My son goes to a large public high school that is woefully lacking in
college guidance.  Tomorrow he'll be programming his classes for next
year, and we're not sure how to go in a couple of areas.

The academic classes that he's taking for sure are: 
	
	AP Government
	AP English, and
	AP Computer Science

The academic classes he's not sure about are science and math:  Should
he take Astronomy or Physics (and, if he does take Physics, which
level should he take--regular, honors, or AP?)?  Should he take HS
Calculus (he knows that he doesn't want to take AP Calculus), or AP
Statistics?

 Here is the breakdown of requirements for Physics:
	AP Physics requires that he have either passed or be taking AP
Calculus BC.
	Honors Physics requires that he have either passed or be taking HS
Calculus, because it will require some calculus skills.
	Regular Physics does not have any prerequisites.
He would like to either take Honors or Regular Physics, or Astronomy,
but not AP Physics.

As for the math side, he thinks he'd like Statistics better, and would
probably do better at it (plus, it does provide him with another AP),
but he thinks that HS Calculus will give him a better foundation in
math.   But then, of course, I wonder, better foundation for what?

For background:

He thinks at this point that in college he would like to major either
in computer science or philosophy.

His SAT scores were 610 math, 740 verbal.

We'd appreciate some guidance in terms of:  
-what fits better with his interests
-what will look better on his college application
-what he can reasonably handle [this is not the most organized kid in
the world]

Thanks for your help.

Hello.

Based on the information given, I'd recommend that your son take
calculus and physics. Taking these courses not only will enhance your
son's college applications but also will provide him with a better
foundation for college.

That said, of course, if your son truly believes that he will be
happier not taking calculus and physics, then perhaps you both should
reject my suggestion. Ultimately, your son will have to make his own
decisions based upon his interests, goals, and wishes.

It's a little difficult to give someone advice over the internet on
something like this. Generally speaking, though, I believe that a high
school student will be in a stronger position for college if he or she
takes calculus and physics. Calculus and physics are challenging
"core" courses that will be looked upon favorably during the college
admissions process.  Additionally, having a working knowledge of
calculus and physics will make a student better prepared for any
introductory math and science courses taken during the first year of
college.

Your son's SAT scores are good, so presumably he's in a position to
attend a good college. Calculus is the de facto standard 12th-grade
math course for high school kids who are good in math. As a result,
most computer science majors at good colleges will have taken high
school calculus.  In my opinion, it'd be far wiser to take any form of
calculus (regular, honors, AB, BC) than statistics.  Colleges don't
expect students to have taken statistics in high school, and I can't
see a great advantage in taking the course on the high school level. 
Personally, I took Calculus BC.  It's a fairly tough course, and the
AP exam for that subject is no cakewalk.  Your son should carefully
consider whether he can handle the BC-version of that course if he
chooses to take calculus.

The situation with physics is similar. Colleges are going to look at
whether your son took challenging "core" courses. Physics is more or
less the standard 12th-grade high school science course for kids who
are good in science.  As such, many of the applicants for top colleges
will have taken some form of high school physics. Again, that's not to
say that your son necessarily should take the AP-version of the
course, but I personally think it is better to take any form of
physics than astronomy.  Astronomy, while a fascinating subject, is
not considered a "core" course.

In summary, I'd recommend that a student planning for college take
physics and calculus. Whether thoses courses are "AP" is of secondary
importance. If your son thinks that he can handle all of those AP
courses, then I'd say, "Go for it."  On the other hand, four or five
AP courses seems like a potential overload. If your son took just the
AP courses that you mention (English, Government, and Computer
Science), plus the non-AP versions of calculus and physics, I think
he'd still be in an excellent position for college. Without knowing
more about how things work at your son's school, it's hard to say
whether a non-AP "honors" course is a wise choice. If the "honors"
courses are almost as much work as the AP, it might make more sense to
just take the AP. On the other hand, if "honors" is a slightly more
challenging version of "regular," then I suppose it might make sense
to take "honors."  Your son probably has a better feel for what
"honors" means at his school.

A few factors to consider:

Depending on his instructor, AP English can be a very time-consuming
course. A lot of reading is usually involved, and many written
compositions are typically required. Of all the courses that I took in
high school, AP English was probably the most work.

On the other hand,  AP Government is a fairly easy course for most
students. If your son follows politics at all and has done well in the
social sciences before, he should be able to cruise through that
course.

