Course Scheduling Case Study: St. John’s School

We recently published an article discussing how to craft your course schedule in high school to maximize your chances of college admission. This article was necessarily very general; each of the thousands of high schools in the US is different, and offers their own courses. 

In this article, however, we’re going to break down what course scheduling works like with specific examples. To do this, we’re going to look at the course requirements and offerings for St. John’s School, one of the best schools in Houston (our hometown). We’re first going to cover what classes you need to take to graduate, and then build some sample schedules for students with different collegiate plans. We hope that this specific example will help expand on our past article, and show you how you can best choose the courses at your school that will support your future plans. Let’s jump in!

Step One: Graduation Requirements

The first goal of any schedule should be to satisfy your school’s graduation requirements. Your counselors will usually not let you sign up for a schedule that doesn’t, so you need to make sure any schedule you are trying to plan out will allow you to graduate on time.

St. John’s School has the following as the minimum graduation requirements: 

• 17.5 total credits
• English I, English II, AP English Language, English IV
• Global Studies, World History II, and United States History
• Geometry, Algebra II, and Precalculus
• Biology I, Chemistry I, and Physics I
• Through Level III of a world language
• Fine arts classes or performing ensembles (one credit’s worth)
• Additional elective courses
• Physical education

1 credit is awarded for full year courses, and half a credit is awarded for one semester courses. All courses are offered as full year options unless otherwise specified. At least 10 students must register for a course for it to be offered. You may take up to 7 courses at a time, and have 1-2 openings for co curricular courses.

Note that the arts credit can be met either by taking fine arts courses, or by participating in fine arts co curricular activities offered by the school. These are performance based ensembles which must be joined via an audition process, for both music and dance.

Physical education has a single credit required. This must be satisfied in 9th grade through one of the following options:

• Taking two trimesters of gym courses
• Participate in a sanctioned St. John’s sports team
• Participate in St. John’s cheerleading
• Participate in St. John’s dance ensemble. This may not count for the PE credit and arts credit simultaneously, you must do a second year for it to count for the arts credit.

Note that these are the minimum requirements to graduate, you are welcome and expected to go above and beyond what is required. For the math requirements, you may satisfy these before arriving at the high school, and continue on to higher orders of math. 

Course Planning

To assist you in choosing courses, most schools publish a course planning guide of some form, which lists all of the classes offered by the school. Here is the version of the guide offered by St. John’s. We won’t cover everything in detail, insead we’ll give you a few breakdowns of courses that would appeal to students with various interests, and then give you a full sample schedule. 

Humanities and Arts Courses

While you are required to take four years of English, you can supplement with a creative writing elective. These are two 1 semester courses, which can be taken junior or senior year. The second semester includes screenwriting, but both courses focus on the writing process. 

Three years of history are required, the fourth may be used for electives, and other electives may be taken as well if history is an area of particular interest. The most notable offerings here are sociology offerings, covering economics, psychology, and political science. These are almost all one semester courses, so you can mix and match to find the ones which best fit your interests. 

Fine arts courses offer studio and performing arts options. Note that music and dance performance are only offered through co curricular programs, not courses, but that acting is offered as a course. There are electives on architecture, digital film editing, animation, and photography. 

Language Courses

St. John’s offers the following languages. While only three years are required to graduate, taking an AP exam in a language and doing well can get you out of needing to fulfill your foreign language requirement in college, so we recommend doing so.

• Spanish, which caps with AP Spanish, or continues at a higher level through Spanish seminar or Spanish literature.
• Chinese, which caps with AP Chinese.
• French, which caps with AP French, or continues at an advanced level with French seminar and French literature courses.
• Latin, which caps with AP Latin.
• Ancient Greek is offered, which we recommend for students with a major interest in history or classics. 

Math and Science Courses

You are only required to take three years of math, concluding with precalculus. Depending on your level of math experience prior to entering St. John’s, you may already have surpassed this level by the start of 9th grade. We recommend taking four years of math regardless, and taking at least through calculus, since many colleges look for calculus specifically on transcripts.

St. John’s offers numerous advanced math options, including differential equations, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and complex analysis. Students interested in computer science or business may find interest in data analytics and statistics courses. 

Only three years of science courses are required, but we recommend taking four, and supplementing with electives to explore areas of interest if you intend to pursue any field of science in college. They offer numerous advanced options in science, including AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics (including physics C), neuroscience, organic chemistry, anatomy & physiology, and a scientific research and design course, which allows students to pursue independent research. 

In addition to science courses, St. John’s offers engineering options. These include introductory and advanced options, and introduction to robotics, and a capstone course which allows students to pursue independent engineering design projects. 

St. John’s also offers computer science coursework options. These are all elective courses, but students interested in programming should consider taking them. These courses include a 2 semester sequence introduction to programming, plus advanced courses on data structures and artificial intelligence. 

Sample Schedules

Here are three sample schedules for students at St. John’s, each of whom has a different interest and passion. These are not prescriptive, and you should adjust your own schedule to meet your needs. Instead, we hope these serve as an example for what your course schedule can look like: 

Student A: Science

Student A knows they’re interested in science, and is considering being a doctor in the future. They build a schedule that will maximize their preparation for science coursework: 

Student B: Engineering

This student is interested in engineering, but doesn’t know if they want to focus on any particular field, or explore computer science. They select a schedule that will allow them to broadly explore their options.

Student C: Business

Student B wants to explore some kind of business in the future, and wants a solid foundation to build from. They pick courses that allow them a broad degree of exploration.

Final Thoughts

It can be difficult to balance all of your wants and interests when scheduling courses. After all, there are only so many hours in a day, so you can’t take every class. We hope that this guide has shown you how you can investigate the course offerings at your high school, and how you can plan out a schedule that works best for you. 

Of course, each high school has their own quirks when it comes to scheduling and course offerings, and what works well at one may not apply to another. If you are looking for personalized advice for crafting your own high school schedule, set up a free consultation with us today to learn how we can help you. We have a depth of experience advising students, and are always happy to hear from you.