<p>I am wondering, how many people that got in had "most demanding" courses, and how many had " very demanding"? At a large public school, will being "very demanding" hurt a lot?</p>
<p>Course rigor is possibly the single most important criteria that Duke evaluates. However, it’s based on what your school offers and is a relative statement. “Most demanding” and “very demanding” are meaningless terms without proper context. For example, if your school offers 20 AP classes, it would seem that you should fill up your senior year with all APs (typically, 5 classes). That should be sufficient. Taking 8 classes senior year is overkill unless you really want to even though that technically would be the “most demanding.” Taking just half your classes as AP your senior year is probably not enough. And an AP or two junior year if appropriate would work as well, but simply taking honors courses should be enough as well. On the other hand, if your school only offers 2 AP courses and a bunch of honors, take those two and then fill the rest of your schedule with honors courses. Duke will not hold this against you and they know a school’s profile. There is no need to kill yourself with course rigor, but you should demonstrate that you are not afraid of a challenging environment, and have the ability to perform well in such an atmosphere. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Okay, more specifically. Assume I am a taking a good amount of AP’s and things, but I have “very demanding” checked off…what would this do?</p>
<p>Or vis-versa, what if I have “most demanding” checked off, but I have only a few AP’s (but many honors)?</p>
<p>The adcom will look more closely at your classes than any box you check. Your GC should be providing the context they will use to evaluate your class schedules against class availability.</p>
<p>Alright, great. Thanks for the info.</p>