<p>Question: Who decides whether the course load of a student is "most demanding"? Is it the counselor or college admission committee. If the counselor decides that based on the school and the type of courses the student is taking, it is the "most demanding" course load then does the university accept the counselor judgement or they have their own formula based on how many AP courses have been taken? </p>
<p>The counselor makes the determination and checks the appropriate box on the Secondary School Report. The admission committee can review the school profile to see what are the highest level classes offered in each subject (which may or may not be AP’s).</p>
<p>The school offers all AP. Big school. In this case, does the counselor still make the determination or is it the college committee (based on how many AP the student has taken)? Some honors course may be harder than some AP in that school. </p>
<p>I think most of the time they probably take the counselor’s word for it. But no college expects a student to take every AP, either.</p>
<p>The answer’s still the same. @parentfrom64</p>
<p>Thanks folks. Two follow up questions: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Even if the schools look at the counselor report but then do their own checking on which is the highest level course offered at that school, they may see that the highest level of course offered is AP. This will be always true at most competitive schools. However, some AP courses at some schools may require so much effort that only 2 or 3 AP can be taken at the same time. For example, at my daughter’s school, AP English is almost 2 to 2:30 hours of work every night! Chemistry AP also gives almost 2:30 hours of work every night. So, with a Varsity sport, one cannot not take more that 2 AP, and 3 normal courses. However, some other schools we know give only 1 hour of homework for these same AP courses. So, the point is this: the college adcom will not know that if they check independently from their own side as to what are the highest level courses being offered at the given school.</p></li>
<li><p>How would UCs (University of California system schools) determine the rigor of the course load? Do they accept the school counselor report? If not then would not they just go for the number of AP taken?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Appreciate your response :-)</p>
<p>
Not always true. My school has courses beyond AP, e.g. Multivariable calculus, linear algebra, organic chemistry, post-AP foreign languages.
For the balance of question 1, if the school limits the number of AP’s that a student can take in a given year, that will also be listed on the school profile. Therefore, adcoms can figure it out.
UC’s don’t require recommendations. I they do review one, they’ll probably take the GC at his/her word. College admissions is complex, but it’s not a game where whomever has the most AP’s wins,</p>
<p>Sorry for this argument. Just for sake of simplicity, let us assume, that the highest level course is an AP. Now, if the school assumes that for a certain combination of course, along with a university sports, the course load has certain level of rigor then is that decision accepted by colleges too? The reason for repeating this question is that since there are so many permutations and combinations possible about the courses, within context of sports activity and other extracurricular activities, it is unlikely that the colleges can just look up a web-page and decide for a student whether his course load is rigorous or not. Especially, within a compressed schedule of reading countless applications in just a few days, </p>
<p>Also, can some reader please comment: How would UCs (University of California system schools) determine the rigor of the course load? Do they accept the school counselor report? If not then would not they just go for the number of AP taken?</p>
<p>Again, truly appreciate your response!</p>
<p>The reason for the UC question repeated again is because I do NOT know if UC accept the school counselor report? Do they? Does any one know for 100% certainty?</p>
<p>Although it’s nice to know the answer, what difference does it make? It is what it is and you aren’t going to change it. But give admissions some respect, they do know what they’re looking at and are not mind-numbed robots just looking at which boxes were checked and what numbers were input.</p>
<p>Is the actual question you want answered whether the unis will give your kid a pass for taking less difficult courses because she was playing sports? Are you saying your kid’s high schools actually prohibits certain combos of APs due to homework load, and then certain AP’s and sports? Isn’t that really an advisory position rather than an actual rule? The whole point that standout kids who take the most rigorous schedule available AND play varsity demanding sports AND do stellar ECs is what makes them standout, the rest just shuffle in behind and hope for the best LOL. In my kids school if they don’t do the IBDP they don’t take the most rigorous load, period. Sports is part of the holisitc picture, not the academic one. The GC just ticks that box. </p>
<p>I will still most humbly request feedback from some one. Perhaps more details are in order. My daughter has taken 6 honors courses, and after including her current senior year, she will have had 6 APs, and 2 College courses too. So, total of 14 difficult courses. She has 2320+ SAT, very good SAT-2, PSAT of 230, and some really really stellar ECs. She has always been identified as a gifted student. Her school counselor says very strongly that he has written in his report that my daughter has taken the most demanding course load the school has to offer. But this school, a top ranking school in NY, has AP courses in every possible subject. My question is that
a) since all of her courses are not Honors or AP courses, why does the counselor says (and very adamantly) that she has taken the most demanding course load? I respect him; a very nice, highly respected, competent and honest man, very senior (has been a counselor for last 30 years), but not sure why he says her course load is most demanding? I do not understand it.
b) However, even if the school counselor says so, why would Colleges believe this recommendation??? Will not they take a look at the school profile; see that the school offers all AP courses, and that my daughter has not taken that, and put her in the category below the “most demanding” category. May be just the “demanding” category?
