<p>Do college want to see you push yourself to the limit by taking the most AP/Honors classes available? Or would they rather see you balance your schedule out and get a evenly distributed set of A’s and B’s? The thing is, I don’t know how many AP/Honors classes I should take next year. At first, I thought about balancing my schedule because of SATs and all the other stuff Juniors have to worry about. Then I thought about what my teacher said about taking the most rigorous courseload possible and getting DECENT grades in them. He said that 6 APs with all B’s would look better than 3 APs with all A’s. I know that some people take easy classes so that their GPA won’t suffer. How much studying will I need if I took 6 APs in my Junior year?? This question is very general and I want to know if I will be able to set aside time to study for the SATs and do sports. I really want to maximize my courseload but I don’t want to overdo it. What I mean by overdo is by getting mostly Cs and Ds. I want mostly As and Bs. Do you think 6 would be too much? We have 7 periods including 1 of which occurs both days(odd/even). 4, 5, or 6 APs/Honors? I want to get into a good UC, Berkeley, LA. Thanks in adv…</p>
<p>To answer your question, Colleges DO like to see that you push yourself, I dont know about to the “limit” lol, you don’t want to kill yourself. </p>
<p>if you can handle 6 AP’s and pull off B’s. Then I would go for it, but still you don’t want to stretch yourself. And you would have an OK chance of getting into UCLA or UCB…but honestly from what ive seen, it looks like those schools flip a coin for admissions.</p>
<p>Ok, I think I’m going to take 4 AP classes. Is that too little or something? My courseload for Junior year: AP Calc, AP Bio, APUSH, AP English, 3 more electives… Do you think I should take more/less?? Again, I am planning on putting aside extra time to study for the SATs. I also want to work on my ecs which will probably consume a lot of my time (sports/music included). Thanks.</p>
<p>I think that adcoms also look at the school profile that the counselor must send in. Our district only offers 8 AP’s total and that is not even a guarantee if the numbers do not support the class. If there are only a few kids who sign up for the class then it is not offered. Kids can then take the class or a similar class that is accelerated and a weighted class though not what an AP wieghts or they can take PSEO. The nice thing about PSEO is that it is a college class taken on the college campus and the district foots the bill. The bad thing is that not all colleges accept PSEO classes. They will however acknoeldge it on transcript. Similar to how colleges differ in what AP’s they will give you course credit for dependent upon the score on the exam. Northwestern gives credit for a 3 on AP chem but Miami only gives credit if its a 5.</p>
<p>Our AP’s by the very nature that they are so limited in their offering are so rigourous that most kids never take 3 at once. Some do and my daughter did her junior year, but only took 2 her senior year. All of her other courses were accelerated classes.</p>