# schedule for junior year in highschool



## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

When you have that many AP or honors classes, congratulations, school is basically your life for several months. I took fewer and fewer ap/honors courses in high school as my work ethic went down the toilet and then took none my junior year. I don't know if you're talking about university or community college, but I can say for certain that just a regular college will be less work than ap courses in high school. If I was gonna do anything with an education, I should have dropped out in ninth grade and went straight to community college


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

koalaroo said:


> Also put this into perspective:
> 
> Wherever you're considering going to college, see what AP courses (and at what number on the grading scale) they take as credit. See what they give you credit for. See if these are prerequisite courses for any potential majors you're considering.


The thing is, I want to go to a school like Berkeley they except 2 AP courses for credit, (4 semesters) if you are going to be stubborn with what credit your allowed your not going to get in because people take them to look impressive in the competition. They really don't have to bother with you in the competition today. I know it, I just need to know that I'm not getting ahead of myself. I love learning.


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## Angelic Gardevoir (Oct 7, 2010)

koalaroo said:


> After discussing with my sister (a college history professor), she says that generally speaking she can tell if someone has or hasn't taken an AP history course in high school because the students who took AP courses in High School were better prepared for identifications and primary source analysis. Aside from this, the (AP) students were also better prepared to analyse the implications of data they did have to memorize.


 Your sister would never tell that I had taken AP US History. I guarantee it. All the guy did was give us notes and study guides for the tests, stuff which was mostly regurgitation. We did a few practice essays, but that was it. Not a true AP class in the slightest. Heck, the regular U.S. History class was going over things that we weren't. Same teacher. O_O

My AP Calc classes and the one AP English class I took were both awesome though. ^_^


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

@LilyAskar - What are you planning to major in?


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Angelic Gardevoir said:


> Are you a clone of me? A twin separated at birth or something? :laughing: I'm the kind of person who gets nervous about things as well, but I always end up doing well in the end. Yet I get nervous because I always fear that something will happen...^_^U
> 
> As for your science class options...yeah, maybe you should go AP Chem. ...At least you can do experiments and stuff, right?
> 
> ...


 @ Flatlander too
*Yeah, I get nervous to the point where it makes the difference between an A I deserved and a C. The grades mess me up entirely when I actually like learning. I hate how I’m the one who get the most nervous out of everyone and than I don’t score the best and I feel like there’s nothing intelligent about me and I should just stop thinking about that possibility. Maybe I just sound intelligent because I have social smarts? Sometimes I can’t even concentrate because I’m wondering how fast my brain is taking in info compared to my classmates in Honors Chem. Scary. They claim they don’t study and still get A’s….. I have to study and not get nervous to get an A…But maybe because I don’t pay attention or do homework….but I’m scared to do homework and stay with them because if I don’t do good after that I’ll hate myself. I hope I stop being such a mouse soon or it’ll plague me next year. I like learning but I’m being stopped. It’s not right…. My AP Literature teacher thinks I have the wrong potential to be a great writer if I have enough confidence so my brain doesn’t freeze while I write and if I don’t procrastinate essays to the last day. She gives me B’s but sometimes that’s because I enjoy my abstract thought while writing so much that I forget to answer the prompt or I format my paper wrong. (IDIOT) Everybody else who wouldn’t look at details says I’m a good writer but I don’t think so because I get B’s! But then again she is easily the monster grader on top of everything else that I have a tendency to do and she says every essay I write is drastically better in comparison to the work written before so…. Ughhhh, so much ranting in this post. I’m nervous because….I’m that person who cares most about smarts and stuff like that and I feel…. I have something to prove next year, than I’ll recover from whatever this year!*


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

koalaroo said:


> History isn't just about memorization to get an A. In AP US History you will have to learn to analyze situations and documents. If you cannot do that, you generally cannot pass tests (at least not the actual AP test). It isn't memorization and spitting it out; you'll be lucky to get a 3 on the exam if you go the memorization route. That is, unless they ez-moded the test since I took it.


