I think it depends on a lot of factors. I could see an in-state kid from a less rigorous public school in North Carolina getting into UNC Chapel Hill with that if they did really well in those courses, but I doubt they’d be going to Princeton unless they had some really compelling story.
Colleges look at each student in the context of what their high school offers. Many don’t offer some of the advanced courses you outline above, and students from these high schools do get accepted to top schools…believe it or not.
Some high schools just don’t have the above courses.
Because the school didn’t offer, or because the student didn’t avail themselves of the offerings?
For the latter, I’d say extremely rare. For the former, it will be reviewed in context, but I’d venture to say any successful applicants in that instance are probably FGLI, recruited athletes, or other major hook.
I’d also be curious what was otherwise available to this student in the county and at the state? In the US? I read an awful lot of education news and while it is true that opportunities differ I am not under the impression that there are huge number of schools that offer…. nothing. Are there? Are there links? Research? But also the enterprising kid can find dual enrollment at the community college? Online classes? This state was just a barren place of nothing? No boys scout/girls scout/congressional medal/boys nation.
But I think what each school is able to offer has changed over the years. Below is an example of someone from Mercer WI that was able to get into the USAFA. In a good year, that school maybe has the high teens for a graduation class. However, if you read some of the other student profiles, you can see they supplement with online courses for the advanced students. Years ago they would have been limited to what they could offer in-house.
How common ? Likely not very but only one way to find out.
In other words, I’m guessing most, but not the entirety of students at more selective schools come in well prepared. Athletes, first gen, legacy and others may not - or simply kids who are mis judged by admissions.
But what do you define as selective ? Because if it’s what I think, most who are highly rigored and accomplished likely also get turned down.
Take your shot but have a balanced list.
And make no mistake - selective does not = guaranteed life success and not selective does not hinder success.
No specific student. Was inspired to post this thread because in a chance/match thread, some replies were questioning why the 4.0 student took “only” two AP courses through 11th grade (will take two more in 12th grade) in a high school with many offered.
There are plenty of high schools that offer very limited AP courses, don’t have IB at all, AICE isn’t there, and neither is the opportunity to take courses at some four year college DE.
We live in a pretty wealthy state. Our high school has about 10 AP courses, but the school is small, and many of these courses are offered at the same time as others. Students simply can’t take them all. We don’t have any of the other things above. Kids can take DE courses through a local community college.
We have had students accepted at all of the Ivies, and a number of other elite schools (Stanford, MIT, etc).
These were very strong students with outstanding SAT scores and nearly perfect or perfect GPAs…and significant ECs with strong commitment.
No national awards…those things just aren’t a thing where we live.
Again, gets back to context. If a school offers 30 APs but offers nine for 9th or 10th graders and limits to 3 each in 11th and 12th, the applicant will be viewed differently than if the school has no restrictions.
I think it depends what you mean by “selective colleges”. State flagships, even the most selective ones, have all kinds of programs to get their instate applicants caught up if they didn’t have access to advanced courses at their high school. Key word being “didn’t have access”. I think all bets are off for students who choose not to challenge themselves when the courses are available.
@ucbalumnus you might find the “pre-college studies” section interesting. But is it representative of similarly selective schools?
I think this one qualifies as solid achievement. Getting to level 4 of a language (as long as you did 4 years - that seems to be the preference) is great. I don’t think S will be penalized for finishing in 4 (though all Honors) having started in 1 vs D finishing in AP having started in 2. I don’t even believe D2 was at any significant advantage by having started in 3 and therefore finishing in post AP 5.
I admit to being surprised at the very large number of kids with post BC classes, but I also don’t believe it offers any significant advantage over the kids who completed AP Calculus. So much of that is determined by the track you get put on years earlier/what kind of track is available to you in MS. The international students at are school are almost always ahead from the start. Where I think it can hurt you is that if you choose to take Stats instead of MV for example.
There are also IB schools. So it is likely that much of that 13.7% with 0 AP courses is either prep school courses claimed to be “more advanced or rigorous than AP” or IB or other advanced level courses (including whatever is available internationally for the international students who attend).
1.1% less than precalculus and 5.0% to precalculus indicates that it is possible to get admitted to Princeton without competing in the math acceleration race – but are these the most important recruited athletes and development-related applicants?
It also notes that the most common high school EC was community service (79.8%), and the second most common was varsity athletics (53.9%).
I think more often FGLI students who truly lacked access. The recruits I know were all expected to maintain a certain amount of rigor (remember that this is defined by each individuals context). I know of students who were to add Calc. I know a top 10 in the country recruit that had to redo his Sr schedule because it was deemed too cushy and he had to add an AP Social Science.
That is not surprising to me. A very large number of kids participate in HS sports. At some schools it is mandatory, or like ours, not particularly competitive to make the team.
EVERYTHING is gamed as community service these days. Older teammates help run a little kid meet? Community service. School runs earth day clean up? Community service. I wouldn’t read anything into it.
Good point. I didn’t even remember international. The majority does not come from American schools and AP would not be available to them. I think they represent a similar chuck of the class?
It depends what you mean by “more selective “. If you mean Top 50 range and up, it would only be a reasonable chance if a HS does not offer the more advanced classes you mentioned. If one’s HS offered them and one could not take them, then that level of college is not likely to admit, barring extenuating circumstances such as unusual/underprivileged background etc
@ucbalumnus Thank you for posting this. We are in a similar situation trying to determine rigor level. Coming from a highly ranked & competitive private with great historical placements (top half of class accepted to T40 schools typically) that does not offer APs and are very restrictive on honors placements. Daughter has taken about half of the offered honors classes and will be in all “advanced” classes senior year. They grade on the 1-100 scale and do not have class rank and don’t publicly release deciles.
