My apologies, @Rue4 . I read your earlier explanation too quickly. I was taking it to mean that nothing at all got recalculated into the GPA unless it was an AP class in a core course. Mea culpa. It’s now too late to edit my above response.
@Aguadecoco , makes sense. When I’ve asked AOs which they prefer, they’ve said it didn’t matter. That may be depend on the specific cc in a student’s area, of course. I think the AOs know the academic reputations of the various community colleges.
[quote=“JanieWalker, post:6647, topic:1875994”]
Thank you @JanieWalker . My daughter is very independent, you could say she marches to her own drum beat. She did not take a lot of APs her peers at school are taking, and her reason is “I don’t want to do AP for the sake of AP”. She chose to do other honors level courses in Technical Communications, Anatomy and physiology and Computer science etc,. She is in the top 3% of her class of 752. She has 8 APs so far and will be doing 4 next year.
She started working on research over effectiveness of robotics in recovery after stroke and other traumatic brain injuries last year under the guidance of a medical college professor at the medical center. Then COVID happened, and they are not letting minors into the lab or be in contact with patients. If things get back to normal, she desperately wants to go back and complete her research and present her findings. She just completed a scholarly literature review on the effectiveness of the robotic hand splints in post stroke recovery and submitted to a scientific journal for publishing. It is currently going through peer review, if it passes the peer review they will publish it in September.
She is also in a bunch of honor societies and clubs at school and in leadership positions. She loves playing the violin and is an avid golfer, though golf is currently on the back burner due to COVID. I hope this will help her along with her academics. Her mentor/guide wants to write a LOR for her, I hope we will be able to have that as a supplement to her applications.
Your daughter sounds amazing! My response doesn’t appear in your reply because I erased it after re-reading Rue4’s comment and realizing I had misinterpreted it. Your daughter sounds like she is going to do just fine, especially considering her impressive research. My D23 is interested in brain research too, though she is just getting started learning about various ways to explore her interests. She was on an astrophysics kick during middle school and just discovered last year during ninth grade that she is more interested in Neurobiology/genetics. She’s currently going through some Sapolsky lectures online and hopes to do some research next year somehow, COVID or no COVID. Your daughter is an inspiration.
I hear you @TXStuMom. We start FL in 7th and kids at the magnet gifted center can start in 6th, so my D also had 4 years by the end of 9th grade. I did a bunch of research when she was in 9th grade to help us look ahead and pick classes carefully. I found the advisor who said while HS classes taken during middle school count on the transcript- they will show as middle school work and AOs want to see 4 years taken while in HS, if at all possible. We had to get creative to do that. My D will take Spanish 7 next year- they had to create it just for her. She’s technically been with the 5AP class 3 years, but it says 5AP, 6Honors (we don’t have 6AP/Lit) and now 7DE on her transcript. Our advisor was adamant that this would be a huge positive for her, and she enjoys Spanish, so we followed that advice. Most AOs we have asked have said they prefer to see 4 years taken in HS. It’s definitely not the norm around here at all. But neither is trying for highly selective schools. The vast majority of my kid’s peers will end up at Virginia Tech, which only requires 2 years of FL to apply. Most kids stop after Spanish 3 in 9th grade, or 10th if they started in 8th instead of 7th because 3 years typically gets you out of a language there, depending on major. We were also told that AP Stats only has validity if all other AP Math courses have been taken, and should not be taken as a stand alone math class. That’s why my D is doing AP Cal and AP Stats both next year. I’ve heard the same thing about getting an AA degree, it has no implication on college standing if completed while in HS. The more rural school districts near me that don’t offer many APs have a lot of kids who do the AA while in HS route as those CC classes are the highest level of classes they can take. It’s not common at all in my district. Sounds like your wonderful daughter will be well positioned! Her research sounds amazing I hope she can get back to it!
@JanieWalker As you noted, they are upper level core classes, so automatically factored into re calculated GPA. I could have been more specific- all core classes factor in to a recalculated GPA, but not any honors of DE electives. When you max out in math and have to go the DE route that’s a completely different ball of wax than opting to take DE US History instead of APUSH. We did choose to take APs instead of honors electives or DE when possible because of advice we were given, and a few follow up conversations with AOs confirmed. I have read many places since getting knee deep in research that most selective schools do drop all electives and non core DE off any recalculated GPA. But aren’t most DE classes cores anyway?
We don’t have Naviance or any other data to guide us, and no one in my area typically deviates from the excellent state school options. My kid has different goals. I needed to find someone to steer us, but what I have shared is just the one opinion that we have been given. I find her extremely knowledgeable, but there obviously is not one clear cut answer and way to do things.
Just one thing about math progression. If your student takes BC Calc before senior year, they should take Multivariable as the next class. At the high school if they offer it or some other way if not. AP stats is kind of like a math elective you would take in addition to the Calc progression.
@JanieWalker Thank you! My Parents would baby sit her after school till she was in 1st grade. So, grandpa was her best friend. He taught her how to ride the bike and he was her prince charming during the Cinderella phase. When she was in 2nd grade they decided to move back to Australia and a couple of years after that my father had a massive stroke, we are just so lucky to have him around, but he is still partially paralyzed on the left side. That incident really impacted kids in our family. It prompted my nephew to get into a 7 year med program (neurology) and my daughter wants to be a biomedical engineer and go into stroke rehab & research. It just kills her to see grandpa being so helpless and dependent on others.
