I told D20 to take a light class load senior year so that she could focus on college applications. She is going to comply. Thing is, now it looks like she may only apply to 3-4 schools next year. :lol:
@Octagon: āGPA is only based on classes up to junior year (as far as college acceptance is concerned)ā¦ā
Nearly every college with which I am familiar will ask for senior end-of-first term grades, where available. They depend on guidance offices supplying them at that time.
Unless a student has applied for ED there is, therefore, the possibility of the boost of the senior year first term. ( It may be used merely to confirm a solid hold on a studentās continued effort and ethic at finishing strong, as opposed to being factored in, but I donāt know how we would know that.)
Interestingly, my really mellow kid has expressed a sense of befuddlement that anyone would take a host of AP classes in subjects they absolutely do not like or have an aptitude for in the senior year of high school. Sometimes just taking a good look at who you are as a student helps you to make a choice that is best for the student.
Cal State only uses 9-11 grades and UCās only use 10-11
Senior year first semester grades come out too late for all rolling and most EA schools. And, probably come out too late for all schools to that have an application deadline of January 1 or even a bit later. I think youāre definitely safe to take the foot off the gas for senior year, while still getting good grades in your classes.
@bigmacbeth: Every school with which I am familiar has asked for those grades.
Their application deadlines are for the applicants, not the guidance offices. Even with stated date ranges (and no hard fixed date) for the counselors to get this last bit of info out to them, the colleges are rather flexible with the school counselorsā constraints on access to this information; they canāt send it until grades are ready and input by the classroom teacher.
One can always look up what any particular collegeās policies in this area are.
@VickiSoCal I thought SLO was the only CSU to use 9th grade. Donāt all the others use just summer before 10 to summer after 11?
@lkg4answers yeah, you are right, just CalPoly for 9-11, all others are 10-11 only.
None use 12th.
@Waiting2exhale Thatās why I said you need to continue getting good grades, so as not to suffer a rescision. I find it hard to believe that an admission decision can swing one way or the other based solely on the rigor of your first semester senior year course selection. We shall have to agree to disagree.
AOās will look at both senior year course load and 1st semester grades if applying RD to make sure itās consistent with 10th/11th grade.
We really should not make this sound like every school takes grades and rigor from senior year in HS into account. I think it does a disservice to those applying to the larger percentage of schools that donāt take the time to import midyear reports.
So I guess the answer about senior year rigor is, āIt depends.ā It depends on the student and their personal goals; it depends on the schoolās culture and GCs; and it depends on where they plan on applying. I do wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze sometimes though in regards to the number of APs. Iām hearing from parents about the stress levels and probably worse than that the poor grades. Iām concerned with mental health as well. So does extreme rigor outweigh gpa? Not sure how adcomms see this. Anecdotally, just heard from a parent yesterday that their DSā16 who had a very rigorous schedule and a lot of ECs failed BC and still got a full tuition scholarship.
.āSo does extreme rigor outweigh gpaā. I think the answer is no. Good rigor and great GPA and test scores with interesting ECs seem to be the best combo. I personally would never allow a schedule that forces my kid to lose a lot of sleep and be totally stressed.
The AP rat race is a problem. Only choose AP courses that are at least a bit interesting or in a subject the student is strong at. Getting a C or C+ (even B-) in an AP course is much worse than an A- in an honors course.
Our guidance counselor was explicit with us and our child about rigor. dS20 wanted to take all APs this year -7 or 8 classes as Iām not exactly sure of his schedule- and we wanted him to drop one elective AP off since weāve been through junior year before with dd17 and know the challenge is real. We all met with guidance (something all students and families do in junior year ) and she told ds20 that he would need to maintain that level or exceed it in senior year to keep āmost rigorousā status for her counselor report. He would not have any APs left to take in our school to meet the level of rigor since he is adamant that he wonāt do AP in his foreign language. He would have had to do dual enrollment and that would hurt his ECs. She said that the guidelines prohibit her from given him that designation. Now interestingly when he dropped down a level in one of the classes he will take it AP in senior year, still no AP foreign language and he will be marked most rigorous. We personally donāt care about too much of this since we are merit hunters and not top 20 dreamers. The move did likely cost him from being in the top 5 and maybe even the top 10 in his class rank since he is one AP behind"the pack". But the flip is he has been able to excel in the classes he has so he is getting that edge and he is able to keep up with his ECs.
