<p>In my school, students are allowed to take AP and IB classes junior and senior year. There are 16 AP classes available and 7 IB Classes. If I take 6/16 AP classes and 1/7 IB classes, do you think schools like Cornell, Northwestern, Duke would think my schedule is rigorous? If I was veeeeery ambitious, the most classes I could have taken would've been - 8/16 APs and 3/7 IBs. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Btw all other classes are honors except PE and such.</p>
<p>BTW breakdown is:
Junior: 2 APs/ 1 IB
Senior: 4 APs/ 1 IB (the same one)</p>
<p>No one can give you definite, helpful answers without knowing your school. What specific AP/IB classes are you taking? Are the teachers hard? Are the classes rigorous? What is the pass rate for the AP/IB exams? What are the schedules of the other (ambitious/smart) people in your class? Are they taking as many as you? Is your school competitive? etc. (Those are suppose to be rhetorical questions.) </p>
<p>Basically course rigor is important but don’t sacrifice your GPA to get “most rigorous” checked off by your guidance counselor. Take a rigorous schedule that you can do well in.</p>
<p>Fair enough, but can i get a clearer answer to this question… how much do admission officers compare you to your classmates/ school and how much do they compare you to the rest of the applicant pool? Does each weigh about equally in the decision?</p>
<p>They generally compare your courses/transcript to that of other students at your school. They are looking to see if you took the more rigorous courses available at your school. To the extent that other students from your school have been accepted/matriculated at a particular selective college in prior years, the easier it is for the college to compare you to them.</p>
<p>They compare you to your own school to access your course rigor, to see how well you have taken advantage of the resources available to you. Your course load would be considered rigorous if your counselor checked the box labeled “most rigorous” on the college applicantion; I’m sure if you ask, your counselor can tell you how many APs or IBs students typically need to take in order for him or her to categorize it as rigorous. Different high schools are very different in terms of what courses are available.</p>
<p>Edit: yeah, so basically what fogcity said =D</p>