My kids ‘ high school doesn’t have a lot of AP classes but does have some very tough non branded AP classes. The list of most rigorous classes is listed on the high school profile that is sent with the college apps.
@ucbalumnus At D’s school, the kids who are “racking up APs” are also taking APs in the required core classes (English x2, bio, chem, cal, world history, US history, etc). It’s just not an issue. The school is on a block schedule with 8 classes, so a lot of kids do end up taking “lite” APs as well. Another incentive for taking the challenging curriculum: This is a VERY urban - and diverse - school. If you’re not on the AP track, you have a very likely chance of sitting next to someone who you will see on “America’s Most Wanted” later in life.
The reason for asking is that it is not that unusual to see on these forums high school students asking which choice should they make (e.g. AP statistics versus precalculus, AP environmental science versus physics, AP psychology versus foreign language level 3, etc.), in terms of getting in an extra AP course at the expense of what is ordinarily considered an important college-prep course.
Like others, it depends on what the school offers. In our HS, roughly 20% of kids took 10 or more AP classes, and 50% took at least 4. It wouldn’t make sense for the GC to say that the kid taking only 4 AP’s has the same rigor as the kid taking 17 like my pups.
Typically 75%-85% of the HS class is college bound, and most end up at Flagship State. Our HS has a complicated formula using potential weight to determine “most rigorous” vs. “rigorous” but it doesn’t matter for most students - they realize that they need to be taking 10 APs not just to be considered for higher rigor, but many of them want the APs because quite a few end up graduating college in only 3 years - saving them thousands of dollars in tuition
I am not a fan of choosing APs just to “rack up” APs. But there are valid reasons to take Stats or Enviro. At my kid’s HS the AP Enviro teacher is a legend, super enthusiastic, runs a school-based nature preserve the kids work on all year - he is an amazing teacher who kids seek out. Graduating without taking a class of his is really missing out. OTOH, the AP Gov class is known to be the toughest humanities course the school offers - again, largely because of the teacher. It’s a class the GC looks for kids to take in the “rigor” assessment.
TLDR - it depends. I agree that the core courses most colleges require/recommend need to be taken by students applying to those colleges.
I expect that “most rigorous” ends up not being the truly “most” but rather some percent that the school’s counselors agree on. Maybe 10%?
Our school profile says they count AP, IB, and dual enrollment classes as “equally rigorous.” The DE classes taken by students could range from taking the required Health class at the community college to make it weighted (it is actually harder, mainly because the regular Health class is not hard at all) to taking Real Analysis at the local UC campus.
I would guess that students at our HS are getting the “most rigorous” box checked for having some (unknown) number of AP classes, and they aren’t saving that checkbox for students who manage to take sophomore/junior college level math or CS courses while in HS.
So, yes AP Stats probably counts as equal rigor to a UC math class for purposes of the checkbox. But, despite their ~400 student load, I’ve found that our GCs do actually know the students. So, I expect the GC letter points out UC courses where appropriate. (They don’t have to write as many letters as you’d think, since the UCs and CSUs generally don’t ask for letters and >50% take the community college route.)
Thanks @ucbalumnus for posting. Very helpful. @MYOS1634 , you said IB diploma is automatically considered most rigorous, but will a mix of SL IB courses, along with AP and honors courses, also be considered rigorous? My understanding is that IB classes are regarded at the same level as AP, but I don’t know if SL IB is considered closer to honors.
It would be nice if schools were more transparent but I suspect that would increase competition, which would increase the standards. In our school, our counselor hinted that she’d look at most rigorous for that course–so if engineering choices were regular or honors, honors would count as rigorous since no AP was available. No idea if it’s true, but it made us feel like there was no downside as far as rigor for continuing to take arts classes where honors & AP were not options. We have APs available in all core subjects, so it’s not like you can avoid them entirely. I guess we’ll find out what colleges think but honestly, some of the non-AP/honors courses were a valuable part of my child’s education.
Again, school-specific. But I have seen schools where IBD is automatically most rigorous, but others can “earn” most rigorous based upon their courses over the years.
