<p>I'm OOS, so is it imperative that I have "Most Rigourous" on my counselor rec? I'm thinking now that I'm going to get "Very Rigorous", but I can try to convince my counselor if I really need to. </p>
<p>Also, is there a place on the app where I can put community college courses I've taken? I'm hoping that will get me more rigor points.</p>
<p>lol is that small change really that big a deal to you? </p>
<p>You can attach a document, so attach a resume listing your courses</p>
<p>You have to send U of M your community college transcript. Let’s hope they’re smart enough to include your classes on it? lol </p>
<p>And yeah, you should probably have “Most Rigorous” on there, or others applying from your school with “Most Rigorous” will probably have a better chance, even with lower GPA’s.</p>
<p>You have 9 APs, that’s plenty rigorous. Even if your counselor says “Very” instead of “most” they’ll see that you took/are taking 9 APs, and that’s certinly more rigorous than the average student (likely more than the average OOS student as well).</p>
<p>^ Ya ya ya, but they measure the rigor if your courses based on what’s available to your school. If others at his school got “most rigorous”, then they’ll be at an advantage over him. If a student at a smaller school took 2 APs because only 2 were available for him and got “most rigorous” the lucky guy with 2 APs probably has a better chance of admission then the OP too.</p>
<p>^that is completely unsubstantiated and your opinion based on nothing. “Most rigorous” and 2 APs has a better chance at admission than “Very rigorous” and 9 APs? Are you serious? Like I said in another post, dont listen to this guy.</p>
<p>Okay yosup, listen. You haven’t been accepted yet, correct?
Scales like that on your rec don’t mean sh-t. Umich will look at your course load regardless of what your counselor picks. No discernible preference will be given to a kid with "most rigorous " over a kid with “very rigorous” given that they both have the same course load. What your counselor says is worthless. Furthermore, it is unfair to compare two students as you have in your last statement, especially since they go to different schools.
If I were to compare, however, I’d say the “lucky guy” maybe gets points in the “take hard classes” category, but OP has nine APs. Are you really going to compare that?</p>
<p>tl;dr: Don’t give advice on that which you are clueless.</p>
<p>Over the course of the past few years, my school and state have screwed me over at basically every step of the way. Thanks to a certain Govenator and an incompetant district board, sections are routinely cut and a portion of students who are willing to challenge themselves are “shut down”.</p>
<p>I would have had a total of 12 APs if my school had given me all the classes I had signed up for. Instead, a few classes were canceled, and I had to go into the corresponding honors classes. I actually now have only 8 APs total because I had to drop AP Econ. I am trying to make up for it with a community college class (took another one over the summer as well). So I will have 8 APs, 3 honors, and 2 community collge courses.</p>
<p>Others, with a different sequence of classes and sheer luck, will, in fact, have up to 12 total APs. While I may match them in terms of total weighted classes, I may not get the “Most rigorous” designation. </p>
<p>But being OOS, I doubt Michigan will have any sympathy for my situation.</p>
<p>You don’t need any sympathy for your situation. As everybody said in your chances thread, you’ll get in.</p>
<p>“that is completely unsubstantiated and your opinion based on nothing. “Most rigorous” and 2 APs has a better chance at admission than “Very rigorous” and 9 APs? Are you serious? Like I said in another post, dont listen to this guy.”</p>
<p>You’re right, it’s an opinion and you don’t have to listen to me, but it’s based on the fact that admissions officers look at your courses in the context of your school only. I think someone with “most rigorous” and 2 APs has a better chance (assuming the counselor didn’t lie) than the OP because the person obviously took the hardest courses possible, and is at the top of the class. He’s at the top of the competition, and has a great shot. U of M won’t punish him because his school only offers 2 APs. If the OP got “very rigorous”, then there are obviously a few students who took harder courses than him, and they have a better shot at U of M. And it seems like the OP goes to a pretty big schools (especially if they offer 12 APs and corresponding honors for the classes), so his chances could go down, especially if U of M doesn’t accept a lot of people from his school since it’s OOS. A student from my school that offers 3 APs total got accepted into MIT. Obviously he beat a TON of students with 9 APs.</p>
<p>"Scales like that on your rec don’t mean sh-t. Umich will look at your course load regardless of what your counselor picks. No discernible preference will be given to a kid with “most rigorous " over a kid with “very rigorous” given that they both have the same course load. What your counselor says is worthless.”</p>
<p>So you’re saying that someone with 2 APs from a school with 2 offered APs, has the same chance as a person with 2 APs from a school with 12 total APs? Sorry, but that sounds like “sh-t” to me…The former obviously got “most rigorous” while the latter got “below average”, and surely that you agree with me in saying that the guy who goes to the school with 2 APs has a better chance. Obviously what your counselor says has at least some worth.