My D19 is going thru the process right now, so I have some current experience with senior year. The senior course load does appear on the Common App, regardless of EA, ED or RD. 1st semester grades were not available by the EA/ED deadlines, but I believe some colleges required 1st marking period grades from GC, even though they are not official grades. And then also, D was deferred from 3 schools where she applied EA, and those schools requested 1st semester grades.
That said, I would not encourage my kids to load up on a bunch of EAs that they are not interested in. Senior year is no joke. Sept-Dec thereās a lot of activity around applications, Dec-Apr is very stressful waiting for decisions, and then thereās senioritis. Our tour guide at one school this week said he knew people who had their admission rescinded after failing a class in senior year. Our HS culture is not to load up on all APs, and D19 was not shooting for super selective schools, so she did not feel pressure to overdo it. YMMV, and I have no experience with California schools.
D18 took 5 APās her senior year, and as a 3 season athlete she was very pressed for time to get it all done. It was a stressful year. Add on applications and college visits (she was finished with all of them by November 1st, but continued to have to write essays for things like National Merit, Presidential Scholar etc.) It seemed like the essays never ended.
At a college visit last year for D20 the college admissions officer flat out said that class rigor was top on their list. Then GPA, and went on from there. You can find this information listed by the colleges ādifferent colleges weigh different attributes differently. State schools are less wholistic and look mainly at rigor, GPA and test scores. ECās are much less important.
As much as I would like to advise D20 to take it easy her senior year to make room for the other stresses that I know await, I know it canāt be that simple with the schools she has on her list. I think having the counselor check anything other than āmost rigorous scheduleā would definitely hurt her chances at the selective LACās she wants to apply to.
^^^ correction to my previous postā¦
I would not encourage my kids to load up on a bunch of APs that they are not interested in.
The importance of senior course load depends so much on college application list. For 2 of S19ās schools, the rigor was definitely important. For the rest, it just didnāt matter. I will say, fall semester was no joke and quite stressful at times. However, he has said he thinks the work load will prepare him for freshman year as an engineering student.
For S20, I donāt think senior course load will matter at all. That being said, he is still taking solid schedule of classes just for learningās sake. Some kids just take the bare bones needed to graduate. To each their own.
My d20 decided to take 3 AP classes and opt out of the 4th one she was considering for a number of reasons for senior year. Unfortunately our school doesnāt offer a honors options so it is AP or core so she will be taking a core class for the first time in her high school career. Then she is taking 3 music classes and dropping her club sport but keeping her school sports so hoping it will be a bit more relaxing of a year. In hind sight she should have dropped something this year as her plate has been a bit too fullā¦I think she will only apply to 3 colleges at the most so hopefully she will have time for some other things. She really wants to get a job but I would prefer her to let school get started to see how things are going before jumping into new commitments.
I stand by my statement that mosy colleges want to see consistency throughout high school, both in course rigor and GPA. Remember IT IS a competition with other applicants and rest assured many will be maintaining their workload and GPAs through senior year. In addition, if an applicant had a less than stellar freshman or sophomore year but show a positive GPA trend junior and senior year, they will want to demonstrate that to adcoms. In addition, many kids get waitlisted at colleges and is another reason to do very well 1st semester senior year to update colleges in continued positive progress on their LOCI. Lastly, taking APs senior year and doing well on the exams can give them college credit at some colleges before they even start freshman year.
The bottom line is that for most students maintaining a rigor course load and GPA senior year can be important.
It is not possible in any way to take 8 APs in a year at our school. Thank goodness.
Our schedule only has 6 periods. You can add a zero, but if you do sports or choir or orchestra, the most academic classes you can take is 6. Period.