I guess this is kind of key to the question. I was assuming the “most rigorous” box would be an abstract sort of thing, as opposed to “the most rigorous this student could handle or was permitted to attempt”. </p>
<p>D went from a private middle school where she excelled in 3 years of Latin to a public HS. On the advice of the Spanish teacher (whom we are acquainted with outside of the school), she enrolled as a freshman in the track which would have led to AP Spanish. Several weeks in, someone discovered this, determined that she was in violation of policy (which has zero regard for ability/motivation/etc.) and bumped her down. The regular Spanish track has been rather too easy for her, IMHO, not providing much of a challenge. </p>
<p>Now she has mentioned the possibility of taking a Spanish minor in college in which case it would probably be unfortunate that she was held back. Her only AP’s are likely to be English and Psychology, as she is also not permitted to take AP Calc, and wants to take A and P (honors) rather than an AP science. She will have quite a number of honors courses.</p>
<p>I may send a reminder to the GC about the Spanish situation in the fall.</p>
<p>Yes, I think that would look bad, but those are relatively extreme examples.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a student who took biology, chemistry, and physics and got decent grades in all of them after much struggle chooses to take other APs rather than AP sciences, I don’t think it would be obvious that the kid has trouble with science. Or if a student stops foreign language after level 3 or 4, it wouldn’t necessarily scream “This kid has difficulty with languages.”</p>
<p>Lots of students never take an AP science or a language course beyond level 3 because they have done what was required of them and now they want to have some periods during the school day during which they can take what they really want – whether it’s social sciences, computer science, art, or something else. If they’re also taking courses in subjects they’re good at rather than those they struggle with, well, that’s a fringe benefit.</p>
<p>Sorry about the double post. I was interrupted.</p>
<p>Example of what I’m talking about:</p>
<p>My son, whose main interest was computer science, dropped his foreign language after level 3 and took additional computer-related courses (such as digital art) or academic electives (such as AP Psychology) instead.</p>
<p>In part, he did this because he wanted to pursue his personal interests. But he also did it because he was starting to struggle with Spanish. He never got a grade below a B, but he realized that his understanding of the material in the level 3 course was shaky and that he was inadequately prepared for level 4. </p>
<p>So while his decision to drop Spanish was based in part on his interests, it was also a strategic decision designed to help his GPA because he had good reason to believe that he would get a C or lower if he took Spanish 4.</p>
<p>Since many, many kids drop their languages after level 3, I doubt that his motivation was obvious to anyone, including college admissions officers.</p>
I don’t think they know the answer. It really will depend on what the rest of the application looks like. My sons had enough other evidence that they could write reasonably well that I think an A in a regular English class was better than a B in AP. In addition, because our school doesn’t have a very heavy weighting for APs it probably helped their ranking as well. Maybe a kid who hadn’t taken APUSH and gotten A’s and a 5, might look a little less desirable without that AP English.</p>
<p>From my experience, it appears to me that most private schools expect rigor, how much varies. In Ohio, state schools award acceptance and merit aid by formula, and that formula only considers unweighted GPA, so rigor, if it lowers grades, hurts more than helps. (Though I note OSU says rigor is very important at the site above, so who knows).</p>
<p>FWIW, our HS does not weight GPA at all, GC says it’s because colleges weight it according to their own formula anyway (add for AP, remove electives, etc). We don’t have individual rank or val/sals either.</p>
<p>Well, she probably decides “holistically”, like the way that admissions people at highly selective universities decide on entire application packets.</p>
<p>A transparent policy would likely have to be overwritten to account for schedule difficulties and other unusual situations, while still letting students find loopholes. On the other hand “holistic” evaluation could lead to suspicions of inconsistency, favoritism based on non-academic aspects, or corruption.</p>
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<p>Obviously, there is a serious problem at your school if the “AP” courses prepare none of the students to actually pass the AP tests. There are probably severe deficiencies in non-“AP” college prep courses as well, such that students graduating from the school likely have to take remedial high school level courses in college (which limits major choice, reduces elective space, and/or delays graduation at extra expense, though a student who knows that s/he will be placed in remedial courses may decide that starting in community college and then transferring as a junior could be a better option than paying four year school tuition to take remedial high school level courses).</p>
<p>“They expect to see SOME AP classes if your school offers them and they prefer to see those classes in the maths and sciences, even if your student isn’t going into a math or science field.”</p>
<p>Are these specific schools or have you heard this many times from numerous schools?</p>