I like History! ..... *slump*


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Angelic Gardevoir said:


> Are you a clone of me? A twin separated at birth or something? :laughing: I'm the kind of person who gets nervous about things as well, but I always end up doing well in the end. Yet I get nervous because I always fear that something will happen...^_^U
> 
> As for your science class options...yeah, maybe you should go AP Chem. ...At least you can do experiments and stuff, right?
> 
> ...


I mean I want all A's in those classes next year. Um, I have all A's now though too?


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## Ann (May 7, 2012)

This is really ambitious. A typical college load is 15-18 units in a semester; if each of your classes is hypothetically worth 3 units each, you're taking 21 units.

I took 4 AP tests my junior year and 4 my senior year. They will over-prepare you for most colleges. My AP classes took way more labor than my current college classes, in part due to frequent homework in high school, and in part because some AP classes require a ton of reading and writing.

AP U.S. History has the lowest pass rate of any AP test--worst than physics. I've never been in a class before or since where prereading and rereading the text is truly critical. Share your conflicts about taking the class? I personally loved the class, but it was because I loved my teacher, and easily I could have resented how much work I did for it if I hadn't gotten into it.

AP Chemistry, I heard my old high school teachers say, has a curriculum designed to be spread across two years--but because it's the most expensive AP course to run, high schools try to condense it to one year. This makes it extremely fast-paced. Your math skills will help, but this is a class which will require doing a lot of practice problems on your own. I did awesome in Chem, got A's on all my tests, but did SO many problems: all the problems in some chapters, and many on Yahoo Answers, haha. Another consideration is that, if you intend to be a science major, you will have to take chemistry again. Colleges generally consider AP and community college lab courses as having insufficient lab hours, so many colleges will accept it as a "science elective," but if you do plan to become a science major, you will have no problem satisfying that elective requirement anyway. If you do have to take a science, and are scared, I'd consider trading AP Chem for regular chem or regular physics, or else dropping AP US History. 

However, AP Psych is only a semester long class--and fun!--and AP Stat is renownly easy. Lit is a good skill-building class, and if you're already fluent in Chinese... haha.

Your school sounds like one I came from. You're surrounded by competitive people, and when you go to college, you'll be shocked by how many people don't even take one AP class. I am smart (32 on my ACT) with a decent work ethic, and really was pushed to do well in 4 APs. I've seen people succeed in 5, but never more than that. Now that I'm in university, I don't feel as challenged as I want to be. Dropping one or two won't put you behind the curve, and it could help you stay happy.


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Snow Leopard said:


> You should take courses that you either: (a) interested in, but probably won't want to take later in college, or (b) need to take as prerequisites for college courses.
> 
> I think the weakest link is AP Psychology, possibly statistics too if you want to pick these up later.
> I'm assuming you will enjoy AP History, Lit or you wouldn't take them...


I'm honestly not sure.

but if I was going to community college I would take

Physics
Orchestra
AP Psychology
AP Music Theory
Normal U.S. History
AP Lit
Honors Pre-calculus

something like that


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> I loaded up on AP study books and did some work over my summers. It helped me to get a jump-start on _what_ you're going to need to know in the class, mostly - an outline of its material.
> 
> I also got ahold of some of the textbooks used at school.
> 
> ...


 Yeah, I hope my community service will be that chill. My Mom is from top society in China and my Dad kind of is too. He doesn’t pressure me but my Mom….is an emotional genius in anything academic but just can’t get people. She can say things than can stop a sensitive person like me form sleeping all night because I think so much. I don’t think they are as nervous as me, at least not most of them. But some of the kids are at my school are more pressure than me so that means I’m just….


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

LilyAskar said:


> Yeah, I hope my community service will be that chill. My Mom is from top society in China and my Dad kind of is too. He doesn’t pressure me but my Mom….is an emotional genius in anything academic but just can’t get people. She can say things than can stop a sensitive person like me form sleeping all night because I think so much. I don’t think they are as nervous as me, at least not most of them. But some of the kids are at my school are more pressure than me so that means I’m just….


For the community service - see what's around, ask people who have experience there if you can what it's like.

I kind of figured you had a pressuring parent, if not two. Hey, at least high school will be over soon, and they won't be around in college.

Also, some people hide their nervousness really well.


