AP Physics or Student Council officer

F

Future

5-Year Member
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Dec 27, 2010
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DS currently is a Junior in HS. His current classes are.
JR year: Honor Math, Honor Physics, English, fine arts,
Economic, Varsity Football academy.

Senior year: Planning to take AP Math, English, elective, AP history, Varsity Football academy. He is in between AP physics or Running for Treasury of Student council (leadership activities). He has enough science credit to graduate.

We would like to get suggestions from the forum on what is the academy intake on his Senior year schedule. Should he goes for AP physics or Student council.

Thank you.
 
If he makes captain of the football team, I'd suggest AP Physics. Although, if he doesn't want any type of engineering degree, I'd go with the counsel. That's just me. His academy counselor would know better.
 
Leadership, leadership, leadership!

Is there any reason not to do both? From what I understand, a rigorous schedule like that looks good on the app.
 
Leadership

Definitely student council. Leadership roles are just as important as academics.
Has he been in any leadership positions? This can be outside of school and in the summer, i.e. Church, clubs, sports teams, and work. The academy wants the whole package.
 
I look at it from a different perspective and this is what I told my son after talking to people here and reading MANY of the old post here (started with the AFA forum and worked my way from oldest to current every page)…

He should do what makes him happy and what he’ll be successful at while pushing himself (don’t take the easy way out)… I know it sounds a bit of an oxymoron but its true… No one here can say what your DS has to do to get in because we can only give best guesses based off what little we can glean from your post (learned that from PIMA:thumb:) and only him and you will know what he’ll be happy doing and be successful at (learned that from Flieger83:thumb:)…

At the end of the day can your DS say to himself honestly that he did everything he could and be proud of his accomplishments whether the Academy accepts him or not is the true question.

Now with that out of the way do a search for WCS (Weighted Score) on this forum and you can kind of get an idea what’s looked for… also the Academies are looking at the whole person… while academics are very important and a large portion of the score (60% if I remember right) it’s not the only thing… You could have straight A’s in all AP classes and have no EC or leadership responsibilities it can hurt you and the reverse is also true…

Now I am by no means an expert and I hope some of the big guns (PIMA, CC, Flieger, Raimius, Hornet, etc. man there’s a lot of you guys out there!:eek:) chime in and give their 2.8 cents (adding in CC’s inflation:thumb:) but I wish you and your DS the best of luck.
 
Booze pretty much nailed it. My opinion has always been:

1. Do the things that you like, will be happy doing; because you'll excel at them.
2. Don't do anything you think will pad your application or help you get in. Because it won't. One extra curricular is no more important than another. Being in the band is just as impressive on your application as is the spanish club. Again; see #1. Do what you like to do and will excel at.
3. Do as much as you possibly can. There are applicants and cadets here who took the IB program or an entire AP class load; was also class officer; was also varsity sports and captain; was also doing volunteer work; etc... There's no reason why your son can't do both AP Physics AND student council. Unless of course he is naturally a 3.5-3.6 gpa student. Then it might be better to spend more time on bumping up to gpa.

As already mentioned: The air force academy wants academics, sports, leadership positions, extra curricular activities, volunteering, and all this combined to illustrate the individual's character. I.e. ONLY doing varsity sports their senior year, or only taking AP/IB classes their senior year is NOT impressive. Is it better than not taking any? Yes. But you better have some kick but ACT/SAT/Class Ranking and other areas. Anyway; get your son to challenge himself the best he can. The academy wants to see him excelling at the hardest classes available, while still able to manage extra curricular, leadership, sports, etc... Best of luck to you. mike....\
 
My opinion:

1) Do both if possible. Don't shirk the challenge.

2) If only one can be chosen, do AP Physics.

His varsity football (esp if he gets a captain or other leadership spot there) is enough to satisfy the leadership aspect, Student Council wouldn't make an enormous difference there. In fact, if there are other leadership experiences not mentioned, then it dilutes the need for StuCo even more. I think AP Physics has more value added.
 
A few thoughts:

1. I'm counting 4 academic classes for senior year. Does his school have a really strange schedule? Even freshman year at USAFA, cadets will be taking at least 5 academic classes per semester (and that is the easiest semester, academically).

2. Physics is one of the leading classes for putting cadets on probation. A solid background in physics can only help.

3. Why not both?
 
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