AP course loadAnswered
Hi! I am a freshman at a public school where 19 AP classes are offered, but we are only allowed to take AP courses in 11th and 12th grade. Right now, I plan to take 6 APs (ap physics 1, ap physics c, ap calc ab, ap psychology, ap comp sci a, ap 2-D art). We have 6 classes per year, but some people take an extra 7th class. So basically if you completely maximize your load you could take 14 AP classes. I will also be taking a UC certified honors class in 10th grade and 2-3 community college classes.
I hope to go to a UC (University of California). Do you think 6 AP classes, 1 honors class, and 2 community college class is enough in this situation? Should I take an additional 2 AP classes?
I tried using the chancing calculator, but it isn't very effective for my situation.
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3 answers
So 95% of HS send a class portfolio with information like clubs offered average GPA class offered. In that it would likely say there are prerequisites for AP classes. My school locks 18/20 behind classes that you need to be in 10th to take so I know what you are talking about and that’s what my counselor said.
So essentially you may only be able to take 10 APs due to grad requirements so 6/10 APs is fairly good.
Also if your HS has a lot of students that attends UCs by virtue of being an elite prep school that sends 5 kids a year to UCLA or your HS is geographically close to UCs so lots of students such as being a California HS or a big public school in nearby states they likely have your class portfolio on record becuase they get frequent applicants from the school.
My flagship school in the Midwest I think has one admissions officers assigned to like 1/2 school districts becuase we are large high schools geographically close to campus. So it’s normal for connections to build between admissions and schools that have strong connections to said university.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
The answers so far are good. One point I would like to add is the weighted GPA for UC is calculated using grades from your 10th and 11th. Since you are allowed to take AP only in your 11th, and 12th, you may want to think about how many APs to take in 11th. It will help if you worked on your SAT during your 10th summer and free yourself up for AP course work during 11th grade.
Like @DebaterMAX mentioned, your high school counselor will send the colleges that you are applying to information about your school, and you can also write about the limited AP class availability in the "additional information" section of your college application. 6 AP classes plus your community college classes is a lot, but I'm not sure where that puts you in regards to what UC schools are looking for. It's up to you about whether you should take more, but talking to your high school counselor about it might help you make a final decision because they can see what students from your school get accepted into which schools and their stats. You also have to consider if you'll be able to handle the course load of two extra AP classes and if they're classes that you will enjoy or not.
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Some public high schools (mine included) send more than 5 kids to top tier UCs... last year we sent 11 kids to Berkeley and 4 to UCLA.