Need Help w/HS Classes!

[MonksMac]

You guys are the best forum around so I hope you can help me. I am so lost in trying to pick classes for my Sophomore year. I know what core classes to take but I don't know what elective courses to take. I must pick:
TWO 18 week courses (one semester) and
FOUR 9 week courses plus alternates for each.
So far I have my 18 week courses narrowed down to Debate II, Advedrtising Design and Internetworking Technology. The only problem is with that is that Advedrtising Design is at a different school. One last question for you helpful people, should I take Chemistry Pre-AP (basically honors classes)?
The worst thing about having to this is that I got the registration stuff on Friday and it is due Tommarow (Tuesday). I about nearly died when I heard that!

 

[MacHipster]

You have more interesting classes than when I was your age. Where do your interests lie?

 

[iMacZealot]

I'm in the same place as you. I'd take as many honors courses as you can.

I turned my schedule in last week. I have Honors English II (tenative), Honors Algebra II, Honors US History, Honors Biology (tenative), Old Testament, New Testament, two trimesters of Yearbook, and a trimester of Public Speaking.

 

[CalBoy]

After going through high school thinking that it was all about AP classes, I can comfortably say it's not.

Don't take an AP class simply because it's available. Only take those AP classes for which you have genuine interest. That will serve you well later on and give you a better idea of how much you'll like the subject in the future (and no matter what crap they try to feed you, taking an AP class is NOT the same as a college course).

Otherwise, take whatever electives you think sound interesting. One of my favorite electives in high school was psychology, and I didn't even think I would enjoy it. Sometimes subjects can surprise you, that's why it's best to experiment while the risk is low (much easier to figure this stuff out now than when you're a junior in college ).

 

[goodtimes5]

Taking bunches of AP courses is great for college apps. Shows them you took advantage of the opportunities at your school.

Take ChempreAP if you are interested in studying science later on.

 

[esco]

Taking bunches of AP courses is great for college apps. Shows them you took advantage of the opportunities at your school.

Take ChempreAP if you are interested in studying science later on.

I agree. And if the college you end up at is like mine, you'll probably have something along the lines of "General Education Requirements" where you have to take courses in many different areas. Taking a variety of AP classes in high school will not only look better on your application (assuming you do ok in the class) but it'll also count towards those requirements.

That way, you can either take less classes per semester to concentrate on your harder classes (for instance...Organic Chemistry (which is what I'm studying as I type this )), you can "bid" for classes earlier since you may already be a sophomore by the time you enter college / are done with the first semester of your freshman year, or you can graduate early to save some money.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[CalBoy]

Taking bunches of AP courses is great for college apps. Shows them you took advantage of the opportunities at your school.

I used to (and so did many others at my school) think that too, but it turns out that overall good grades and select AP classes are more important. What's more important is that you take those AP classes you have an interest in and those that you'll do well in (no sense in taking AP chemistry if you're going to major in English).

Extra-circular activities are also very important (as are SAT and SAT II scores).

Take ChempreAP if you are interested in studying science later on.

Can't agree with this enough. If science is in your future, take as many science classes in hs to set a good foundation.

 

[MonksMac]

You guys are very helpful. Basically my interests lie in more creative things like English and Photography. I'm not too interested in science though I have been taking science Pre-AP classes since Middle School. I'm pretty sure that I will do alright in AP World History, because I'm pretty good with History stuff. I scored a perfect 100 on the State test in Social Studies. I definitely know that I will be taking English II Pre-AP, because I was in English I Pre-AP this year and it was fun and reletivly easy class. Thanks guys, but I still need time to mull it over.

 

[CalBoy]

Are you taking yearbook or journalism OP? Those seem to coincide with your interests.

If your district offers "vocational" classes (our district offered things like hair styling, car repair, home repair, forensics [as in the CSI stuff, not debate], and a whole bunch of other stuff), and you might like those.

 

[iDAG]

In my sophomore year currently, it sounds like you have more options than I did. I personally took as many advanced classes as I could and I would suggest that you should do the same if you can. In regards to your other classes, take the classes that would interest you, but also keep in mind the requirements in classes you need to graduate.

 

[MonksMac]

Are you taking yearbook or journalism OP? Those seem to coincide with your interests.

If your district offers "vocational" classes (our district offered things like hair styling, car repair, home repair, forensics [as in the CSI stuff, not debate], and a whole bunch of other stuff), and you might like those.

The Advertising Design class and the Internetworking Tech. class are both at a "vocational" type school. If I took either of those classes I would have to be bussed to that other school that is purely things like car repair etc. The only thing is it is the only place like that in the whole district for four different high schools so it fills up pretty fast.

