what does "most demanding" coursework really mean?

cottonkk
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:31:05 +0000

Hi folks…

So Im a junior this year and Im starting to seriously think about my colleges. Ive always wanted to go to a pre-dental program or a top uni like Carnegie Mellon, Emory, and perhaps even JHU. And there were a couple questions I would like to hear your opinions on! (Plz be honest LOL Im looking for honest feedback, even if its a bad thing).

Question 1.) “most demanding” coursework. Im a little confused on how Im going to be judges by the GC on this. I know this top universities would like to see that I challenged myself and and all that good stuff. But my situation is a bit diff. I transferred to a top private high school during my sophomore year. During my freshmen year, I went to my public high school and I took the most challenging schedule possible. (Honors English, Math, bio, history and Spanish 2 (Span 2H not available for freshmen). When I transferred to my private school, during my sophomore year I was given restrictions, such as not being able to take AP Euro. history cuz I was “new” and arent allowed to take AP history (to this day it still bothers me LOL). So I had to stick with CP history and english (they kinda go as a package, like if u took AP history then u take honors English kinda thing). Sucks, but I really didnt have a choice. However, I took honors math and science and I also took Chinese 1 b/c I really wanted to learn Chinese and my public school didnt offer it. So my schedule for 10th grade was; CP history and english… honors math and science and chinese 1 and orchestra. I fought with the chair of the history department and did everything I can, but in the end she told me that if I did strong work in 10th grade, I could take AP US history junior year.
And thats exactly what I did… I aced every class and my junior year schedule is AP Lit, AP US history, AP Calc BC, and AP chem, and Chinese 2. Senior year, Im thinking of going back and taking the following AP: AP Modern Euro (whatcha guys colleges will think about this??), AP stat, and AP Bio.
So… All in all… Chinese doesnt offer honor or ap classes cuz its quite new to the school (just started last year)… will I be penalized for this? and how will college think that I took span in freshmen and took chinese sophomore, junior, and senior year?? Also, how will my GC view my sophmore schedule? Did my 10th grade schedule is going to screw me up and not get that “most demanding” checkbox? PLZ HELP AND MUCH THANKS!