I’ve been told by a high school counselor that taking a lot of AP classes is no better than volunteering in order to look more appealing to colleges. Is this true? Do colleges prefer students who do lots of community work over APs?
I imagine a lot of colleges in California are oriented this way because of what I’ve seen in tours but this is just one of the many reasons why I wouldn’t attend college in California.
Is this true in other states?
Grades matter the most. Whoever tells you otherwise is not giving you the entire story.
Many many students take AP classes. So if you are looking to go to a top tier school, then taking APs is almost a must. So to standout, you’ll also need some impressive extracurriculars. But this doesn’t mean that APs are irrelevant.
… Or you’re not hearing what the counselor said. I cannot imagine any counselor saying that AP classes and volunteering have the same value.
Likewise, what you “Imagine” about the tours you’ve seen has turned you off to all of the hundreds of colleges in the entire state of CA? You must have had one busy summer!
Most selective colleges list a challenging curriculum and high gpa as their most decisive factor for admissions. Next is usually ACT/SAT scores. Followed by teacher recommendations, and finally, extra curriculars.
If a high school counselor actually told you that…they’re incompetent and should be fired.
There are many excellent schools in California. None of which would give you that incredibly inaccurate advice.
You will need good grades in rigorous classes and good test scores to make it past the initial screen. At that point, ECs, essays, etc will determine who, in the pre-screened pile, gets in.
Great ECS are unlikely to move the needle for a student in the initial “nope” pile.
The devil is in detail. If you are going to be taking a a lot AP or otherwise challenging courses, perhaps it would be better to take a few less (because your academic strength will still show) and spend more time on volunteering.
We’re in California. Utter nonsense to say there are many colleges here oriented in favor of volunteering over academics.The UCs, for example, are extremely grade and test score focused and a rigorous curriculum of AP/IB classes is pretty much essential for any of the top campuses.
“is no better than” doesn’t mean “prefer.” Think about it.
In holistic, it all matters, because it’s all you. No matter whether the CDS says X is more important than Y, each app section needs the right experiences.
For holistics, stats and rigor are far from the sole decision points.
No, having an endless list of AP isn’t it.
And OP, you need to know more than superficials to handle your choices and decisions wisely, with maturity.
Depends on what you mean by “a lot” of AP courses, and which ones.
At pretty much any selective college, doing well in more rigorous course work is the biggest factor in admissions. At the super-selective colleges, most applicants than they have space for will have top-end grades in the most rigorous course work available to them, so extracurriculars like community service get magnified in importance to distinguish between those applicants.
How much more added value an AP course adds depends on which one. For example, if you complete precalculus in 11th grade or earlier, choosing to take AP calculus versus stopping math can be significant. The same would apply to choosing AP versus regular 12th grade English or history. But if you already have rigorous course work in the usual core subjects (English, math, history and social studies, science, foreign language, art or music), then adding one of the lighter AP electives like environmental science, human geography, or statistics may not be as significant, and may even be a negative if it displaces other core courses like the third or fourth year of foreign language, one of the core sciences (biology, chemistry, physics), or math higher than algebra 2.
UPDATE: I had misunderstood what the counselor had said. Basically, what I got from this thread is APs are important but Volunteer work helps too. Thank you for so many replies though!
good, that’s pretty much what we figured.
Mhm