Do interesting classes help my admissions chances to select schools?Answered
I'm going to be attending a school that offers some really interesting electives, like marine biology, animal behavior, theater in the city, etc. I have also taken a quantum computing course online that my highschool will put on my transcript, as well as an organic chemistry independent study. Do unique classes like this affect my admissions chances positively, or would it be more beneficial for me to take a more traditional challenging classes like AP stats or anatomy & physiology? I still have to register for some junior year classes and senior classes. I plan to major in chemical engineering, and my dream schools are Northwestern and UC Berkeley.
Earn karma by helping others:
1 answer
Honest answer? Probably not. Especially if they are just random classes that don't relate to your major or spike in your application. The classes seem super interesting though and if you want to take them you should. Having said that, it will be more beneficial for you to take more traditional challenging classes.
Colleges love to see students who push themselves and one way they look at this is academic rigor. They want to see if you are challenging yourself academically by taking the hardest classes available to you. That means taking as many APs as you can handle and the more APs your school offers the more APs colleges will expect you to have taken. You should try to have any non-AP classes be honors classes or whatever the highest level is available to you under AP. If you are interested in chemical engineering then AP stats is the move here. If there are interesting classes that can relate to chemical engineering then you could look into those. Of course, you don't need every single class to be for college so if there is room in your schedule you could consider taking some other electives but your priority should be AP and honor classes
Your chance of acceptance
Your chancing factors
Community Guidelines
To keep this community safe and supportive:
- Be kind and respectful!
- Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
- Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!