RE @mathmom#17, I think you are missing the point that “when an academic course could have been taken instead” does not mean no PE courses, especially when they are required for graduation.
Similarly @ClaremontMom#18, if course scheduling conflicts don’t allow a student to take a 15th AP course, then that student should not be penalized for only taking an honors level course during that period. But should the student who chooses 7 AP courses, 2 honors courses, and 4 study halls, be considered taking the most demanding schedule, when some of their peers in the same school take 14-18 AP courses? Presumably there are other factors like weighting of GPA and class rank that may address some of this. But the smart kids will figure out what they have to do in order to do well.
Much of this depends the school class size, and how many courses are offered and when. If there are several hundred kids in the class, and there are multiple sections offered for several of the AP classes, then the answers might be different. Several schools heavily promote the fact that a very high percentage of students take multiple AP’s, yet there are very few offered in other schools.
In my example above, if there are 100+ students taking 7 AP courses and study halls, and only a few manage to handle 17-18 AP courses (like my S and D), then our high school informally uses the cutoff for most demanding somewhere around a dozen AP’s. This means around 3-5% of students have a “most demanding” schedule.
No I am not missing the point. Art and music aren’t academic courses and beyond the one required year are optional. I don’t want kids to stop taking art and music out of some stupid idea that then they wouldn’t get “most demanding” curriculum boxes checked.
I’m not suggesting that a student who has study halls every year should get that check mark, though I think my younger son ended up with one once, when there was no course available at that time that it made sense to take. I think the idea that whoever takes the most APs wins is dumb. I’d prefer to see that schools set a number of advanced courses that makes sense in the context of that school as enough for the designation. You don’t need brownie points from the school that your program was extra, extra, extra demanding. Generally speaking colleges aren’t that interested in students who have taken huge numbers of APs anyway. I don’t see anything wrong with 3 to 5% of the class to get “most demanding” designations.
Some may disagree with that statement. For example, the California public universities consider art and music to be academic courses which are included when recalculating high school GPA for their frosh admission purposes. Of course, they are also academic enough that one can major in art or music at many colleges and universities.
But that idea is precisely the one that many high schools use to weight courses, for weighted GPA, for class rank.
Whether or not we philosophically agree with it, doesn’t really matter. Competitive students should understand its implications, particularly at their high school.
I could say I think its a wonderfully appropriate approach, as I had 2 pups successfully play the game, both became valedictorian, and went on to Columbia and Stanford. My son’s year, his 5.00 WGPA was nearly .3 above the next closest kid, and almost .4 above the highest kid from the prior graduating class, playing by the same rules. D’s was merely .002 above the next kid, but three years later. S had instances where the schedule prevented him from an AP course, so he took a different AP course Independent Study. S had shown several others in following years how to make the system work to their advantage.
But I know my pups are far from the “normal” kids at their high school. They choose to work harder, but they also have very special abilities so they can handle the most rigorous course load possible. They had plenty of meaningful EC activities, many involving music. Among their AP courses they chose Art History - because they wanted to, they understood from kids in prior years that their AP art teacher was among the school’s very best. Sometimes students don’t have to sacrifice the arts.
I understand, however, that what has worked in our public HS may not be comparable to many other schools.
And just to clarify, I don’t have a problem with how our school decides who gets checked “most rigorous” - they publish a HS Profile that discusses which courses are typically offered. I certainly did not mean to imply I thought 3-5% was too high for our school - I don’t think my S was, nor should have been, the only one in his class of 500 who got the “most rigorous” schedule box checked, but it was clear to anyone that he went well out of his way to challenge himself. And like scores of other kids with perfect SAT scores and perfect GPA, he too, was rejected at Harvard. Their loss, Columbia’s gain.
My kid took half as many APs and did get into Harvard. Carnegie Mellon though was a better fit. But I really think what made him stand out was what he did in his free time, not the fact that he took a lot of APs in the context of his school. But anecdotes of course aren’t data.
Does CA count as academic courses art courses beyond what is required for the CA GPA, or whatever they call it? Our school was rather inconsistent about art and music. They counted the AP art and music and I think the art elective required by NYS and they counted courses taken as part of our special arts program - though those weren’t weighted. Some schools have gone to only weighting a certain number of APs as a way of discouraging too much gaming.
So, I’ve always wondered, how do you know if the counselor checked the magic “most rigorous” box?
I’ve often wondered if it varies from counselor to counselor at bigger schools. I don’t envy DD’s counselor, she has about 400 students spread over the 4 years.
In California, the UCs and CSUs include all academic courses (which includes art and music), including those beyond the minimum, for calculation of high school GPA. 9th grade course grades are not included in the GPA, and up to 8 semesters of UC-certified honors and AP courses with C or higher grades can get +1 bonus points.