How your son handles AP Computer Science will very much depend on his
aptitude for (and experience in) that subject.  In some high school
computer science courses, there are kids who have computer skills
(including programming skills) that exceed those of the instructor. If
your son is that type of kid, he could theoretically cruise through AP
Computer Science. On the other hand, if he is encountering most of the
material for the first time, this course could be a lot of work for
him.

A lot of high school students think it's critically important to take
numerous AP courses so that they can start college with a lot of
units. I sort of had that mentality when I was in 12th grade and ended
up beginning college with a 16 or so units of AP credit. But you know
what? Those units didn't really make much of difference in the long
run. I still earned my B.A. in the standard four years. I personally
don't know many people who used AP units to graduate early (or even
people who really wanted to graduate early).

I hope this helps. If anything is unclear or you need additional
information, please use the "request clarification" feature. Thank
you, and best of luck to your son.

Thanks!

juggler's answer is spectacular - analytically sound and empathic to
boot. And as a former university administrator, I concur with it in
its entirety.

Some thoughts -- jumbled, because I'm at the office:

I would like to build upon juggler's five-star response by giving some
further support to the idea that your son should take high school
classes that interest him.  Do calculus and statistics interest him? 
Not sure about what is useful for Computer Science majors, but in
Philosophy, neither of these are too relevant unless he is going to be
studying advanced logic or philosophy of math (in which case calculus
would be more useful).

I'm not sure what kind of college your son wants to attend, but with
the SAT scores you mentioned (and hopefully decent grades, strong
recommendations and a knockout personal essay consistent with the
recommendations) he should be able to get several offers.  Does he
have a particular college in mind?  What is his strategy for
convincing the admissions officers that he would be an interesting
addition to their freshman class?  That takes a lot more than picking
"the best" college prep classes and keeping the grades up.  In other
words, at this point his biggest worry about getting into college
should not be whether to take 3 AP courses or take 4 or which "college
prep" classes are the best.

As you know, wherever your son goes to college, the first year will be
(1) a ton of work, plus (2) all the wonderful personal and
life-enriching stuff.

Regarding point (1), the ton o'work: Certainly, AP courses might help
your son overcome breadth requirements/gain course credits at some
colleges (if he can score high enough on the AP exams), and could thus
allow him to graduate a semester or two sooner.  But the cons of this
approach include: freshman courses are often the courses where you get
to know and bond with other college freshmen; skipping these courses
means you lose the chance of some easy "A"s your freshman year (as you
know, college GPAs matter a lot when applying to grad school).  Also,
leaping into several more advanced courses as a freshman may be a
shock if those courses are relatively difficult and presume knowledge
of that university's lower-level courses (as opposed to the AP
syllabus), etc.  Of these two points, the bonding one is more
important in my view.  (Note: at some of the top colleges, the
difficulty/grades point may be moot because almost everybody but star
athletes would have taken 4+ APs in high school.  This may explain why
at those schools the student body really does seem to break down into
two basic groups: dorks and jocks.)

Turning to point (2):  Will your son be ready for the personal aspects
of going to college?  You don't want him to be so wound up after
taking 4 or 5 AP courses (or "honors" academic subjects), that he
doesn't have anything interesting to talk about.  Or that he isn't
very good at socializing because he has been buried under the books
for too long.

It sounds like what may be most useful to your son is more "breadth"
(and ultimately to be able to demonstrate, to others, depth in these
"breadth" areas) -- eg, a foreign language, something in the arts,
school newspaper, photography, a comparative religion course.  Some
schools/employers value participation in team sports -- would your son
be into this?  Does the debate team count as a class at his high
school?  Senior year is his last chance to try something new and
personally risky and get the potentially lower grade on his high
school, not college, GPA.

Later on, when it comes time to apply for internships, study abroad,
grad school, fellowships and the like, your son will be called upon to
demonstrate that he has been doing really interesting things in
college that are not directly related to his college coursework.  It
pays to lay the foundations for that as soon as possible.  Your son
may already be doing some of this, but is he doing enough?  (This is
the "type A" justification for why he should do what may look like
taking it easy in high school.)

The people I knew who had the most, shall we say, teething pains in
college were generally the ones who had taken uniformly "academic"
senior year courseloads and had missed out on cultural development and
socializing as a result.  Will your son want to be involved in college
activities?  What if he has to "compete" to get into these?  What did
he do in high school to show interest?  Hopefully your son has already
had a chance to experiment in non-"academic" fields and develop some
other interests.  One regret some people have later in life is that
they didn't even consider some of those other interests until too
late.

The bottom line:  pretty soon, your son may need to differentiate
himself based on interests and activities.  Good grades and a solid
foundation will be a given.