<p>I'm in a bit of a dilemma-
I want to take harder APs next year, such as Physics C, Language AP, and Differential Calc, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get an A in them. Is it smart for me to take them and end up with some Bs (My GPA is 3.5 yeah I know it's horrible), or should I take easier classes such as Stats AP and just not take the harder classes and try to get As to raise my GPA next year.</p>
<p>So, challenging classes but lower grades, or easy classes and higher grades?</p>
<p>Next year is my senior year and I’m asking what classes Top Tier Ivies or UCs would want me to take.</p>
<p>Every situation is a bit different, so it’s hard to answer your question. That said, I’ll take what personal information you’ve disclosed and throw in a couple of assumptions…</p>
<p>If you’re a science/math guy, I would take Physics C or Differential Calculus, but not both. Doing really well in one would be more of an accomplishment than doing all right in both. An A in one of those classes proves that you can handle serious college math/science material. There’s no need to prove yourself twice.</p>
<p>Unless you’re a foreign language guy or plan on including international travels or other language-related activities on your application, I wouldn’t mess with the AP language.</p>
<p>In addition to the AP physics OR AP calc class, I would find one other AP that you enjoy or which relates to your interests but which you think you’d have a surefire chance of getting an A in.</p>
<p>An A in Physics C, AP Stats, and AP “Some Humanities” will look better to most admissions officers than B’s in a slightly harder course selection. Of course, if you can do all the tough APs and pull off all A’s, that’s always the ideal solution!</p>
<p>Don’t you have to take Physics C at least concurrent with Calculus? Unless you mean Differential Equations, it’s either calculus or both.</p>
<p>Unless koken’s school curriculum is different from any that I’ve ever encountered, differential calculus is a second year calculus course – meaning he would already have one year of calculus. It’s possible he’s calling BC Calc differential calculus, in which case then, yes, it is calculus or nothing.</p>
<p>You’ll have no chance at ivies if your counselor doesn’t check the box saying you took the hardest classes available. With the competition at ivies now, you need highest grades in the hardest classes.</p>
<p>Take the hardest, most rigorous program offered at your school. If you don’t, your grades mean nothing. DONT take an easy load like I did, or you will pay the price.</p>
<p>First off, hmom5’s claim isn’t substantiated. Plenty of students have received admissions offers from Ivies whose guidance counselors have put them down as having “very demanding” (instead of most demanding) course loads. Furthermore, informal surveys have shown that most guidance counselors mark “most demanding” for any students who have taken several AP courses and who they know are applying for top tier schools.</p>
<p>Regardless, hmom5 does tangentially raise a good point: You need to be in clear and honest communication with your guidance counselor and ensure that you both understand one another’s intentions. Rare is the guidance counselor who won’t mark a student as “most demanding” for course load if the student has taken a number of AP courses and has talked to the guidance counselor about wanting to apply to top tier schools. In fact, most schools (except the really elite prep schools and a few special public schools) will mark all honors students as “most demanding” as a matter of course. HS guidance counselors don’t like to give universities an excuse to reject their students.</p>
<p>I disagree with urmomgoes2colege to a certain extent. I agree with her (or him?) that you shouldn’t take an “easy” load, but I don’t agree with her/his implicit suggestion that cutting back on the number of AP++ courses you’re taking constitutes an easy load.</p>
<p>No college is going to consider AP or BC calc (which I assume you’ve already had?), physics (which I assume you’ve already had if you’re thinking physics C), AP stats, etc. as an easy or even moderate load. That’s a serious courseload. There’s not mistaken notion out there that colleges want students to kill themselves. They don’t. The “qualit” of one’s courseload barely even enters the adcom conversations until after you’ve passed test score and and class rank muster. If your GPA/class rank is lacking because you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, then you might not even make the first cut.</p>
<p>I recommend that you take whatever courses you can handle and still remain within the top decile of your class rank. If you’re in the top 10 at your school, then I recommend you take whatever courses you think will allow you to remain in the top 10. But ultimately, you need to do what’s going to make you happy. If you’re happy, then you’re probably going to perform at peak academic levels. If you’re not happy, you probably won’t do as well as you could.</p>
<p>Even if the counselor marks most demanding, the college has the school profile and can easily see what the truth is. At the three high schools my kid’s attended, counselors were absolutely honest when checking the boxes. They knew they couldn’t pull the wool over college’s eyes and had reputations to protect.</p>
<p>While recruited athletes, legacies, URMs and other hooked candidates may get the nod with ‘very demanding’, why would an ivy like school admit someone who hasn’t even challenged themselves as much as possible in the context of their school, in a day and age where they want national level accomplishments?</p>
<p>See </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/588508-tips-college-admission-process.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/588508-tips-college-admission-process.html</a></p>
<p>AccessAcademics, quit telling the OP to not take the most rigorous courseload. If there is ANYTHING I could have changed, it would have been to take the most rigorous courseload available. Now it’s too late. </p>
