Am I considered really behind??

Behind is subjective, @mylahB_vball. I won't sugarcoat it- if your goal is Harvard, then yes, you'd likely be considered "behind." However, you can still be a contender for good schools if you start trying harder. My advice is as follows:

1. Try to get the highest grades in the classes you are taking.

2. Add honors and AP classes relative to your areas of interest that you can do well in.

3. Get good extracurriculars- find 3-5 things you really enjoy (sport, music, job) and work hard in them. Leadership positions always look good.

Best of luck!

I’d start by talking to your teachers and counselors, see if you can get bumped up to honors courses for senior year. Also look into early college programs, see if you can get some second semester college courses under your belt. I don’t know what your school offers, but my school has a program that allows me to take 16 free credits of college courses during high school. See if you can accelerate your math classes this way. There’s also online AP courses through similar early college programs that you could look into, kind of thing you could do over the summer.

I wouldn’t say you are behind, as long as you haven’t failed any courses. Although, AP and Honors can be extremely beneficial.

, it’s not necessarily something you have to take in order to get into a good school. If you were wanting to go into harder courses like that I suggest you know what courses you are strongest in like English, because if you don’t do as well in the course then It can affect you more than you would assume. If it’s too far in the year I suggest maybe going to the school counselor or whoever creates schedules and ask for an opinion, and possibly a schedule change. The only difference between AP and Honors is AP isn’t necessarily harder the curriculum can be slightly different than “normal” or honors courses. It also does require you to take a test at the end of the course, which could potentially be hard depending on your strong suits. Honors is just regular class curriculum, but faster paced. Another way to stand out other than just AP and Honors is taking some leadership positions in clubs.