<p>DS will not take an AP science class senior year, mainly because he has absolutely no interest in any of them. He has taken Honors physics, honors biology and honors chemistry the first three years of high school and received A’s in all. He was outstanding student in honors physics, so he doesn’t struggle, just not his thing. He has the option to take any of those three for AP next year, but really wants to take astronomy his senior year. He is not a kid who has a special interest in science, but when he was in 8th grade he saw Neil Degrasse Tyson on the Daily Show, and asked for the book he was promoting for Christmas. (This was a refreshing change from SI and ESPN magazines!) He has been looking forward to finally taking astronomy, and I am not going to try to change his mind to sign up for something he doesn’t really care for just to jump through yet another hoop that may not really be a hoop at all.</p>
<p>He is very much a language arts kid, and will have taken 7 AP’s out of 10 offered at the school (2 math, 2 history, 2 English, 1 government), plus 5 dual enrollment classes, so I am not worried about his rigor. If a college is going to reject him for not taking an AP science class that he is not interested in, than that school probably wouldn’t have been a good fit for him in the first place.</p>
<p>Yes, you are correct. There are serious deficiencies across the board. It is a very small, rural public school system. There are no “college-prep” courses, only regular courses and AP in English, calc, bio and chem. Bio and chem are scheduled simultaneously so the most AP classes that can be taken are 3.</p>
<p>Also yes, many of our students need remedial work, esp. math. Starting at the cc route sounds like a good idea, but is difficult in practice. Our state cc system moves very few students on to 4 year universities and getting the those credits to transfer is difficult. They are not universally accepted, even at state 4 year schools.</p>
<p>Yes, I do think our gc wants the right to decide “holistically”. We offer so few classes though, that it seems as if a matrix could be developed. I guess my beef is her idea of “holistic” may very well equate to “favorites”.</p>
<p>wrldtravlr–a schedule like your son’s is not what is in question. The example was if you only take a FEW, 2 or 3 AP’s, you should have some in the math and science areas. If you are taking a full load of AP and college level classes, that is different. We have heard this from every school that we have visited that hasn’t been a small state school.</p>
<p>Have your child take the courses he will be most successful. that could be Honors over AP or AP over IB. B in AP isn’t better than an A in Honors when looking at GPA. </p>
<p>We saw that a lot with IB over AP and Honors at some rather prestigious schools. They didnt really care.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read, I wouldn’t rely solely on whether the counselor marks most rigorous course work. For example, this year Penn rejected 2 kids with this marking but didn’t take any honors nor AP in Freshman and Sophomore year, while accepted another kid with similar GPA, similar SAT. Having said that I don’t think it’s a good idea to go nuts on APs like some parents on CC suggested. Take a look at your child’s high school catalog and the highest path is in there. If your child is a math/science person, I think he/she should take the highest path in that subject. The same if you child is a humanity person.</p>
Isn’t one of the problems that you don’t necessarily know in advance how successful they will or won’t be? Over and over we have heard from these admissions types that “you should challenge yourself”. But the other half of the coin says “you should take what you can get an A in”, which might not be the same thing. If kid takes the more challenging course (good) and then only gets a B (bad) then his attempt to challenge himself is seen as a failure. Or something.</p>
<p>^^ Too true, sylvan8798! Our GC uses number of courses in a discipline to determine rigor, not difficulty of classes. So kids at our HS who take a risk on AP’s can end up with the same rigor score as those who carefully select “easier” courses, and may in fact be hurt if their grades are lower as a result of the higher difficulty. It is really frustrating.</p>
<p>May be highly selective colleges have this issue that they get a large number of applicants who takes all AP’s and Get all A’s. So they have to select from a large pool of students and fill their limitted number of spots. </p>
<p>May be that is why it is important to focus on what the student wants and find the college that fit the student.</p>
<p>So a student will have a more productive high school experience if he/she focuses on- I want to study this subject becuase I like it…I am willing to take this subject and challenge myself even if I get B in it(taking risks) and I will look for colleges that will accept me for what I am…</p>
<p>I am learning this whole college application process, very new to this- Both myself and my husband were educated abroad. So what I wrote is more of a reflection on what I am learning these days…</p>
Bumping this because I wish some GC or former GC on the forum would say how “they” go about determining “most rigorous”. If it were a purely abstract construction determinable from the course offerings, then only maybe 50 of the 15,000 or so seniors in our greater area would get that designation, which they would not need owing to the obvious presence of the gifted math program on their transcripts. It doesn’t seem like there would be much point to that.</p>
<p>My daughter told her chorus teacher this year that if she hadn’t taken 4 years of chorus (which is totally unweighted in her school’s weighted GPA calculations) she could have been salutatorian or maybe even valedictorian. She could of taken AP or Honors electives instead (which would have been weighted and given her GPA a boost). However, I hope that her love of singing showed something about her instead. One of her personalized acceptance letters did mention her love of music so maybe that helped more than if she had taken another AP course just to boost her GPA!</p>