<p>Okay so while I was scrolling down the college chances threads I noticed that while these people maybe in the top of their class the classes that they are taking are blowoffs, and non-honors. While there are students like me who take honors and AP but come from a competitive school but I am pretty sure I am not in the top ten. This isn't fair, colleges would like to see you in the top ten or twenty five. So do colleges consider the level of classes that I am taking ? My GPA currently is 3.6</p>
<p>Of course they do! </p>
<p>1) ALL colleges take level into consideration. They like to see kids taking the most rigorous course load possible. However, you still have to get good grades; for example, while mostly A’s and a few B’s in all honors/AP classes is more impressive than all A’s in standard classes, mostly B’s in all honors/AP classes isn’t impressive anymore (unless nobody gets all A’s in your school). </p>
<p>2) Top colleges have representatives who specialize in the high schools of a certain region, and they know what a “rigorous course load” consists of at each school, as it really varies across the country.</p>
<p>I read that multiple time from different books about admission and online articles too. What would admission office prefers, a very high GPA or a very rigorous course load? The answers from all top schools admission offices are “both”. They want students to be sufficiently challenged themselves and still be successful in it. Each high school would send their school profiles to colleges and the admission offices know how are are compared to other students in your school. You may also find that info in the public domain like what percentage of students at your school take AP and how many AP in average each student take.</p>
<p>^That’s exactly right. They want both.
At my school, the math dept. tells us that an C in advanced math is the equivalent of a A in honors math (we don’t have weighted grades at all, so that’s just a rough estimate for our own peace of mind). However, if I, being in advanced math, think, “Oh I’ll just get a C in this class, cuz that’s basically an A if I were in a lower class!”, that’s not going to help me get into top colleges, because undoubtedly there are kids in advanced math in my school who get A’s.</p>