Firstly, I’m planning on majoring in finance.
Freshman- AP Human Geography
Soph.- No Ap’s or honors but I took Spanish 2 and Accounting 1 (both regular level classes)
Junior- AP Stats and Spanish 3
Senior- Accounting 2 (Honors Class), AP Macro and Gov, and AP Calc AB
Assume that I’ll end up with about a 3.95 UW Gpa
Thanks in advance 
I think that it depends on the ap classes your school offers. For finance acc 1 and stats looks better than you taking ap bio for example. To stand out take classes at your CC that regard to finance ( Idk what grade you are). Whats ur weighted and also activities matter too.
@schoology Really? I’ve been told to take “college prep” classes (like ap social studies classes and foreign language) so I’m relieved that colleges will look at accounting 1 and 2 favorably compared to a social studies ap at my high school considering I’m gonna major in finance. As for AP classes, my school pretty much offers every single AP class out there. My weighted is about a 4.15 (I’m actually a sophomore in high school rn so that will increase) and my activities are Business Pros. of America (planning to get to nationals this year; got to state last year) and JV boys tennis. I also want to do some volunteering over the summer so I can get the PVSA volunteering award.
Eh, you need to double check advice sometimes. Be sure to look at the pages on college websites that list what they require/recommend in terms of high school prep. There’s usually a minimum looked at for math, sciences and foreign languages. For example (notre dame ) https://admissions.nd.edu/apply/evaluation-criteria/ (mich) https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/freshmen-applicants/college-preparation
Hint: when they say “recommended ” or “preferred”,that’s really what you should be aiming at to be a competitive applicant. If your for example accounting class pushes out a preferred high school course in social studies or languages it’s not going to help you.
@SJ2727 It won’t necessarily “push” out social studies classes for me (both of these universities say 3-4 years preferred) and I will end up with 3 years of social studies instead of 4 because of accounting 2.
Rigorous is going to be measured in relationship to what was offered in your school. Your guidance counselor will send your school’s report along with your transcript. It will highlight how many AP classes were offered at your school and your GC will indicate if you took the most rigorous schedule available to you.
If your school has a full offering of AP courses, this is probably not going to look rigorous enough to the schools you mentioned. AP Human Geography and AP stats are not considered to be difficult.
What year are you? If you are already a senior, it’s obviously too late now and hopefully you also applied to target and safety schools. If you are not, you may want to rethink your classes.
Well, I guess that depends how competitive you want to be. Of course we don’t know what your essays etc will be. But for example, from the Notre Dame link I gave you earlier:
So yes, you can decide not to take the full 4 years in each, and it may work for you, and your essays, recs etc might be brilliant enough to overcome that, but you do need to go into this understanding that for selective universities, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. By the way, are you instate for either UMich or UVA? If not, they should probably be considered reaches,
You should also be talking to your school guidance counselor, who is better placed to tell you how your planned curriculum lined up against “most rigorous”, which is what you need for the level of schools you are targeting.
@momofsenior1 I’m a sophomore in high school right now. The most I could do to improve the rigor of my schedule would be to maybe take AP Lang. my junior year and maybe AP Micro my senior year (along with all the classes listed in my original post).
I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable but I think that it is fair to allow high school students a chance to take major specific electives (accounting, for example) without having to worry whether colleges will look down on their course rigor (keep in mind that I am restricted to 2 electives a year bc. of double period math). After all, exploring electives is a great way to get to know whether you would enjoy pursuing a certain major. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this and thanks for the response
@SJ2727 Sadly, I’m not in-state for either of these universities. I don’t think that I mentioned this but I technically will be having 5 years of math by the end of my senior year (I’m in a double period math class) and 1 year of AP stats on top of that. Does this help my case in any way? Looking forward to a response
My impression of the requirements is that they are looking for breadth as well as depth. Does more math make up for one less than ideal social studies?
It’s not realistic to expect all sophomores to know what they want to major in and to stick unwaveringly through that path. It’s not uncommon to change your mind through high school and even through college. Breadth shows you can handle different stuff and it shows you’re not a one trick pony.
I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with wanting to approach high school the way you are; it’s just not necessarily the best way to get into the schools you’ve listed (who do place a lot of emphasis on rigor). Make sure you have some decent matches and safeties on your college list as well.
