How many AP classes should I take junior year?Answered
I know there are a lot of factors so here are some details:
Some important colleges on my list are Duke (reach), Northwestern (hard target), Boston college (target), Vanderbilt (target), and Yale (reach).
I am half white and half Latino because my mother was born, raised and went to college in a South American country. (I understand this will help my chances a lot)
Not sure how many AP classes my school offers but it is a public school and the best in our county.
I would like to consider myself an advanced student. These are some classes I took this year as a sophomore: Math 3 honors, Health sciences 1 honors, AP statistics, Chemistry honors, and the rest were all honors too. I also have leadership positions in 2 clubs and am a member of 6 total. I have plans to start my own for next year too.
I play club volleyball and I just joined the school golf team. This means 2 1/2 hours of practice each day.
I plan to become a doctor. Right now I am thinking cardiologist, neurologist or pediatric oncologist.
The AP classes I plan to take are APUSH, AP lang, AP spanish, and AP biology.
Is this too much?
Thanks for the advice!
Would these be 2 APs each semester? I think right now what you have is pretty doable. In fact, if you have additional AP classes at your school I would try to squeeze in more if you think you can handle it. Maybe AP Chem? With the schools you are considering I think shooting for 10+ APs total is a good goal. Although you did have all honors essentially so maybe you be ok with 8+
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1 answer
Hello!
First off, congratulations on all these achievements! Before I answer your question, just know that this is my opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Personally, given all your commitments, mainly your sports activities, I would take three AP classes in your Junior year. Your homework from each AP class can vary, but I would like to average it out at about an hour - at least this is what it is for my school. With your 2.5 hours of sports on top of four extra hours for just AP classes, this would put you around at least 6.5 hours of homework a night. If you think you can handle that, then that is fantastic! The thing I am worried about is you burning out and overworking yourself. After you reach a certain amount of AP classes you are taking (around 6 or 7), the change one extra AP makes on your college application is so small that your time would be better spent studying for the SAT or improving your extracurriculars.
Also, colleges love to see a trend in AP class enrollment. What does this mean? It means they want you to keep pushing yourself each year in the rigor of your classes. For example, this could mean taking: 1 AP Freshman, 2 AP Sophomore, 3 AP Junior, and 4 AP Senior. Does that make sense? Obviously, you don't have to do this, but it could help. If you wanted to do this, this would mean taking five AP classes in your Senior year - which is way too much considering that is time that should be spent on college applications, not to mention the time studying for the exams.
In summary: I would take three AP classes Junior year. This would not lead to you burning out, show a trend in your class rigor over the year, and give you more time to improve in other areas of your college application.
I hope this answered your question! Good luck. :)
This is only the view of a freshman. Maybe you can get the perspectives from other students as well.
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If you are able to handle the highest number of AP classes offered to you, I would go for it. I've talked to multiple college admissions officers at schools similar to the ones you mentioned, and their advice typically was to take the most rigorous courses available to you.