I discovered that DD2016 did not receive the “most rigourous” checkmark despite having taken ALL AP/Pre-AP/Honors courses throughout HS. She graduated with 11 APs ( human geo, world history, APUSH, eng lang, eng lit, music theory, physics I, calc AB, euro, gov, econ) and 3 years of foreign language (Latin) - one year more then many of her top 10% classmates. She never took a “regular” class except for band, PE and her senior year science class, where she elected to take Food Science because it was a possible career choice/college major and she wanted to explore it before committing to it for college (good thing she did because she eventually decided food science was a no go). According to GC DD2016 was not marked as “most rigorous” because A) she was not top 10% - was top 16% if I recall and B) the senior year science choice. Of course, as she was my first, I didn’t know to ask about this delineation prior to college applications.
More aware this go around, I spoke to GC earlier this year, when senior year course selection happened, about DD2018 and if she would be marked “most rigorous”. DD2018 has basically the same course record as her sister, including 3 years of Latin, but has 2 less AP’s at 9 (human geo, world hist, APUSH, eng lang, english lit, psych, euro, calc AB, physics I). I asked because DD2018 wanted to take gov/econ over the summer instead of the AP versions during the school year and take forensic science (again a career choice investigation which she so far loves) as her senior year science. Who knows why, but DD2018 was marked “most rigorous”. She is not top 10% (is top 14%) and took a non-honors science course senior year, just like her sister.
So, for our school at least, it seems rather random and on the whim of the GC or there was a change in district policy between 2016 and 2018. Ultimately, not having the “most rigorous” checkmark didn’t seem to hurt DD2016, she was admitted to all the schools to which she applied. DD2018 is batting 100 on her acceptancee so far with 6 under her belt.
Anecdotally, it seems to me that AOs are quite capable of determining if they think a student has attempted to challenge themselves without relying on a box checked by a GC.
Especially when a school gives no "points’ for a heavier workload - more classes rather than study halls, for instance.
Is it common for rank to be involved in a most rigorous determination? It seems to me that the entire point of the designation is to refer to the difficulty of the schedule as separate from GPA and/or to give context to GPA.
For this reason, I don’t understand the purpose of the box. All it seems to do is add fuel to the AP race.
Lol agree @OHMomof2! Oddly DD2018 has a “study hall” this semester, it’s called school service and she works in the attendance office. She will have 2 “study halls” next semester. She still got the “most rigorous” checkmark, her sister never had a study hall.
In the end, I think AO’s just want to see that you tried to challenge yourself with a few APs/dual enrollment courses, took 4 years of all your core subjects, plus at least 2 years of a foreign language and were involved in your school/community. If you want to major in engineering they expect to see math thru at least Calc AB and AP Physics or some AP science. If you want to be a humanities major you should have AP English and an AP history or two. If I were a GC these are the things that I would consider in order to mark most rigorous.
@evergreen5 I don’t think rank is usually considered, but taking rigorous courses affects rank at high schools that weight GPAs, so there is some correlation.
I had the “box” convo with my kid’s GC and she said she gave it for students who took APs even if not in all. subjects - like even just one. But our HS was in a transition between not weighting/ranking and then weighting/ranking. APs got more popular after weight was re-introduced, and both of my kids took them before that. The policy may be different now.
@evergreen5 I do not think rank normally plays a role, I think the GC was just trying to justify her decision to not mark most rigorous. But I suppose that you could consider rank as a means to bypass an indepth analysis of the transcript. It would be unusual, if not impossible, to make top 10% at our HS without taking a fair number of AP/honors.
Part of the problem is that many HS Guidance counselors were not great math students themselves. While they may excel in other areas like how to help a kid through a breakup with a GF/BF, or how to identify which kid needs a pat on the back, or advice on how to ask a teacher for an extension on an assignment - things that really terrify a lot of HS kids - there are other areas that they are simply trained to rely on the shortcuts.
