<p>Would colleges rather see more AP classes with B's or regular classes with A's?</p>
<p>I believe the standard answer is:</p>
<p>APs with A's.</p>
<p>Of course, it's AP's w/A's, but you have to look at the grade trends of each AP class within your own school and the particular teacher that teaches the course. For instance, my D. will be a sophomore next year. She'd like to take APUSH, but the regularly-assigned teacher starts out the first class of every school year by saying, "Don't expect to get an A in this class." We've learned that's a generally accurate assessment. AP Physics is the same way. A recent grad of our HS who is now at Harvard received the only B of her academic career in that class. If an AP teacher has a standard practice of giving out very few A's, either find a more reasonable AP alternative or go with the standard track class. </p>
<p>I have a senior S. who's been deferred by the University of Michigan as a two-parent legacy and, unfortunately, we learned this the hard way. We will be approaching things much differently with our D's course selections. From our experience with UM admissions this year, the core curriculum GPA is king. Several kids from son's senior class have been admitted with few honors and AP classes, but high GPA's. The challenging curriculum drumbeat, at least for this university, is highly overrated. If there's a significant risk that your GPA will take a hit from a particular AP class in your HS, look elsewhere.</p>
<p>BTW, I fully expect you'll get many opposing viewpoints from the overabundance of super achievers here on CC who follow the typical college admissions line that your entire HS courseload should be comprised of Honors/AP's...the most challenging curriculum available to you. The moral of our story, from son's experience, is that you should pick and choose your AP courses wisely, with careful consideration given to your GPA.</p>
<p>GoBlueAlumMom reminded me, our school offers no APs, and only two honors, and two out of four people who applied to UMich got in - from the other two, one is still waiting from a response and the other (me) was deferred. It is possible to get into good schools without APs, although if your school offers them, you should probably take the opportunity if you feel you can handle it and get a good GPA and all.</p>
<p>AP is really just a title. As long as you take challenging classes it doesn't matter. At my HS there are only 4 AP classes and no honors courses. But, every year kids get accepted to top institutions, this year almost 50 got into the university of michigan and a handful are waiting on Ivies.</p>
<p>I give you the same answer: APs with As.</p>
<p>Of course you can get into college without APs if your school offers like two. If your school offers, say, 15, then if you don't have any APs you're in trouble.</p>
<p>What if you know that you will get a B in an AP class? Well, it is rather hard to choose between all As and no APs and 3 As and 3 APs. I'd say...take 1 or 2 AP and get 1 or 2 Bs instead of getting 3 Bs or no APs.</p>
<p>I can give an answer</p>
<p>It depends on courseload difficulty. I recommend taking the hardest courseload possible (I have 7 IB and 2 AP this year for example) and just trying your best w/o regard for GPA. That has gotten me into MIT Rice and Cornell so far w/o any rejections. (My average UW is 89, which is horrible by CC standards with a rank of 13/448)</p>
<p>Edit: see it from the admission's committee point of view. Would you rather someone take a semi-hard courseload with a 4.0 that is obviously grade conscious or a scuicidal courseload with a 3.6-3.8 who seems to care more about learning than grades.</p>