c) And since my daughter wants to go to a top UC school, in their MOST competitive department, why would the UC believe that she has taken the most demanding course load? This is because the UC do not accept the counselor report (by what we have been told; may be we are wrong). WE ARE QUITE IGNORANT OF THESE THINGS.</p>
<p>Again, I very humbly request feedback from people reading this post. And, please answer question © also; about the UC courses.</p>
<p>UCs admit holistically, which means they look at everything. Yes they understand that some school are harder than others but they do not penalize kids because they couldn’t go to a better school. So your kid will mostly be looked at in context of kids in her school. PSAT is not used at all for UC admissions or any college admissions, just to determine NMF.</p>
<p>About honors and AP. For OOS students honors do not count for weighting like they do instate. But AP does count for weighting. So that will be part of her UC weighted GPA. Yes the school will take the counselor word for ‘most rigorous’ schedule. This is his judgement on what she is doing compared to the rest of the class and they accept that. They are not going to conduct their own inquiry into that. They may look at the school report which will give them an idea of the overall rigor of the school.</p>
<p>If you don’t understand why your GC checks most rigorous then ask him. It is not for anyone else to explain. We can just guess that it is the hardest in comparison to others. No one said all classes have to be AP etc to be considered most rigorous… No one here can read his mind, though.Ask him. But I wouldn’t bother. If he checks ‘most rigorous’ it will be taken as such that is how the admissions system works. The GC is charged with filling this out and is trusted. </p>
<p>You are really overthinking this, and someone upstream said it is what it is anyway. I suggest you calm down. Her transcripts are set so now it is time to MOVE ON and let her get to her essay which is all she can do now. I hope you are not going around in circles with her about this and driving her crazy–there is no need to get stuck on this. No UC admissions officers are here. Either she will get in or she won’t, so focus on plan B schools too.</p>
<p>We’re going around in circles here. I’m going to try one last time and then I am done.</p>
<p>a) there is no expectation that a student has to take an AP in every course. Think about it. If that were the case, and in order to meet HS graduation requirements, a sample senior schedule would look like:</p>
<p>AP English Literature
AP Spanish Literature
AP European History
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP Studio Art 2D
Phys Ed</p>
<p>Most students are not that well-rounded that they could excel with that schedule, plus there is the very time consuming process of writing college applications, plus being involved in EC’s.</p>
<p>A few AP’s with some non-AP courses can still be rated as most demanding. Counselors have been doing this for a while; they know their stuff. Don’t second guess them.</p>
<p>b) see a) above.</p>
<p>Additionally, some of these large public universities are receiving 70-80,000 applications. The AO’s do not have time to second-guess GC’s. They trust the GC’s to do their jobs. So should you.</p>
<p>c) see a) and b) above. UC’s do not require recommendations. They will base their decisions on test scores and self-reported “a-g” information. Trust me, if they need further clarification, they will ask. Furthermore, UC’s have a cap on the number of APs and Honors you can count in your UC GPA; anything over that limit will be of no benefit GPA-wise.</p>
<p>Right, UC doesn’t require or accept letters of recommendation (in some cases they do ask later, depending on the program but mostly they don’t take them.). I forget this. </p>
<p>Here, read this since you say you don’t know the process. Also read the link on the left about ‘how applications are reviewed’.</p>
<p><a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/out-of-state/”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/out-of-state/</a></p>
<p>Some schools may offer 25 AP classes but only allow students to take 2 per year and only junior and senior year, or some variation of that. So in that case, a GC would check “most rigorous” for a student with 4 AP classes, total. Usually the school profile will explain any such policy. So it is very possible for a student to have taken the most rigorous courseload allowed by the school even if few of the offered AP courses were taken. </p>
<p>I will agree with everyone else- don’t stress about it. Nothing you can do about it now and if the GC says s/he is checking Most Rigorous - YAY!</p>
<p>Sorry again! Especially to “skieurope” 
Not completely sure that we understand the conclusion. (Hopefully you all are not too angry for my rehashing this question as I do understand slowly).</p>
<p>Any way, many thanks to you all, we now understand that
- UCs only accept a-g courses,
- Cap number of honors and AP, and
- Do not require recommendation letters.<br>
- Counselor have the discretion to make the call on what is most demanding (and that we should just trust them) </p>
<p>Now, the question is:
- Do UCs require the counselor report for every student? Is it necessarily sent to them? *</p>
<p>Thanks to BrownParent we got a very useful link.
<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/how-applications-reviewed/index.html”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/how-applications-reviewed/index.html</a></p>
<p>However, when one reads this, it does not seem anywhere here that they even ask for a counselor report?
So, if the answer is NO (that they do NOT get a separate counselor report for every student) then the follow-up question is that do they understand the profile of each school by some kind of “School Rigor” report that they get for every school? How does this part of the process work?</p>