Where do you draw the line between course rigor and rank/GPA?

Pre-College Topics High School Cafe
1

<p>My school’s weighting system:</p>

<p>AP/ECE: 1.08
Honors: 1.06
College Prep: 1.04
Practical: 1.02</p>

<p>The higher the weighted GPA, the higher the class rank. At the moment, I have ~98w, but I don’t know what my rank is. Probably top 20-25ish.</p>

<p>I’m trying to figure out which APs I should take. I want to keep my rank up, but I also don’t want to lack “course rigor”.</p>

<p>Example: I don’t have a die-hard love (more like a 5.5 or 6/10) for history, but I’m thinking about taking APUSH because it might be interesting and despite all of the work its notorious for, a couple of the kids I’ve talked to have taken the class think it was rewarding. On top of that, I’ve only taken 2 semesters of history so far (+1 semester of civics), and I’m wondering if taking APUSH will somewhat make up for that.</p>

<p>But I don’t know if it’s worth getting ~91.8w in AP vs. ~99.64w in H.</p>

<p>Other borderlines:</p>

<p>Spanish
Modern Euro. History
Calc. AB (I like math, but I’m not great at it)</p>

<p>Probably taking (not all next year):</p>

<p>Chemistry (if it’s even offered :/)
Physics
Environmental Science (.5 year)
Lang.
Lit.</p>

<p>Where do you draw the line for classes you’re iffy about?</p>

2

<p>For me, there is no real line…
I’ve decided I’m going to go at this all or nothing…I’m taking the hardest courses i can, dedicating hours to EC’s and generally sitting on the brink of disaster. I get everything in just on time, i make the A’s and i do good in my EC’s, but it could all go wrong oh so quickly…
This comes from a personal philosophy based on the idea that if you don’t take risks in life then there is no real fun it it all :)</p>

<p>But, that is to say…do what you feel most comfortable with! This is just my personal idea</p>

3

<p>^ Same here. I’m a senior and in the last 2 years I was never really concerned with keeping my GPA up. I just signed up for the hardest courses I can take.</p>

4

<p>Truthfully, yes i want to get into my top choices and go on to do great things, but i just love knowledge, knowing, and learning…so I’m gonna push myself to do those 3 things</p>

5

<p>Totally depends on college list…</p>

6

<p>What’s your intended major?</p>

7

<p>Most likely some branch of science.</p>

<p>Psychology, Environmental Studies, Chemistry, etc.</p>

8

<p>I just scheduled for my senior year and just went for 3 APs (wanted another one but ran out of room). The line is more personal, as for me when it was down to economics I had the option to take marco/mirco but I figure since I have no clue what these classes will be like, I figure that I would just keep it regular.</p>

<p>For English: I would take Lit if you want to read a bunch of stuff and Lang is more focus on language arts (back to 2nd grade lol).</p>