<p>In have heard admissions counselors tell me that you should take he most rigorous/competitive schedule senior year with many AP's. But I also heard colleges look at your unweighted gap, so you might as well boost it with easier classes. This was from two different college reps and I was wondering which is correct?</p>
<p>Best solution is to get good grades in AP classes. Either of the others is not as favorable–either you’re “lazy” or “a bad student.”</p>
<p>Bodangles, what is your standard of a good grade? Anything above or at a B+?</p>
<p>A B+ is reasonable enough in AP classes if you get A’s at most while if your grades in honors or CP classes are at an A or higher try to strive for all A’s it honestly won’t be that hard with the right amount of work if you work efficiently and pay attention!</p>
<p>Getting A grades in the hard courses looks the best.</p>
<p>However, if taking the hard course in a given subject would result in getting a grade more than one grade lower (or grade lower than C), or if the workload is overwhelming, you may want to reconsider whether you want to take the hard course in that subject.</p>
<p>The tradeoff between grades/GPA and rigor for admissions depends on the college.</p>
<p>
It is a false question and the stock answer to get good grades in AP classes does not answer it. The sane approach is to take AP classes in the subjects you enjoy or are good at, but not in your weak subjects. Then you will have good grades in all of your classes.</p>
<p>^^ That actually doesn’t work for the elite level schools - they’ll want to see you take tough classes in all the core areas, which means an AP in science, math, social studies, and English, plus at least Level IV in a foreign language, AP not necessary. And they want to see you take the tough APs, not the the AP-lite courses. The courses you don’t take are often just as important as the ones you do. Dodging AP Lang, APUSH, and taking AP Enviro rather than one of the core sciences will not get you very far with many Top 50 schools.</p>
<p>OP did not mention elite level schools; why must we assume it? My solution is feasible and humane. The proposal that a kid bang their head against a wall to try (and fail) to get an A in advanced classes in their weak subjects is not.</p>
<p>Like others have said, it depends on the selectivity of your target schools. Many publics will solely look at your GPA & test scores w/o regards much to the difficulty of your schedule. So the question is – what schools are you targeting?</p>
<p>^^ Both the above posts may be true. CC is so infected with elite level kids that I start to assume that unless they state otherwise, everyone is one.</p>
<p>What colleges would you be applying to? What’s in-state for you?</p>
<p>Indeed:
- if you’re applying to state schools that calculate rank or unweighted GPAXSAT, take the easier class
- if you’re applying to schools (like UCs) that limit the number of AP’s that are weighted into your GPA, it’ depends on how many Ap’s you have.
- if you’re aiming for Top 50 universities/LACs, the answer is take APs in subjects where you’re sure you can get A’s, and no AP’s in subjects where you’re not sure you can at least get a B or more.</p>
<p>UW GPA should never be sacrificed for just an ounce of rigor. For a pound of rigor though? As others have stated, it depends on the target school. It also depends on what the rest of your transcript looks like.</p>
<p>I will give a specific example. If you’re due to take AP Chem but you know the teacher weights lab reports at 50% and you are really bad at writing lab reports and you just know a B is the highest possible grade you will receive, then should you just take honors Chem with a different teacher where you are very confident in an A?</p>
<p>Well, if you already took AP Bio, and you plan on taking AP Physics, and you have AP History and English on your transcript as well… you get the point.</p>
<p>Your transcript is is already plenty rigorous and in this case, you are, IMO, much better off not sacrificing UW GPA points for this extra ounce of rigor. </p>
<p>Of course, in a real case things will not be so cut and dry. The more AP classes missing from the transcript, the further away from ‘most rigorous schedule’ you will get. Still though, for a student in the typical CC demographic, you aren’t getting into Harvard or Stanford with a bunch of B’s on your transcript anyway, in which case rigor is a moot point and you are still better off maxing out the UW GPA and hoping to impress them elsewhere on your application. Keep in mind though that, eventually, you will get to a point with competitive schools where even a 4.0 UW GPA will not be enough to overcome a lack of rigor, and your application will go no further.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>definitely A’s in easy classes…</p>