Stacking for Junior year
I'm planning my classes to be a more competitive applicant for USC VSE. I plan to take AP Calc AB, AP Lit, and AP Chem next year, and I've already taken AP World and AP CSA. Every other class I take is at the honors level or an elective. I'm also a band student, which takes up an extracurricular slot, and I plan to rejoin the Media production classes at my school. I know that may be a bad move for someone who wants to be a STEM major, but I enjoy being creative, and I don't want to sit through classes with things that don't interest me or people that bother me. The thing that's the most risky about my future schedule is the fact that I plan to stop at 2 years of World Language, for the same reason, in exchange for the media track. I know most people will say that is a really bad idea, but I don't have any good way to diversify my profile and mitigate that risk. Any ideas?
I know different schools have different graduation requirements, and different colleges have different suggested requirements on what a student should take in high school. If you are concerned about the world language aspect, I would check the colleges you are interested in and see what their suggested courses are to see if that could hurt you in the long run. I know I have classmates who stopped at two and have been okay, but again, different districts have different rules and suggestions. Another idea with the world language concern may be to take online courses during the summer or continue to study the language of your choice to get to a level where you could test out of that third year. If you feel confident, you could do that, or if your school lets you do that. Another idea could wait and see what your scheduling for your senior year is, and see if you could slide in that third year of a world language. Secondly, my question for you would be with the Media production classes, are you wanting to connect that to your possible future in STEM? You could make that your 'spike' in your application, you also stated you enjoyed being creative, tie that into your application. Let colleges see your personality and show them what you are passionate about. I know I am a STEM kid and have been in robotics for the past seven years, and this coming year will be my eighth season. There have been skills that I have picked up that are important to my possible major that do not entirely relate to robotics. I plan to tie those into my own application because robotics has opened many doors for me that I would have never known without it. You can show in your application possible skills that you picked up or lessons you have learned from activities you have been a part of or even classes.
That was helpful! I reached out to my guidance counselor today, and I am going to see if some college classes can waive me out of language requirements. I'm also testing the will of my school's science department supervisor and seeing if I can take the science courses out of order. (They prefer students to take bio, chem, and physics before they take any AP-level class.) I didn't want a downward trend in my science course grades since the junior year grades will be on the transcript for college apps🥹
I'll definitely remember what you said when it comes to essays, thank you so much :)
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