
AP World
Honors PreCalc
Accelerated English 10 (highest available)
AP Biology
Honors Chemistry
& got straight As in all both semesters.
The typical advanced track for a soph at my HS is:
World Lit & Comp (honors English)
Pre-AP Biology
AP European History
Algebra 2
Foreign Language (French 2, German 2, Spanish 3)
Other electives
However the girl currently ranked #1 of sophomores worked it out with the administration so that she could take Pre AP Chemistry her freshman year so she is in AP Chemistry right now in addition to the classes listed above.
Mine is
AP Euro
Precalc
Honors English
Honors Bio
Honors Chem
Spanish/ French 3 Honors
Some are ahead but thats the top right now for a lot of kids
Generally, they would take:
-AP World History
-AP Seminar
-AP European History OR AP Psychology
-Honors Chemistry
-Honors English II
-Honors Level Language (Occasionally AP if you pass the test)
-Elective (Usually Band, Chorus, or Leadership)
Most rigorous core classes for a sophomore would be:
History: AP Euro (AP Art History is probably ranked lower, but AP’s are AP’s)
English: English II acc
Science: AP chemistry
Math: Honors Precalc
AP Chem is only available if you’ve already taken Algebra 2/trig and your science teacher approves it, so few people can take it as sophomores.
That’s pretty much the most rigorous coursoad available unless you have something really atypical about your schedule.
I’m the top in my class out of 100, and I’m taking (for soph year)
AP calc AB
AP physics
Honors Spanish 3
Honors English
Honors US history
Design 1
Foods 1
Gym
Computer apps
My school is very small, we really don’t offer AP classes until junior year but they made the exception for me in math and physics
My schedule is:
AP European History
Honors Chemistry
Honors English 10
AP Macroeconomics
Health
Honors Algebra II
P.E.
Spanish 4
It all depends on what your school allows
Sophomore Year (currently)
AP Calc BC (2 periods)
AP Human Geography
Chem Honors
English 2 Honors
Phys Ed
Spanish 4
Bio Honors (doubled up for Ap Chem, Ap Physics next year)
I don’t know my class rank but my schedule is a tentative so it’s not guaranteed as of now.