@SJ2727 Ok, so I understand the value of social studies-due to it being valuable to such a broad number of majors and professions.
However, I have two considerations for taking APUSH my junior year.
1- I would much rather take AP stats over APUSH as I feel like I will enjoy it more.
2- I believe that I will be able to maintain an A in ap statistics, but not in APUSH
I am aware of the value of APUSH over AP stats due to difficulty but I think that stats would be more rewarding for me and I would have a better chance of getting a 5 on the exam.
Also, now that I have taken accounting 1, don’t you think that it would be wise take accounting 2 (which is an honors class)? If I wouldn’t do so, it would be an incomplete sequence for myself and it could give colleges the wrong idea that I didn’t want to do acc. 2 because of the difficulty.
Does more math make up for one less than ideal social studies? You tell me lol
Looking through your other threads, I see there is already a detailed discussion with good advice about the topics here, in this one
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/2120051-is-my-informal-high-school-transcript-strong-enough-for-nd-business.html#latest
I don’t think we need to spend time repeating it.
I do think it’s worth re-emphasizing that ND, and UMich and UVA for OOS, are all reaches. You’re not going to be sending in 3 or 4 pages of a forum thread with all your justifications for taking what you have; adcoms will see your app, compare you to other candidates, and make a decision. ND has a roughly 10% admit rate. Looks like OOS for UM is around 18%, and for UVA around 21%. None of these are easy, and we are seeing reports of people with perfect 4.0s and extremely high test scores being denied this year. Bottom line is you can’t expect to aim for these schools “without having to worry whether colleges will look down on … course rigor”.
So - it’s your high school, your application, you get to decide how competitive it will be, bearing in mind your transcript doesn’t come with footnotes explaining why you chose what you did… but once again, be sure you have good matches and safeties on your college list as well.
OP - It is “fair” to be able to take electives at your school but top schools don’t want to see that at the expense of core subject areas. You are asking specifically about three very competitive schools (especially for OOS for UMich and UVA and they are going to want to see 4 years of courses in all subject areas.
Again, you also need to talk to your guidance counselor to see if your specific schedule is going to be marked “most rigorous”. If it’s not, I would rethink your plan.
You asked the question about if your courses are rigorous enough for those three schools. IMO, the answer is ‘no’, not right now. The good news is that you are a sophomore and have plenty of time to correct that.
Get at least 3 years of FL (4 for ND)
3-4 years of history
4 years of english
4 years of science (bio, chem, physics and then an AP in one of those three disciplines)
4 years of math (which you have)
These are the core and priority courses. If you have space, take your electives. If not, you are putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage for competitive colleges.
@momofsenior1 And here I am, thinking that bio, chem, and physics is more than enough. I highly doubt that I would do well in AP Physics (I’m barely getting by with an A- in normal chemistry) so I don’t think that I can do that. Also, I’ve signed up for AP Lang and AP Stats next year. Would taking those 2 AP classes (and 3rd year foreign language ofc) put me below most candidates for the schools mentioned in my post?
Then do APES if you’re worried about AP physics or chem. AP stats is fine to have but viewed as an easier AP. (Well so is APES to some extent but better than not having a 4th year of science.)
@SJ2727 Would APES help me more than Accounting 2, college admissions wise?
If it means you’re getting 4 rather than 3 years of science, in my opinion yes.
@SJ2727 Just to clarify, you think most Mendoza applicants have 4 years of science (bio, chem, physics, and an ap science class)?
According to Poets&Quants, for Mendoza, “In Fall 2018, the school received 4,477 application to join the undergraduate business program, and in total, 840 students were admitted”.
You can decide how competitive you want to be. (I don’t know if “most” have 4 years of science but I think these numbers give you some perspective: do you need “most” applicants to have 4 years of science, or just the 840 ahead of you for it to make a difference to your own chances?)
Again, I think you seem to be struggling with deciding between what you feel you “should” do, and what you want to do. I don’t think your entire high school experience should be tailored around possible admission to a handful of colleges, but at the same time you need to understand what you’re taking off the table by not following the most competitive course for admissions. There are still many good colleges out there if you choose a somewhat less competitive path and it doesn’t work out for one of your top 3 choices.