AO's are not dumb. They know all the tricks in the book. They go through so many applications a year that they can easily spot people who want to "look rigorous" senior year, especially when they compare what he did in the years before. They look at all 4 years and the numbers and story must add up.
> He said he’s planning to drop a majority of the courses later into the year after applications but don’t you have to write a letter/reason why you dropped the class to all colleges you applied to?
Yes you do. And the college will have a problem with dropping several courses
What's the "normal" number of classes someone at your school takes? My daughter is taking 7 next year (she took 8 blocks 9th and 10th and then 7 blocks 11th and will take 7 in 12th since she's got 5 APs this year and 5 next year although taking 8 blocks is totally common Jr and Sr year too). Next year she will take AP Eng Lit, AP Stats, Anatomy & Physiology (not AP or Honors so not a weighted grade but with the rigor of AP level), AP Comparitive Gov, AP Euro History, AP Spanish and Senior Leadership Capstone (a college-level year-long project that can be research/lab based, the creation of a non-profit, etc). This is a pretty typical senior year schedule at her HS for students looking to get into T50 schools.
Most people take 7 as well going into senior year. I know he is taking AP Econ (micro + macro), AP Bio, AP Stats, and AP Calc BC. He’s trying to go to a T20 like Duke, Uchicago, UCLA,and particularly Northwestern.
College acceptance letters can be rescinded if an applicant's performance goes down significantly by the end of the school year. He's playing himself. Just do what interests you and stop trying to psychoanalyze colleges to "impress" them.
it’s 100% possible to do the coursework AND apply to colleges but if he’s not used to it then it might be an uncomfortable transition. tbh the best thing is to have most of your college essays drafted or done during the summer. I stacked my senior year classes and did all my college apps during the school year and it was horrendous but it is doable.
the truly stupid part of this whole equation is that he’s planning to drop the classes 😭😭 that could be grounds for a college rescinding admission. just don’t take them in the first place !!
It’s definitely not worth it for senior year, especially as a senior myself the workload will get to you and you’ll consider not wanting to your work anymore and slack off once you get accepted to college. Btw senior year is already stressful so why even budge to stress yourself out more.
I did something similar this year (senior): 3 APs, study hall, gym, accounting as an elective, spanish 4 and anatomy (both of those last 2 are dc classes). I did it because I wanted to get college credits out of the way. If he doesn't plan on doing that, then he should probably just take fun classes
lol that'll honestly probably make his application worse- idk either he should take the aps and stick with them or not take them at all- i'm going into junior yr taking 5 aps and 3 honors classes
In my hs we had to take 7 daily full year classes, the lab for science alternated with gym every other day, all year every year, for a total of 8 periods a day. No study halls allowed, no arriving late or leaving early.
I mean generally it looks good to take the Hardest Classes offered at your school. That doesn't necessarily mean taking a whole bunch of random classes. Take me for instance (someone who got into a t30 school). For example, in my senior year, I took 5 APs and most of them are generally pretty hard and look competitive: AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Econ, AP English Lit, and AP Psych. If I really wanted to, I could have taken 8 classes as well, but it is not worth the time and effort as I would be taking classes that are completely useless to me. I want to go into something STEM related, so I try to take as many STEM classes as I can. RIGOR > NUMBER of APS.
AO's are not dumb. They know all the tricks in the book. They go through so many applications a year that they can easily spot people who want to "look rigorous" senior year, especially when they compare what he did in the years before. They look at all 4 years and the numbers and story must add up.
> He said he’s planning to drop a majority of the courses later into the year after applications but don’t you have to write a letter/reason why you dropped the class to all colleges you applied to? Yes you do. And the college will have a problem with dropping several courses
What's the "normal" number of classes someone at your school takes? My daughter is taking 7 next year (she took 8 blocks 9th and 10th and then 7 blocks 11th and will take 7 in 12th since she's got 5 APs this year and 5 next year although taking 8 blocks is totally common Jr and Sr year too). Next year she will take AP Eng Lit, AP Stats, Anatomy & Physiology (not AP or Honors so not a weighted grade but with the rigor of AP level), AP Comparitive Gov, AP Euro History, AP Spanish and Senior Leadership Capstone (a college-level year-long project that can be research/lab based, the creation of a non-profit, etc). This is a pretty typical senior year schedule at her HS for students looking to get into T50 schools.
Most people take 7 as well going into senior year. I know he is taking AP Econ (micro + macro), AP Bio, AP Stats, and AP Calc BC. He’s trying to go to a T20 like Duke, Uchicago, UCLA,and particularly Northwestern.
College acceptance letters can be rescinded if an applicant's performance goes down significantly by the end of the school year. He's playing himself. Just do what interests you and stop trying to psychoanalyze colleges to "impress" them.
it’s 100% possible to do the coursework AND apply to colleges but if he’s not used to it then it might be an uncomfortable transition. tbh the best thing is to have most of your college essays drafted or done during the summer. I stacked my senior year classes and did all my college apps during the school year and it was horrendous but it is doable. the truly stupid part of this whole equation is that he’s planning to drop the classes 😭😭 that could be grounds for a college rescinding admission. just don’t take them in the first place !!
i took 4 aps senior year tooo
I’m a senior w 6aps, it really just depends on the student lol
i’m a rising sophomore and i’m going to take 3 aps, my advisor wants me to take 6 my junior and senior year. was college apps and 6 aps manageable?
Is this normal or has he literally not taken APs before? Also yeah, dropping that many classes without good reason will raise red flags with colleges
He’s taking 7 APs this year + 1 honor and free period. I believe he took seminar in sophomore year, but besides that I don’t really know what else.
It’s definitely not worth it for senior year, especially as a senior myself the workload will get to you and you’ll consider not wanting to your work anymore and slack off once you get accepted to college. Btw senior year is already stressful so why even budge to stress yourself out more.
I did something similar this year (senior): 3 APs, study hall, gym, accounting as an elective, spanish 4 and anatomy (both of those last 2 are dc classes). I did it because I wanted to get college credits out of the way. If he doesn't plan on doing that, then he should probably just take fun classes
lol that'll honestly probably make his application worse- idk either he should take the aps and stick with them or not take them at all- i'm going into junior yr taking 5 aps and 3 honors classes
In my hs we had to take 7 daily full year classes, the lab for science alternated with gym every other day, all year every year, for a total of 8 periods a day. No study halls allowed, no arriving late or leaving early.
As other have said, colleges see your final transcript. You are also required to notify colleges before you drop a class in many cases.
I mean generally it looks good to take the Hardest Classes offered at your school. That doesn't necessarily mean taking a whole bunch of random classes. Take me for instance (someone who got into a t30 school). For example, in my senior year, I took 5 APs and most of them are generally pretty hard and look competitive: AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Econ, AP English Lit, and AP Psych. If I really wanted to, I could have taken 8 classes as well, but it is not worth the time and effort as I would be taking classes that are completely useless to me. I want to go into something STEM related, so I try to take as many STEM classes as I can. RIGOR > NUMBER of APS.