<p>Is it determined with respect to the most rigorous courseload available at a school?</p>
<p>Yes, available and that students are able to take. Look at the CA SSR, your HS GC will rate whether you’ve taken the most demanding, very demanding, demanding, etc. schedule.</p>
<p>What is CA SSR?</p>
<p>Common Application Secondary School Report (also called School Report).</p>
<p>its determined by whatever box your GC checks off on the CommonApp</p>
<p>The box checked by the GC is important, but it is not the complete answer at most schools. Some GCs look at all 4 years and others just at senior year when deciding which box to check. Some HSs impose a metric on all GCs for how to decide rigor while others leave the determination to individual GCs. Knowing this, selective schools go beyond just looking at the GC’s check mark. They also evaluate rigor in an applicant’s curriculum by looking at the transcript in light of the information the GC provides about the number and level of AP/IP/honors and other upper level courses the HS offers.</p>
<p>Ah, I see. So are the AP exams you’ve done taken into account? As in, just say I have only a few AP classes, but most of the AP’s I took I self-studied and took the exam and got 4s/5s. </p>
<p>Would that count towards rigor?</p>
<p>I don’t think taking the exam is anything extra added into the rigor. Just taking the class. The whole idea is you take the class with the expectation to take the exam.</p>
<p>So self-studying is actually disadvantageous?</p>
<p>I didn’t say that, Only taking the exam for a course you’ve taken doesn’t really merit any more “rigor” - taking a test isn’t really rigorous, its a pain in the butt, but taking the class is the rigorous part. Any way to earn college credits is to your advantage. </p>
<p>I believe the GC goes off of what your transcript shows, and how that relates to your schools course offering. So, if the self studied AP’s aren’t on the transcript, I don’t think they include that. However, if your GC knows you’re self studying these, they may say you’re taking the most difficult course load anyway.</p>
<p>Did you self study these AP’s because your school didn’t offer them, or because you didn’t want to take the class, or you’re already taking AP classes, but wanted more?</p>
<p>Some, my school doesn’t offer. Others, I don’t feel like wasting time with the class.</p>
<p>You don’t necessarily have to take every single AP available to have the “most rigorous course load available” I took 8 AP’s in HS, and everything else except 4 classes were honors. Although we offered something like 15 AP’s, she still checked the box for me that said I took the most rigorous course load. As long as you’re still taking some AP classes within the school itself, along with your self-study’s, you should be fine…</p>
<p>What about for a kid studying a foreign Lang at a local college? My daughters friend studies Chinese at a community college so that she can take show choir at school ( her favorite class). Also, the only foreign Lang offered is Spanish. Since this kid hasn’t studied a foreign Lang at school will the GC have to mark the less rigorous box? Will the colleges she applies to recognize that she hasn’t been cutting educational corners?</p>
<p>As long as she submits those college transcripts like I believe you’re required to for most schools, they’ll see the college-level foreign language. </p>
<p>As mentioned, the GC check of rigor isn’t the end all.</p>
<p>We spoke with our kid’s GC about how she was going to checked off those boxes because GC’s report was important. D2 was in a class slightly less than 200 kids and was a contender to be a Val or Sal. We asked if she would be placed as top 1% of class if she was a Sal.</p>
<p>I’ve emailed several universities about their general policies on this and will keep you updated on any news I recieve.</p>
<p>Etuck24, thanks! I’ve decided to take AP Stats, AP Chem, and AP Physics there (three out of four AP classes) and self study the rest.</p>
<p>Alright, so I emailed JHU and Yale, and they said that while they factor test scores into academic rigor, it is advised to get the high school GC to include the self-studied AP’s in her recommendation. Furthermore, JHU advised me to include it in my application essay.</p>
<p>It’s based on how many Ap’s and honors you took available at your school and I heard it was also on if you were consistent in some classes like taking all 4 years of a foreign language</p>
<p>Is Rigor simply determined by number of AP/IB/dual and/or honors?</p>
<p>Because some AP’s are harder than others.
(for ex. at my school AP Physics C is harder than AP Stat)</p>
<p>Yes, adcoms know which APs are tougher </p>
<p>Bottom line: colleges have been evaluating applicants from a range of HSs for a long time, they know how to compare the different variety of apples that apply every year.</p>