What do you recommend, double block 4.0 fine arts that kid loves or one loved PAP 4.5 , one tolerable extra AP 5.0 for junior year? Either way rest of the courses are AP. Wouldn’t it better to take that beloved 4.0 fine art double block in senior year?
It depends upon the student’s goals and the balance of the schedule. Just because a school offers 20 AP’s does not mean a kid has to take them all. But id s/he is looking to a top school and has AP in most/all of English/math/science/history and social science/foreign language at some point in HS, there is no reason not to take a course s/he loves. In any case, s/he should not take an AP solely because it is AP.
It may cause class rank issues. GPA gamers make it difficult for everyone.
You are in Texas. Is the student aiming for UT? That is about the only place rank is likely to be affected enough to matter. Texas A&M takes the top quarter with high enough test scores. Someone taking all APs is probably going to qualify.
What are the other top ten percent kids doing? If they are all double blocking a 4.0 band, athletic or art class, then it will be fine too. Depends on the school.
Most kids trying for top 1% drop fine arts classes after freshman year. Getting into UT is not the issue for said kid, he is concerned about Ivy schools looking unfavorably if he didn’t make top 1%.
Over half of US HS’s do not rank numerically. In such cases, the school profile will break out GPA’s by decile, at best. The difference between top 1% and top 2% will not mean the difference between acceptance and rejection at an Ivy League school. For these schools, there is sooooo much more that goes into the admissions decisions process.
In our school nearly all the top students are also doing the extra arts program. Most colleges (including the Ivy League) like to see students who can do something besides cram in a lot of AP courses. My younger son took two orchestra classes every year - got into U of Chicago, Tufts, Vassar.
The student should take the class that he or she would get he most out not the one that looks best to colleges-unless they are one and the same, of course…
My eldest took newspaper and theater but in her school, these courses were GPA neutral so didn’t effect her GPA or rank. Every school is diffrent.
If the issue is top 1% vs. top 2%, and you are worried about the Ivy League, take the arts class. No question. It’s the Ivy League thing to do. If conditions are such that it would drop the student a lot father than 1% or 2%, then you might actually think about it a little . . . and still do it, because it’s the right thing to do. If he’s going to get accepted at [Wherever U.], that small difference in weighted GPA and rank won’t disqualify him, and just having the higher GPA and rank won’t even come close to making him a stronger candidate. What will make him a stronger candidate is being engaged and inspired by what he is doing, and looking like he has agency and chooses his own path thoughtfully.