This was obviously an extreme example, but the same argument could be made for “most” vs “very” rigorous (in other words, someone with 9/9 APs VS someone with 9/12 APs). </p>
<p>“Okay yosup, listen. You haven’t been accepted yet, correct?”</p>
<p>Sorry, but what does that have to do with anything…? Ooh right, you got accepted, you’re smarter than me, and an admissions officer told you everything there is to know about U of M admissions.</p>
<p>there is not a large difference between “very rigorous” and “most rigorous”. in the broad picture, where sat/act scores, gpa, and other tangibles in the application are included, fighting over “very rigorous” and “most rigorous” is like fighting over a 3.95gpa vs a 4.0 gpa. it’s not going to sway your admission in either direction.</p>
<p>Dammit, yosup.</p>
<p>My main point was that what your COUNSELOR decides to select on your rec is meaningless. Umich will look at your course load regardless, and decide for themselves how rigorous your schedule is. Got that?</p>
<p>Anyway, you are putting too much weight on this issue.
“So you’re saying that someone with 2 APs from a school with 2 offered APs, has the same chance as a person with 2 APs from a school with 12 total APs?”
Yes I am. Umich will see that the former guy maximized his potential at his school, however in the end, they both took the SAME DAMN COURSES.
My school offers 30 APs. I only took 8. That’s what, 27% of the total? You think the guy with 8 APs from a school which only offered 8 would get preference over me? Stop kidding yourself.</p>
<p>I call attention to the fact that you haven’t been admitted yet because this highlights how little you really know about the admissions process. This goes beyond what admissions guys tell you. Clubs don’t matter, essays hardly matter, sports don’t matter. You’ll realize this when you apply. In the meantime, stop chancing people. It’s unfair for the person, due to your lack of experience.</p>
<p>By the way, if it means anything, I’ll probably be the only one from my school applying to UM. Everyone else who I can be comparable to is focusing on Ivies, Stanford, UCs, and USC. I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of them don’t even know what UM is.</p>
<p>The very things yosup is saying are what I’m afraid of. But, it’s not like I went into an honors class when there was a corresponding AP class. For example, the only reason I took honors physics was because AP Physics got canceled. The only reason I took honors chem was because AP Chem can’t be taken without honors. I talked to a UM officer and they said Honors and AP would be basically taken the same, but still…</p>
<p>Look, I took 7 APs at a school that offers over 20. I’m sure my counselor put “very rigorous” as opposed to “most.” All of your stats (looking at your chances thread) are higher than mine…significantly so. Yes, I’m in-state and you’re OOS, I realize that. But I had no problem getting in. You should be fine regardless of which of these two very similar and subjective options your counselor picks.</p>
<p>Yosup: High Schools simply can’t look at the number of AP’s a person takes in context with what their school offers. Every school is different. For example my school offers over 15 (Probably closer to 20) AP classes, but you aren’t allowed to take anything other than AP history your freshman and sophomore years. There is no way for anyone at my school to take more than 10 AP’s. The reason schools offer many AP classes is to create a broad spectrum of classes that appeal to many students. </p>
<p>My school offers over 15 AP’s, but I only took three. Even though my course load was pretty rigorous, especially in context to my peers, No one in my graduating class took over 8 AP’s.</p>
<p>Someone in my graduating class did take 21 AP exams and scored all 5’s except for one 4.</p>
<p>“My main point was that what your COUNSELOR decides to select on your rec is meaningless. Umich will look at your course load regardless, and decide for themselves how rigorous your schedule is. Got that?”</p>
<p>Yes, but they look how rigorous your courses are in the context of your school!! Hence the meaning of the “rigorous” check boxes. Even if the boxes themselves mean nothing (and yeah I agree with you, U of M will check your course load themselves), surely what they mean (how rigorous your courses were compared to whats offered at your school and your classmates) will affect your admissions decision. If they didn’t, then pretty much everyone from small public schools that offer 5 APs or less have no chance in getting accepted to U of M because I’m sure there are lots of people who’s gone to schools with 30 APs and have taken more than 5. Enough to fill the seats of U of M, and exclude students from 5- AP schools completely. </p>
<p>“Yes I am. Umich will see that the former guy maximized his potential at his school, however in the end, they both took the SAME DAMN COURSES.”</p>
<p>So you’re saying the fact that “former guy maximized his potential at his school” will be noted, but give him NO advantage in the admissions process? Yeah they took the same courses, but obviously there will be lot’s of people in the latter guy’s classes who took more than him. Here’s my thoughts on what the admissions people will think when reading each app.
