Do the courses you take in high school really matter?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>For example, every year in high school since freshman year, I've always taken 4 honors/AP classes per year. Does that matter at all to colleges? Do colleges really pay attention to the courses you take, or do they mainly look at your GPA/test scores? Would they rather pick a student who got all A's but took all regular classes than a student like me who took mainly honors/APs but didn't get perfect grades? Do they even look at the fact that you're ahead one math level? </p>

<p>**Specifically for Cal Poly and the UCs are the schools I'm talking about, but I'm sure it applies to all universities too </p>

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<p>If you look at the common data sets or even the admission policies for the Cal states and UC’s, they all consider HS course rigor in admissions decisions.
See page 6 of common data set link: <a href=“IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo”>http://ipa.calpoly.edu/sites/ir.wcms.calpoly.edu/files/publications_reports/cds/cds1314.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Secondary School Course Record: Consider VERY IMPORTANT</p>

3

<p>Top universities definitely pay attention to course rigor. It’s quite easy to get a 4.0 if you take a blow-off schedule, but much harder to do so if you’re taking a difficult course load. However, this doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice having a decent GPA in order to amp up the rigor in your schedule. This means that a university would prefer a student that has a 4.0 GPA but didn’t take the most rigorous course load available over a student who only took AP/Honors courses, struggled through them, and got a 2.5 GPA. </p>

<p>That being said, take rigorous courses that you know you can succeed in. It’s not completely advisable to take the AP version of a course you haven’t yet excelled in on an Honors or regular level. </p>