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## Angelic Gardevoir (Oct 7, 2010)

LilyAskar said:


> @ Flatlander too
> *Yeah, I get nervous to the point where it makes the difference between an A I deserved and a C. The grades mess me up entirely when I actually like learning. I hate how I’m the one who get the most nervous out of everyone and than I don’t score the best and I feel like there’s nothing intelligent about me and I should just stop thinking about that possibility. Maybe I just sound intelligent because I have social smarts? Sometimes I can’t even concentrate because I’m wondering how fast my brain is taking in info compared to my classmates in Honors Chem. Scary. They claim they don’t study and still get A’s….. I have to study and not get nervous to get an A…But maybe because I don’t pay attention or do homework….but I’m scared to do homework and stay with them because if I don’t do good after that I’ll hate myself. I hope I stop being such a mouse soon or it’ll plague me next year. I like learning but I’m being stopped. It’s not right…. My AP Literature teacher thinks I have the wrong potential to be a great writer if I have enough confidence so my brain doesn’t freeze while I write and if I don’t procrastinate essays to the last day. She gives me B’s but sometimes that’s because I enjoy my abstract thought while writing so much that I forget to answer the prompt or I format my paper wrong. (IDIOT) Everybody else who wouldn’t look at details says I’m a good writer but I don’t think so because I get B’s! But then again she is easily the monster grader on top of everything else that I have a tendency to do and she says every essay I write is drastically better in comparison to the work written before so…. Ughhhh, so much ranting in this post. I’m nervous because….I’m that person who cares most about smarts and stuff like that and I feel…. I have something to prove next year, than I’ll recover from whatever this year!*


You really do remind me a lot of myself. I only got a 3 for both AP Calc AB and BC, while many other people got 4s and 5s. I felt that I understood the material just as well as everyone else, but I could not work the problems as quickly. It made me wonder if there was something wrong with me beyond just stress. (I also just got a 3 on my AP English exam as well but that's not entirely my fault: The teacher was hospitalized for a month for surgery...at the same time we were going over multiple choice questions from previous tests.) I also relate in that focusing on my grades so much is really draining me, even now in college. _Especially now in college_. I've lost just about all intrinsic motivation for learning.



LilyAskar said:


> I mean I want all A's in those classes next year. Um, I have all A's now though too?


 Oh. XD


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Never get to the obsessive point I did with my grade point average once you're in college. I literally had a spreadsheet set up in Excel that I could tweak, nudge, etc. to see what grades I would need in my courses for things like "Keeping Scholarships", "Can Get Into Grad School", "Can Get Into Med School", and so on and so forth. It wasn't a healthy thing to do at all, because the more I fretted over the material in certain courses the more I tinkered with the numbers in my spreadsheet (the spreadsheet basically was a cascade of proving how much of a failure I was -- my own personal Hellish form of confirmation bias).


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

LilyAskar said:


> Yeah, I get nervous to the point where it makes the difference between an A I deserved and a C. The grades mess me up entirely when I actually like learning.


Have you tried putting them out of mind by any means?



> I hate how I’m the one who get the most nervous out of everyone and than I don’t score the best and I feel like there’s nothing intelligent about me and I should just stop thinking about that possibility. Maybe I just sound intelligent because I have social smarts?


Social smarts are not what makes me think a person is intelligent, particularly. I know it is a _type_ of intelligence, but what stands out to me is more how quickly people catch onto things, and what directions they take ideas in. I catch on to how people think pretty well, even if my impression could be limited through writing.

So far from what I've seen, you fit a certain image of someone who is intelligent but under a lot of pressure.



> Sometimes I can’t even concentrate because I’m wondering how fast my brain is taking in info compared to my classmates in Honors Chem. Scary. They claim they don’t study and still get A’s….. I have to study and not get nervous to get an A…But maybe because I don’t pay attention or do homework….but I’m scared to do homework and stay with them because if I don’t do good after that I’ll hate myself. I hope I stop being such a mouse soon or it’ll plague me next year.


Why does it matter how others do in the course? One, they could be lying about their effort, and two, their minds aren't yours; you have only yourself to deal with. Can you set your own standards that don't rely on others' performance?