<strong>Guy with 2/12 APs</strong>
They’ll see that he goes to a good school with 12 APs offered, and that he’s had the chance to be successful like his peers, but didn’t have the motivation to pursue it.
<strong>Guy with 2/2 APs</strong>
He’s the top of his class. Took advantage of every opportunity he had, and will probably continue to challenge himself.
I know these students won’t be directly compared, but I really believe that the guy with 2/2 APs has a high chance of admission, while the guy with 2/12 has a lower chance. I know there are LOTS of other admissions criteria though, so obviously this one factor can’t decide anything.</p>
<p>“My school offers 30 APs. I only took 8. That’s what, 27% of the total? You think the guy with 8 APs from a school which only offered 8 would get preference over me? Stop kidding yourself.”</p>
<p>I’m not saying they’re gonna actually take your apps and compare you guys. They obviously won’t do that, but yeah, the guy with 8/8 APs has a better chance, however slight it may be.</p>
<p>Also, you guys can all call me crazy, but I think someone with 3/3 APs would have a better chance than someone with 4, 5 or even 6 out of 30 APs excluding any other extenuating circumstance of course.</p>
<p>Yeah Entertainer, I agree. What I’ve been meaning, is that they compare your APs to what’s available at your school, and what your peers took. There are of course lots of other circumstances related to this (such as obstacles, setbacks or other things preventing your from doing well) that I’m not talking about.</p>
<p>All right, so back to my question: should I push hard for my counselor max our rigor? </p>
<p>And even if I didn’t do you think UM would still view my rigor favorably enough? I mean, in addition to taking the highest possible honors courses, I went through the trouble of taking CC course which I have to travel like 2 hours a week to get to. I’ve been TRYING to take every advantage I have. That, and the fact that I have family issues wth a sick parent…I’m definitely not slacking off compared to the guys with 12 APs. …</p>
<p>Oh, because your classmate got into MIT it’s a rule. Do you have the names of these “TON of students” that had 9 APs that he so obviously beat out? Or maybe some also got in? Or maybe they had less than 9? Or maybe there were other factors? Who knows, anyway there’s another of your unsubstantiated claims. Do you want me to tell you about my friend who got into Harvard with 10 APs out of 25+ at my school? How many kids do you think he beat out who only took 3/3 APs? I just threw that out there to show that rules with personal experiences can always be countered. I think this is your flaw, you take small personal experiences as the rule. You gotta learn that there are exceptions. Like my roommate last year, who took no APs but still got in with some pretty bad stats (great guy, just making a point)? But back to the original argument. We were arguing 9 vs. 3. I couldn’t even hold a candle to nine APs thats a lot. Only a few people I knew took more than 7. You were saying 9 out of 12 isn’t up to par with 2 out of 2. So in essence you are saying Michigan is punishing the first student because his school has more options, and he did as much as he could (still a ton) and rewarding the second student because his school is small? That’s essentially what you’re saying and that’s just ridiculous. How many kids from your school last year got into Michigan taking 3/3 APs? I’m curious</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t think it’s a moot point that you havent gotten in yet. It doesn’t make your opinion worthless, just less of a voice. Honestly, if you’re worried about how tough your math class is gonna be, would you rather ask someone who took it last year or a kid a grade below you who hasn’t taken it? Seriously, answer that. </p>
<p>And do you think I’m the one who’s listening to the things you say? There’s a lot of kids on here who don’t know anything about UM. Why do you think I answer silly questions about bikes? Or textbooks? Because I’ve been there, and giving my thoughts might actually be worthwhile to someone. But seriously, what was the point of answering that bike thread when you had no idea what you’re talking about? If you don’t know anything about it, don’t answer it and claim it to be fact.</p>
<p>hmmmm: In terms of rigor, you have no issue. I guarantee it.</p>
<p>yosup: Your thinking that 3/3 beats 6/30 is just further proof of your inexperience. Umich does not have a quota for each high school. Students are not compared to their peers. If pistons and I haven’t convinced you by now, there’s not much more to say other than that you are incorrect.</p>