 

[goodtimes5]

I used to (and so did many others at my school) think that too, but it turns out that overall good grades and select AP classes are more important. What's more important is that you take those AP classes you have an interest in and those that you'll do well in (no sense in taking AP chemistry if you're going to major in English).

I've noticed that science-intended people take the other APs in addition to their science ones. The humanities-intended people usually only take APs they're interested in.

Personal experience: APs helped a lot to take care of breadth requirements for my science major in college.

 

[CalBoy]

The Advertising Design class and the Internetworking Tech. class are both at a "vocational" type school. If I took either of those classes I would have to be bussed to that other school that is purely things like car repair etc. The only thing is it is the only place like that in the whole district for four different high schools so it fills up pretty fast.

I think if you have even mild interest, you should take Yearbook. You learn a lot about editing, page layout, etc. The stuff you learn can prove useful in lots of other ways (same with journalism; I still use some of the stuff I learned there).

I've noticed that science-intended people take the other APs in addition to their science ones. The humanities-intended people usually only take APs they're interested in.

I've noticed this too, and I've come to one conclusion: the science people are masochists. Seriously, I know many science-types who struggled through AP US and Gov because it just wasn't for them. After seeing such horrible stuff happen, I always err on the side of caution (and recommend others to do the same).

Personal experience: APs helped a lot to take care of breadth requirements for my science major in college.

Most certainly. If your major is in a science, you need the AP credits. For the humanities the credit benefit falls off a bit (it's still there though). The main benefit of humanity APs are the reading/study skills you should have gained.

 

[aquajet]

You guys are very helpful. Basically my interests lie in more creative things like English and Photography. I'm not too interested in science though I have been taking science Pre-AP classes since Middle School. I'm pretty sure that I will do alright in AP World History, because I'm pretty good with History stuff. I scored a perfect 100 on the State test in Social Studies. I definitely know that I will be taking English II Pre-AP, because I was in English I Pre-AP this year and it was fun and reletivly easy class. Thanks guys, but I still need time to mull it over.

If I were you, I would skip the AP chem class if it's not really in your area of interest. Concentrate on the stuff you're interested in.

I took AP music theory when I was in high school and enjoyed it a lot. Plus, it gave me a huge head start once I started music school at the university level.

 

[fridgeymonster3]

I have to agree with a few people that just taking Honors and AP's classes for the sake of a college application is somewhat silly. Take the AP and Honors classes that you are interested in, would like to be challenged in, or perhaps because the teacher/extensive subject matter is better than the regular course.

Colleges do not just look at your AP classes, especially when you take the AP exam at the end of the semester and do not score 4 or 5. Furthermore, many colleges would rather have a student who showed great proficiency in his AP courses instead of overall mediocrity in several AP classes. The college admissions process takes into account you SAT's, GPA, Coursework Difficulty (sort of strength of schedule for sports ), Essay, Recommendations, and extracurricular activities, etc. Colleges want well rounded students, not just brainiacs. I know plenty of students who went to my college, where the median SAT score is 2190, who have taken between 0 - 15 AP courses. The ones who have taken 15 had zero advantage over the other students. In addition, many colleges, like mine, are either limiting the number of college course credits you can receive from your AP scores (assuming they are 4-5) or putting stipulations on credit, such as if you take AP Calc, you have to take Calculus II to get credit for you AP Calc score.

Just take what you are interested in.

 

[MikeTheC]

Amazing how times change. I was in HS from 1986-1990, and basically none of those classes (well, obviously I'm not referring to the science and math ones) even existed back then. However, "back then" schools thought they were high-tech if they had Apple ][e or //c computers. Ours had II series computers of several descriptions, a whole lab of TRS-80s, and thanks to our Newspaper/Journalism class, the first Mac in the Lee County School District. And thanks to me, when we got the two other Macs and (finally) a LaserWriter Plus (until then we had to shuttle over to another HS to pull all our output for our own HS), we were the first school in the district with a computer network. Actually, we had two. The Macs and LaserWriter Plus were all AppleTalk-connected, and with Tops installed we could share files (we even had a couple copies of Timbuktu!) and the other network was a fairly low-end printer-sharing (and I think basic data sharing) one for the TRS-80s, most of which didn't have floppy drives.

We sure were living the high life then!

 

[Andrew D.]

Don't take band, haha. Just kidding, that's what I'm telling my significant other's little brother. Anyways, yes.. AP classes really didn't make any difference in the college I'm going too.. they didn't even credit the ones I did take. Oh well.