<p>For the last time: COLLEGES DONT CARE ABOUT YOUR GRADES AT ALL UNLESS YOU HAVE TAKEN THE MOST RIGOROUS COURSELOAD AVAILABLE!!!</p>
<p>Colleges usually don’t care about your grades unless you’ve met a basic academic/scholastic standard as evidenced by test scores and class rank and/or GPA. You can have the toughest courseload there is, but if your grades are mediocre, you’ve really torpedoed yourself.</p>
<p>I worked not that long ago at an elite prep school. A really high percentage of the students made it into Ivies, and most of them hadn’t taken the absolutely most rigorous courseload.</p>
<p>I will reiterate that very few admissions officers would consider Physics C, AP Stats, and AP (insert humanities) as a light or non-rigorous courseload. I challenge you to go to Harvard or Stanford or Princeton or wherever and try to find candidates who have Physics C, Differential Calculus, and an AP language. Most students will not have taken a differential equations and Physics C level course by time they graduate from an Ivy League school, much less by time they graduate from high school! If the OP can take these courses and do well in them, then great. But if he’s going to struggle – <em>as he said he would</em> – then it can do more harm than good.</p>
<p>If the OP has a 3.5 GPA now and it goes down or stays the same because of a bunch of B’s, then he’s bordering on not even making the first cut at top tier schools unless he has near perfect test scores or he’s from a school that receives special treatment in the Blue Book (and if he was from such a school, he’d probably be asking his word-class guidance counselor this question). </p>
<p>Here is the reality of “high stakes” admissions:</p>
<p>He can struggle with the difficult courses (his prediction, not mine) and have a mediocre GPA.</p>
<p>He can excel at tough AP courses and still have a very strong course load (just not the absolutely maximum super rigorous courseload that 1% of candidates have) and have a decent GPA but run the risk of an admissions officer noticing that he didn’t take the absolutely maximum super rigorous courseload.</p>
<p>My experience has shown that a mediocre GPA/class rank is more debilitating to one’s admission effort than taking a very rigorous courseload, but one which isn’t the absolutely maximum super rigorous courseload. AP Calculus and Physics is just fine for most schools, and two AP maths and two AP physics is really serious stuff (which is what I think the OP might have with BC Calc, AP Stats, AP Physics, and Physics C).</p>
<p>Should I take the most challenging courseload that is offered at my school,or the most challenging courseload that I can handle???</p>
<p>should i take the most challenging courseload that is offered,or the most challenging courseload that I can handle???</p>
<p>Sorry about the vagueness of my post.</p>
<p>My Prereqs that I’ve taken already for my senior courses:
AP Calc BC, physics honors, AP Comp Sci AB</p>
<p>What I am deciding between next year:
APLIT or normal Lit (Required course)
AP Japanese or nothing (Im thinking of going to Japan for a year in college, not sure)
AP Physics C and/or AP Chem
AP Gov
Calc Differential Equations and/or AP Stats
Art (Required)</p>
<p>If I take all of them I’ll end up with 8 classes which I personally think is too much.
I have a 3.5 GPA unweighted/4.0 weighted but I still feel like I like to take challenging classes and struggle in them, even if I end up with a B like I often do. It seems to me you can either take a Challenging class (AP) or a really easy class (normal) and I hate really easy classes. Also, my school is super competitive and there are many high unweighted GPAs so my school doesn’t rank.
Also, I am planning to major in Biotech/Bioengineering/Bioinformatics if that’s any help for choosing what to do :(.</p>
<p>Ah, if you have a 4.0 weighted GPA, then the 3.5 unweighted doesn’t matter. A couple of B’s won’t hurt you, especially since they’ll be weighted to an A.</p>
<p>I would go with seven classes, though, instead of eight. Admissions departments aren’t going to hold it against you that you didn’t take eight classes.</p>
<p>If you took a “lighter” courseload, like:</p>
<p>AP Lit
AP Physics C and/or AP Chem
AP Government
AP Stats</p>
<p>And whatever other courses you were planning on taking, I can’t see that being considered a non-rigorous course load. The one policy I would follow is that if you are going to take a certain type of course (math, science, history, literature, etc.), then take the honors or AP version of the class if possible.</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch for all the help Access.</p>
<p>Well, I guess it’s more of a 3.85 or so weighted if you take into my Freshman year (COMPLETELY bombed). I don’t have a couple of Bs, I have a lot of Bs, my weighted is just higher because I’ve taken a lot of honors and APs (5/6 this year and 3/6 last year).</p>
<p>APLit is supposedly one of the hardest APs in my school so I was kind of iffy on that one because I felt I could take some other course + lit instead of only APLit …I guess there’s no way for me to take Japanese? I am 100% sure I will get a B in the class but I still want to take it >.<. IDK what’s wrong with me. Are you sure that light course is enough? I know it’ll be mostly APs but I consider Gov, Stats as easy classes. And wouldn’t it look better to colleges if I kept going into a deeper level of math? so confused :(</p>
<p>If you <em>want</em> to take AP Japanese and you think you’d get a B (weighted to an A), then take it! Proficiency in a foreign language which you think you might use in life is a lot more important than whether you go to Princeton or “just” University of Chicago. (just as a random example)</p>
<p>Also, a B weighted to an A likely isn’t going to hurt your admissions chances anyway. Just be sure you don’t kill yourself!</p>
<p>If you take 7 you will not get into a top 30 college. You need, note, NEED to take the maximum most rigorous possible courseload in order to even be considered at a top 30. Access is wasting your time. Dont listen to him he knows nothing.</p>