@Rue4 , They only offer 5 levels of FL in our district. That said, she got her first and only B in Spanish 4 in the fall semester of her freshman year, (Though if they do average the two semesters she will have an A). She decided, Spanish Literature, for that matter English lit is not for her 
@Rue4 You were clear, I just didn’t read carefully.
The AP Stats thing is irritating.
I understand wanting to see up to AP Calc BC for rigor…but after that, why not AP Stats? This is not a question aimed at you, it’s just an expression of my exasperation with the system. Stats is actually useful for professions across the board. D21 wants to take it next year, but she doesn’t have room in her schedule for that and another math course. So I am supposed to tell her to stick with MV Calc instead of Stats, which she would rather take not because she is looking for an easier grade but because she genuinely finds it interesting, just because admissions officers turn their noses up at stats for some reason? (Again, my exasperation is not directed at you). Ugh. She is already registered for the MV Calc course but has been asking me if she can switch to Stats. Stats is useful to know no matter who you are. Gah, all this is silly.
@JanieWalker my D took stats. She wants to major in psych; stats is so much more useful. Her grandfather is a PhD college professor in psychology and his pet peeve is the obsession with making kids take calc over stats when it is not advantageous in a number of majors/careers. If some colleges don’t lie it, oh well!
AP Stats makes far more sense than MV Calc once a kid is in 12th grade - so many teens retake calc 1, 2, or 3 in college anyway, so why not let them take something that is obviously useful for everyone after getting through AP Calc BC? The admissions game can be so idiotic sometimes. But since D21 has some extremely selective colleges on her list, I guess she should take MV Calc even though she is genuinely interested in stats. Gah, ridiculous.
Same here
That is how it is for us as well…we’re not on a 5.0 scale, but AP & DC have the same weight multiplier and are taken interchangeably, like you said.
RE: math progression, our school does not have multivariate , D could have taken Calc BC in 10th grade by taking Alg II and Geometry at same time in 8th grade but I said no. Knowing our school district did not have Calc 3 and DE math is ONLY college algebra and I could not afford nor figure out the logistics for her to take Calc 3 at local state uni. She will take AP Stats in 12th grade and IB HL math (our highest math). I expect she will start her math progression in college with multivariate.
Anyway by self studying through AoPS books, she was able to be challenged.
@JanieWalker PhD in psych here, too, and I really wanted my S21 (definitely not a future STEM kid either) to take AP Stats senior year instead of Calc A/B. Unfortunately, he kept being told repeatedly that AO’s want to see the harder math. SMH., but Calc A|B it will be. Sigh.
If kids max out at BC as a junior and don’t take calc senior year and then go back to it in college then they’ve been away from calc for over a year. It’s just not a great idea.
AP stats is just a lot easier than MV so it looks less rigorous. I know a student who was being recruited by Dartmouth and had taken BC as a junior. Was slated to take AP Stats senior year. Dartmouth told him he had to take MV to have the best chance of getting in even via the athletic dept so he switched. Just one story FWIW.
@nanosec UCs went test optional so if your kiddo even has an ACT score without the writing, you can and should submit the score. Mine just isn’t a great writer (he got 4-5’s in APs but a 2 in Lang and a 6 on his ACT) but we are going to submit the 36 ACT despite the lower writing score.
I think if your kids have a well-rounder application, I wouldn’t worry about hitting the core courses all four years. Not everyone has access to an admission advisor and kids still get into the Ivies. We come from a high school in Sacramento/EGrove and we have kids who get into Harvard/Duke/Yale, etc every year and they take similar AP, dual enrollment classes as my son and his friends (because these graduated seniors are in the same AP classes as my S21).
If I may. There is a lot of “conventional wisdom” on CC that I would take with a grain of salt.
For example, everyone says you need 4 years of a high school foreign language. But i personally know students who got into Harvard and Duke with only 3 years.
One is my daughter (Duke) who took Spanish in 7th and 8th grade (counts as one year) took year 2 freshman year and year 3 was an online course over the summer. Did not take a foreign language sophomore, junior or senior years!
The Harvard kid I mentioned above only took 3 years of a foreign language. She got into H, UPenn, Brown, UCB, and Duke among other colleges. Stanford was the only college that rejected her. Having “only” 3 years didn’t seem to hurt her in admissions.
Holistic really means they look at everything and if you are a strong applicant in other areas, having less than 4 years might be just fine.
A few other things my D20 did “wrong”:
D only took regular Math Analysis junior year (had a class conflict couldn’t even take the Honors course) and “only” took Calc A/B senior year.
Even though she took 8 AP classes in high school she did not take an AP science class other than APES. She took an intro Physics class at UCLA one summer because the HS AP Physics teacher was horrible.
She also quit her Varsity sport senior year.
She submitted all of her AP scores which were two 5s, two 4s and two 3s
She did not submit any SAT II subject tests. Wasn’t happy with her scores.
No state or national awards.
Less than 75 hours of community service.
Wasn’t “hooked”
What she had going for her was a 4.0, 34 ACT, leadership in student government, academic decathlon, varsity athlete (3 years), social action advocacy in D.C and great essays and LORs. That was enough.
I only mention this to give you hope that you don’t have to have the perfect application to get accepted to competitive colleges. There is no one size fits all.
Hope this helps someone?
@socaldad2002 omg your post is ultimate ?
Thanks, @socaldad2002. D21 has AP and dual credit everything on her transcript and I very much would like to tell her to take the math she actually wants to take senior year. As she is homeschooled (which often adds an X factor to the admission process), she and I are concerned about making sure she has her best foot forward senior year. I appreciate your post. It’s easy to get paranoid with all this.