Since so much depends on the other kids in the class, who differ from year to year, it is entirely possible that kids in different years but who have essentially taken the same classes would be classified differently for rigor. Just like when my DD earned salutatorian, although her WGPA was higher than every other kid from every other year at her HS, she happened to be in the same year as another genius (they remain great friends, and we have always been delighted that they went to school together).
Our HS guidance dept uses a complex formula that looks at the potential weight of each class, and compares it to the others in the appropriate cohort, to determine rigor. The data is in the transcript reporting system, so it is only a matter of clicking the appropriate buttons. There will always be kids on the edge of the reporting - and the kids for whom it really matters are really challenging themselves. It pains me that some of our HS kids, most of whom are really motivated, and many who would be standouts at other public schools in our state, might end up getting overlooked at some of the most selective colleges because of this. But since these kids are great, they will end up doing great things anyway, and there are other options for them.
I have no idea how our school decided who should get the most rigorous designation.
This is what I would do based strictly on what our school offers.
Any AP Math senior year - certainly either of the calculus courses, probably statistics or Comp Sci. (A handful went beyond Calculus because you could only do it by taking math in the summer or petitioning the middle school to let you skip ahead - something they were extremely reluctant to do.)
APUSH - all the advanced kids take it.
For STEM kids - Two AP Science classes - preferably Biology and either Chem or Physics. It’s almost impossible to do all three unless you double up or take a science during the summer.
For non-STEM kids AP World, AP Euro or AP Econ or AP Gov. Pick two.
AP English or Lit recommended, but not required.
AP Foreign language recommended, but not required.
(Neither of my kids took either AP English course - they disliked the teachers and there were interesting electives to take as seniors. My history kid took two science APs (Physics C and Biology). My science/math kid took APs in Latin, US History, Econ and Comp Sci in addition to BC Calc, Physics C, Biology and Chem.)
I think 6 to 8 APs - especially but not necessarily exclusively the “year long” ones - is plenty of rigor.
I’ve been reading this thread and I’m wondering where this “most rigorous” box is?
Because of this discussion, I just emailed my daughter’s GC asking if her school had standards for course/curriculum rigor and she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. She said she applauded my daughter for taking honors courses and now “dabbling in some AP’s” (definition of dabbling: “take part in an activity in a casual or superficial way” ??? - she’s taken three so far and has made A’s in all) and said she recommends that she takes 2 or 3 more next year. She didn’t get more specific than that.
She did say that what they consider most rigorous by far is the special program our state has for very academically gifted kids that is limited to about 10 students from each class (out of over 400 kids). I’m hoping that those kids are not the only ones who get the “box” checked for them, as the other students can still take the same number of or more AP’s without being in the program.
She also said I should contact colleges and ask them what they were looking for. I sent her the link to the school profile that @skieurope provided that showed that particular school’s method of categorizing rigor, so maybe she’ll figure out what I’m asking.
I wasn’t impressed to say the least.
@LeastComplicated the “box” is on the Common Application Counselor/School Report. So if you aren’t applying with the Common App or to a school that requires it’s own version of a GC/School Report this whole discussion is moot!
If I were setting policy on this for a typical school where AP courses are the hardest options, I would do something like this:
- Make the policy visible to all students and parents.
- "Most demanding" requires the following:
- Complete high school college-prep base curriculum: 4 years English, math through precalculus (calculus if on +1 or higher math track), 3 years history and social studies, 3 years science (must include biology, chemistry, physics), level 3 or higher foreign language, visual or performing art.
- 6 or more AP (or similar or higher level college) courses including in at least 3 subject categories: English, calculus, history, biology/chemistry/physics, foreign language, visual or performing art.
Maybe slightly more or fewer courses or subject categories, but that would be the basic idea of encouraging rigor for those students aiming at highly selective colleges that ask for counselor’s opinion on the matter, without encouraging students to run up the count of AP courses or skimp on the base curriculum to do so.
Note that only 11.2% of students taking AP exams over four years of high school take 6 or more, and only 17.0% take 5 or more. Of course, students taking AP exams over four years is not all college-bound students.