high school course selection - looking ahead of college apps
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Anonymous
My kid only had AP Bio out of the 3 and he was accepted to 2 Ivies, Hopkins, Gtown, etc. (not stem major). He had honors in the others. |
Anonymous
| Honestly, I would ask your specific questions on this forum. Obviously- it is not perfect. But if you are savvy enough to wade through bad advice, there are people on here who are very knowledgeable and helpful. Maybe not for everything for college admissions- but for course selection this board is pretty good. |
Anonymous
You are not paying them to look up the requirements at schools and by the way, no school has requirements to this level of detail. You are paying them for their judgment and alleged knowledge of what Admission Officers think/look at when evaluating an entire student's application. You as an individual can decide this is a waste of time and money or they don't know any more than you know or not a service you wish to pay for. But no, they are not an expensive human google machine. |
Anonymous
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OP: you don't say what colleges your DC is targeting, so first off, very different advice would follow if their main goal in life is maximizing their chances at a T10 school versus anything else. (And, FWIW, given how random and unpredictable admissions are even for those who check every box, one probably should question whether that should ever be any kid's main childhood goal).
I've got two MPCS grads, both at T20 schools, and they each took only one AP science class, as did the vast majority of their classmates who ended up at top schools (some took IB instead). As others have mentioned, AP Bio is generally a 2-period class, at least at our HS, so you'd be skipping out on something else if you tried to add honors physics that same year. And for kids who do IB science, which is generally a two-year sequence, many who take IB Bio don't ever take physics. The uniform advice we got was to hit the max level in each core subject, and so skipping Spanish 5, which presumably means not even doing the year before AP Spanish, would be a far bigger issue for most top schools than not having two AP sciences. (Of course every kid is unique, and schools presumably understand if there is a reason--eg dyslexia-- beyond just it being hard. And if your kid truly would be miserable in two more years of Spanish, they have to decide whether maximizing their chances is even worth it to them). I know MCPS counselors can vary in helpfulness, but they will be in the best position to tell you the general profile/course history of successful candidates from your school to the schools your DC is targeting. |
Anonymous
If you had paid attention you'd see he did not say that - he said in Bio Chem and Physics - that's not EVERY SCIENCE - there's also environmental science, psychology etc |
Anonymous
No, what you're describing is extreme and it does happen and I have seen it, but taking 2 languages and not taking band or ceramics is not quite the same thing at all. |
Anonymous
My kid took summer language courses at our community college to get around a bad program |
Anonymous
Well, to be fair most top schools want to see that kids have exhausted what the high school has to offer, hence UVA and others saying they want to see applicants who have taken “the most rigorous” courses offered. |
Anonymous
Disagree. If two kids have the same six highly rigorous core classes and one takes band/orchestra/fine arts as their 7th and the other takes a second language or extra science or something like that, most colleges will not look at them any differently. |
Anonymous
| We have a private counselor, and our friends have different counselors. For T20-30, if kid is interested in STEM, they all recommend taking at least two of AP bio, chem, and physics, but all three not needed. Friend's kid was admitted to Stanford with STEM interest with only two of these three last year. Two is enough to show rigor. I'd recommend bio or chem junior year and Physics-C senior year. As for humanities, for T30, it will help for them to have at least some AP's. Not sure about how important the Spanish is - that's probably school-specific. And, it's important to know your kid. If they cruise through rigorous classes in these subjects and won't risk lower grades if they add more AP's, go for it, but be wary of adding AP's they may get less than an A in. In total, you'll want at least 9-10 AP's by end of senior year to show rigor expected at top colleges. |
Anonymous
Should have added: she was admitted to Stanford and Harvard actually. |
Anonymous
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Unless your kid is a real science kid, I'm not sure I'd recommend both AP physics 1 and AP Bio the same year. It's doable, but remember that they'll be in a bunch of other AP classes. My kid to AP Physics 1 sophomore year (along with honors chem). It was her most time consuming course and the one (along with honors precalc) where she had the most borderline grade. She's in AP Bio this year (junior year) and it it is her most time consuming course. It's double period, so it should be, but it is by far the most time consuming. Very different courses. AP physics 1 is almost a math class. AP bio is mostly memorization.
It seems to me that if you do both junior year, that will take 3 periods. Add AP calc, AP lang (i.e., English), and AP foreign language (all of which are more or less expected) and you only have one period for an 'easy' class. |
Anonymous
| Once again - so glad my kid goes to private school without AP classes. What a racket. |
Anonymous
Well, if there are a few AP classes, it is not typical that they would mostly be science. And anyway, this was presented from the college counselor as general advice for high-performing students. |
Anonymous
| Regarding the which order to take sciences, it depends on your school curriculum. At our private, kids do bio in 9th, chem in 10th, chem or bio honors in 11th and take physics senior year bc it is calculus based. So, senior year kids take physics and calc together (calculus ab bc, whatever). At other privates in our area, physics is taken junior year and another private, kids start physics in 9th. At our school, kids are told to take 4 years of all core academic areas (math, science, English, history, foreign lang). Excellent college placement and trusted advice. |