Simple Schedule Solution: Hit your strengths but don’t skimp on the milestones

At high schools across the nation, students are already choosing their schedules for the next year. While some High Schools offer a small assortment of classes where the only choices are the difficulty of the class (be it remedial, regular, or AP/Honors), others offer a staggering course catalog filled with electives, loopholes, and alternates.

So how is one supposed to navigate a seemingly incomprehensible list of options?

Hit the milestones.

When applying to college, course rigor is one of the most important factors.  Course Rigor means studying both deeply and broadly, taking challenging classes, and succeeding in those classes.

There are certain hallmarks of a truly rigorous schedule.

The bare minimum includes: 

1.     4 Years of English

2.     4 Years of History/Social Studies

3.     4 Years of Math

4.     4 Years of Science, including lab sciences

5.     4 Years of Foreign Language

At the very least, you want to hit all of these marks. Of course, if your school doesn’t offer these courses that’s not your fault, but if the option is available, you want to reach that.

Now lets go a little deeper.

Well-Rounded Schedule

Many students will describe themselves as either a Math/Science student or an English/Social studies student. It’s the age-old science vs. humanities, quantitative vs. qualitative, objective vs. subjective argument.

The issue of this is that colleges want to see that you are succeeding all around. They want to see rigor in all of these areas. If you are a strong science student, that shouldn’t mean you’re only getting Bs in English.

Many students fall into a trap of only having rigorous classes in one skill set. For example, they take AP English, History, and Economics, but regular math and science. This shows an imbalance in your schedule, and will be reflected on poorly.

It is best to challenge yourself in all areas, but while doing this you must still be realistic about your skills. You want to have a well-rounded academic background that is challenging, but not impossible.

Ways to accomplish this are, in the areas where you are not the strongest, take courses that are difficult but not above your head.

For example, if your school offers AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC, and AP Statistics, statistics is fairly manageable for a math student who is above average without being stellar (trust me, I would consider myself to be terrible at math comparatively to my other skills, and I still got a 5 on Stats).

If you’re not strong in English, AP Language is much more formulaic and easier to study for than AP Lit.

If you’re not strong in Science, AP Environmental is interesting, has a strong social science component, and isn’t as difficult as Bio, Physics, or Chem.

If you’re not strong in History, AP Euro and AP World are very difficult. AP US History and Economics are manageable. AP Human Geography is, comparatively, easy.

Also available at many schools is dual enrollment. These classes can range from stupidly easy to insanely hard, but often are great ways to add rigor.

My absolute favorite science class in high school was a dual enrollment chemistry class. It added rigor to my schedule, was in my strongest hard-science area (chemistry), and was a really interesting class.

Increasing Rigor

There is a lot of talk about “upward trends” in admissions. Generally this describes a student who didn’t start out as a stellar student, but became one over time. There is also a huge pull of upward trends with classes.
As you get older, and wiser, you should add rigorous classes to your schedule.

For example.

Maybe in 9^th grade you take a few honors classes. 10^th grade you take honors and AP classes in your two strongest subjects. 11^th Grade you take AP classes in your main classes. 12^th grade you take AP classes and AP electives.

Or if your school doesn’t do AP, maybe you add more dual enrollment and honors over time.

The real kiss of death is to “take it easy” senior year. This could mean dropping a core subject, or taking easier versions of classes. If you took AP Lang in 11^th grade, you should not be taking “Popular Literature” in 12^th grade. It makes you look lazy.

You want to increase the rigor of your classes every year, leading up to a truly challenging schedule by senior year.

Finally, here are the “cherry on top” inclusions.

I’m not going to say that you 100% absolutely need these things to get into a great school, because you don’t. But these are the classes that really look great on an application.

4 Years of a single foreign language. This shows dedication and rigor. *It will also get you out of the language requirement at most schools!

4 Years of Lab science that include Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This shows depth in science, and that you covered the basic areas.

4 Years of Math ending in some form of calculus. Calculus CAN include pre-calc, as some high schools just don’t get up to calculus. Calculus is the holy grail of admissions, but you don’t need it. (I never went past Pre Calc, because I knew even Calc AB was way over my head and would have destroyed my GPA. See, know your strengths ladies and gents.)

The goal is to have a well-rounded schedule. You want to demonstrate your strengths in every area, not just the areas that come easily to you. Challenge yourself, and show that you’re embracing those challenges.

College will pull you out of your academic comfort zone. Running head first into those challenges will bring you better results than timidly crawling through them.