Do colleges look at the rigor of the AP Class or do they just care about the final GPA?
Like if someone were to take easy AP classes (like psychology, statistics, etc.) and get A’s
and if another person took harder AP classes (like physics, calculus, etc.) and got B’s,
who would be deemed the better candidate in your perspective?
Thanks!
They want to see that you’ve challenged yourself and taken the most rigorous courses available. They’re not going to count up your APs. Taking a cocktail of easy APs that aren’t relevant to your career interest and then taking regular level core classes will not IMPRESS them. But if you can’t get As in core AP classes like Lang, USH, Calc, and Bio, then take regular or another less challenging accelerated option.
Are you in-state for California? If you’re out of state, it might make more sense to cram in APs, since the UC system has no way of giving credit for honors classes for OOS high schools.
you should keep in mind that a lot of colleges wont allow you to transfer over your credits unless you get at least a 4 on the ap test.
Generally you should use the ap tests as a way to get some general education credits out of the way so that you can graduate college earlier/ Take the classes you really want to take earlier.