Hi! I’m applying to schools that aren’t way competitive but still up there (NYU, UT Austin, George Washington, American, Wisconsin Madison) and I’ve been reading threads about how a high GPA only really is high if you took all advanced classes- which I mostly did (where I could) and I currently I have a 3.85 except I took regular English my sophomore and junior year. Sophomore year I was trying to avoid the honors English class everyone in my school had warned me about, and junior year I moved and couldn’t be in AP Lang because I was too late registering for classes and couldn’t do my summer assignment so they put me in regular. I’m in AP Lit now as a senior which worries me because I don’t want colleges to see me as undedicated. I took 3 honors classes my freshman year, 3 my sophomore year, 2 honors and 2 AP my junior, and currently taking 4 APs as a senior- does this still qualify me as a competitive GPA applicant? I also am taking regular Physics for the credit but I figured my participation in AP bio and my good grades in it will cancel that out. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
I would not worry at all except maybe for UT Austin (wildly competitive if you are OOS). Just as an aside, have you run the net price calculators on these school websites? Some are not very affordable and won’t give you much aid.
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I think you are fine. Other than two English classes, it sounds like you are doing as much honors and AP as you can. Having a non-AP science like Physics is fine, as it is hard to take enough science classes to get to AP in several sciences, and you did Bio.
You might ask your counselor if he or she feels that you have taken the most rigorous schedule you could for junior and senior year. You could mention that you tried to take another AP English, but that was not possible. Your counselor will probably have to check off on the report to colleges with your transcript whether your courses were the most rigorous or just below that, and you’ll want to have the “most rigorous” box checked if possible.