When it comes to high school course work, do colleges potentially care more about challenging yourself with harder classes, or getting good grades? (I know they want both, but that’s not always possible). For example, would it be better to be a B student in an honors math class, or an A student in regular math class?
Depends on what type of college.
State university? Could be either–but if you’re aiming for, say, Penn State main campus, you’d probably want to challenge yourself. They’ll forgive a few B’s.
Harvard? Neither the easy-A nor the honors-B student is going to be a shoo-in. It’s the one who took AP’s with A’s all the way, haha.
@bodangles haha yeah. I’m not really aiming for Harvard or state schools though. Somewhere in between.
But the main reason I’m asking this question is that I’ve been taking extended honors math since 8th grade, and while it’s been challenging, I’ve always managed to maintain an A-/B+ average, which I was okay with since all of my other grades were higher and it is and extended honors class. But this year there’s definitely been a shift to B range grades, and I’m wondering if it would be better for me to move to the easier class (which they still call “honors” lml) for my junior year, where I’d almost definitely get better grades. The tradeoff would be that the teachers are not as good, the students are way less interested in math and can be kind of disruptive, and that it might look to colleges like I gave up on extended honors math and decided to stop challenging myself or something. So I’m confused.
Nope. Go for the harder classes. A drop to an easier class for a higher grade would give me the impression of someone who doesn’t like to be challenged (and is a bit of a quitter).
Since it’s math, as long as you put in the time/work doing practice problems, you’ll have an A. It’s actually simple that way in high school (and beginnings of college-level math)… math is all about technique and practice.
@Stanccepted I really agree that math is all about technique and practice, which is part of the reason why I like it for the most part. In general, I feel like I almost always understand concepts/participate in class/know how to do my homework/etc. What really brings my grade down are the tests, which I feel like I always do really poorly on, no matter how much I study. I haven’t been able to figure out why this is. I’ve thought that maybe it’s psychological, that the idea of doing so much math in a limited amount of time freaks me out to the point that I can’t perform skills that I normally know how to do. But the thing is I tend to be a good tester in almost every other subject, and also on standardized tests. It might also be that my math teacher this year just makes her tests way harder than the stuff we’ve been doing in class and on homework assignments. Any suggestions on how to overcome this?
A B in AP Calculus or an A in PE.
Well obviously an A in AP Calculus.
@qpqpqp that’s different though…I’m talking about two classes of the same subject.
@lalalemma Chances are you’re making dumb mistakes. In this case, it’s a mindset change. You have to force yourself to reevaluate everything you write. For example, when I check over my test, I check every problem (if time allows) with the assumption that I got it wrong already. I assume that there’s a mistake that I need to find. If I don’t find it, fine, either I got the problem right or I just didn’t find the mistake (which happens rarely).
It is for this reason that good grades in math are so important. Nobody really cares if you know trig identities, but math requires perfection and the ability to do things very precisely without many mistakes… which is why it’s so valued for not only undergrad admissions but law and med schools as well.
As long as you have a B in the harder classes, they’re worth it. If you start getting C’s in an AP class, time to switch to Honors. If you start getting C’s in an Honors class, time to switch to Regular. If you’re getting a C, you’re not grasping what you’re supposed to, both in the foundations of the subjects and in its finer points.
So, a B in Calculus is better than an A in Integrated Math Regular, but a C in Calculus is worse than an A in Integrated Math Honors.
B’s in AP classes are better than A’s in standard classes. But anything below a B in AP classes aren’t worth it.
Definitely course rigor, although don’t think a high course rigor compensates for a low GPA. Also it does depend on the school, as some are more concerned about GPA in context of rigor. Therefore, a 3.9 with 7 AP classes total looks better than a 3.65 with 9 AP classes total looks better than a 4.0 with 1 AP class total.