Honors B vs Nonhonors A

<p>My son is a high school sophomore and looking at Tech and JMU. I have seen some high school seniors not take Honors or AP and therefore have a high GPA. So do colleges really look at APs/Honors with a B, or a non-AP/honors A? I hate that his GPA has slipped a little because he is getting more Bs now in harder courses. I don't want a college to solely look at the GPA number without really looking at the challenging courseload he is taking.</p>

<p>All colleges will claim they consider the difficulty of a student's course load and prefer students with a B in an honors course rather than an A in a non-honors course. Some colleges will weigh honors courses when calculating a student's gpa, which is why some students have higher than a 4.0 on a 4.0 scale. However, most public universities seem to decide admissions based on formula that considers gpa in a core set of classes and ACT or SAT scores, but the extra weight some of the universities give to honors courses does not always make a honors B equivalent to a non-honors A. If your son is primarily interested in public schools, the higher non-honors gpa might serve him better.</p>