> I like learning but I’m being stopped. It’s not right…. My AP Literature teacher thinks I have the wrong potential to be a great writer if I have enough confidence so my brain doesn’t freeze while I write and if I don’t procrastinate essays to the last day. She gives me B’s but sometimes that’s because I enjoy my abstract thought while writing so much that I forget to answer the prompt or I format my paper wrong. (IDIOT)


For the record, I hate the fact that paper formatting is graded, even if I understand the reasons why it's done that way. It's stupid; content is content.

Anyhow, for those two issues, I think you ought to look at the prompt and formatting after you've written your paper, and add in or fix however necessary. That would, at least, be a surefire way to get it done right, after you've emptied your mind of the rest of your thinking.



> Everybody else who wouldn’t look at details says I’m a good writer but I don’t think so because I get B’s! But then again she is easily the monster grader on top of everything else that I have a tendency to do and she says every essay I write is drastically better in comparison to the work written before so…. Ughhhh, so much ranting in this post. I’m nervous because….I’m that person who cares most about smarts and stuff like that and I feel…. I have something to prove next year, than I’ll recover from whatever this year!


I'd take her comments over her grades. Grades don't give you a good basis for understanding.


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

koalaroo said:


> Never get to the obsessive point I did with my grade point average once you're in college. I literally had a spreadsheet set up in Excel that I could tweak, nudge, etc. to see what grades I would need in my courses for things like "Keeping Scholarships", "Can Get Into Grad School", "Can Get Into Med School", and so on and so forth. It wasn't a healthy thing to do at all, because the more I fretted over the material in certain courses the more I tinkered with the numbers in my spreadsheet (the spreadsheet basically was a cascade of proving how much of a failure I was -- my own personal Hellish form of confirmation bias).


Sounds like me.......... why can others handle the pressure and be aggressive towards what they want in life but I cant? I just have to care...? My Mom thinks I'm stupid because of it. The fact that I can't change my mentality. Actually I do things similar to the way you described so much that I don't even get to do my homework because I'm thinking about what to do and what could happen rather than actually working on anything.


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> Have you tried putting them out of mind by any means?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't catch on to anything though so I don't think I'm smart. But why......nvm
I can't escape them, I'm like picture they aren't there and I would have been able to throw them out and focus before but now I think "they are there and you know it." It's like I'm my own enemy. So unfair. Yeah, essays are evil that way. People are like wow that's deeeep and it's like bam 43/50 instead of 48/50 =="


I am under pressure, it's so weak that I can't stop myself from letting out my feelings by ranting on the internet. I bet they can handle it better~ DDDDDDDDDDDDD:


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

LilyAskar said:


> I don't catch on to anything though so I don't think I'm smart. But why......nvm
> I can't escape them, I'm like picture they aren't there and I would have been able to throw them out and focus before but now I think "they are there and you know it." It's like I'm my own enemy. So unfair. Yeah, essays are evil that way. People are like wow that's deeeep and it's like bam 43/50 instead of 48/50 =="


You're a good argument for homeschooling, and/or schooling without grades.


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

That hurts. It had to be me, of course.
And who cares about what should be, what is is that matters.


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

LilyAskar said:


> That hurts. It had to be me, of course.
> And who cares about what should be, what is is that matters.


I didn't intend it to hurt.

What should be is sometimes what matters most - people need to know if their systems don't make sense and/or achieve what they are supposed to. As far as I've always understood, school is supposed to be a place where people learn, and if there are people out there whose learning is badly stymied by grades, then they should be attending schools without grades.

I think some already exist, at that.


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## Elika (Feb 19, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> I didn't intend it to hurt.
> 
> What should be is sometimes what matters most - people need to know if their systems don't make sense and/or achieve what they are supposed to. As far as I've always understood, school is supposed to be a place where people learn, and if there are people out there whose learning is badly stymied by grades, then they should be attending schools without grades.
> 
> I think some already exist, at that.


Yeah, but the world is growing in a way that can't accommodate that. Society is the way it is for a reason. This system, is pretty much set in stone, it's not like some new theory that is being tested. There are too many people for us to not have grades for the huge majority of the population. Of course I applaud the idea but...


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