<p>A college wants to see a picture of who your child is and part of that is shown in the classes he/she chooses. My older daughter refused to take language past the 3 year requirement so she was done after Sophomore year of high school. People said, “You’ll never get into a good college if you do that.” Senior year - Yale acceptance. She was however waitlisted at Dartmouth and we are pretty sure it’s because they place a lot of emphasis on languages and expect you to graduate with fluency in at least two non-English languages. Daughter didn’t care as Dartmouth came off her list shortly after applying since it really was not the right place for her - foreign language emphasis being a main reason.</p>
<p>Younger daughter not only dropped language as soon as she could but she also only took two AP classes in her four years because none of the other AP classes really interested her. No problem, she was admitted to every school she applied to including Bard. She took classes that interested her, as well as extra classes outside of her high school because of her diverse interests.</p>
<p>Who is your child and why is he/she taking these classes? Rigorous does not necessarily mean AP or IB. My younger daughter took all sorts of creative classes and alternate English and History classes because that’s who she is. She marches to her own drummer and her classes and application essays showed that. A school that needs 5 years of language or science or math APs is not the right school for her. Know your child and you will know what is a rigorous courseload for him/her.</p>
<p>Adcoms know what’s offered at the various high schools- and if they don’t, they look at the school profile the GC sends. And, they can tell- we all can tell- when a kid took the easy route to maximize his gpa. They look at the transcript. So, that can backfire, especially for very competitive colleges.</p>
<p>But, the answer varies by major and the level of the target colleges. For a highly selective private college, STEM kids should take the highest math and science courses offered (and get A’s and 5’s) because it shows their readiness for a tough college track. When humanities kids take calculus and maximize their science classes, it shows their willingness to be stretched, even though these are not part of their future academic plans. And, even though kids can stop certain courses once they’ve met the high school requirement, that has to be a very informed decision.</p>
<p>I think the rigor “most difficult coursework” depends on your high school At D’s school they offer College Prep, AP and IB. If you want to do IB you commit to the program Junior year, but you have to have been on the IB track freshman/sophmore years. This gives the students/parents a chance to see if this level of coursework is appropriate for the student (they take their first AP class as sophmores). IB is not the only path to the “most difficult coursework”, as students with more focused interests may want to do multiple AP/honors in science or engineering academy.<br>
I do think the school profile the GC sends is critical. Get a copy Junior year, so you know what it says and doesn’t say. Ask the GC to cover any outstanding issues in the letter about your student.</p>
<p>My S took AP classes in English and Soc Studies because those interest him. He was just on track with math and science. He had 2 music classes, band and an independent study jazz band, throughout HS (and before). </p>
<p>Since our HS doesn’t weight and IMO most colleges ignore HS weighted GPA anyway, this didn’t hurt his GPA at all.</p>
<p>In fact the college he’s most likely to attend is one with a music conservatory that gave him a large scholarship based partly on the decision he made to pursue music in school. I know that being a jazz bass player and proficient at tuba gave him something that more AP classes could not at other schools he was accepted to, it’s who he is.</p>
<p>If he was limited in choosing higher level colleges because of these choices, so be it. I think he’d have been unhappy making different ones.</p>
<p>Let me contrast two students at my son’s school, a private college prep hs. Student #1 took an AP-heavy schedule, mostly A’s but got B’s in AP physics, calculus. He was also in drama club, band, played a varsity sport. Got turned down by all the top-tier schools, including UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego. Student #2 was a straight-A guy, but never took an AP or honors class his entire hs career. Track team, basketball, not a “star” player but both varsity. No arts at all. He got in to all the UCs, and is now trying to decide between UC San Diego and UCLA.</p>
<p>Student #2 is URM. Student #1 is white. Using race as a criteria for admission is currently illegal in CA. Or is it? I’m an impartial observer here, as I like both of these boys, and my own son did not apply to these UCs.</p>
<p>I’ll add my 2 cents into this discussion. Our D never took an AP class at her very competitive, rigorous public HS. In order to take APs there you must have a recommendation from the teachers the year before. D was never recommended, the teachers knew exactly what she could and could not handle. Sure, some kids override the recommendations and take the APs anyway, but our D wanted to take classes that interested her also, like orchestra and psychology/sociology (which aren’t offered in AP at her school). She is also a competitive dancer and spends countless hours at the studio in classes there in addition to teaching younger kids. </p>
<p>Anyway, she got into some great schools, 6 acceptances in total. She is now deciding betweet Boston University and Fordham University.</p>
That’s not enough information to determine anything. UCSD used to be very numbers based. Your test scores and your UC GPA are critical. Depending on the schedule and grades it is possible to get the same UICGPA with or without taking APs.</p>
<p>I think UCSD may have eliminated the “point system” for more opaque holistic review, but I think they still cap the number of AP courses they give extra grade points for.</p>
<p>How do they cap the number of APs? When they calculate the GPA they give you credit for eight at most. At least that’s my understanding, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
The above statement. Not the capping of number of APs. Post #45 states student#2 has no APs and honors. I wonder if both of these students are OOS.</p>
<p>As I understand it, UCGPA is a partially weighted GPA. A B in an AP class is precisely equivalent to an A in a normal class for the purposes of GPA calculation. For up to eight classes.</p>
<p>Student one got B’s in some classes whereas student 2 got As in All classes. So, if Student 1 took Cal AB, and Calc BC and all the Physics and got Bs in all those, whereas student 2 got As in every class their UC GPAs would be the same, or at least very, very close. Maybe student 1 would be slightly ahead, but not much. If we’re talking only 4 semesters of Bs fior student 1 then a little more ahead, that’s true. That’s why I wrote we needed the full schedules. Either way, it’s certainly not enough to conclue some sort of racial preference.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if student 1 had 30 semeseter of AP. Any APs beyond eight semesters make no difference to the GPA. </p>
<p>That’s my understanding.</p>
<p>And of course, for UW GPA, student 2 obviously has a higher GPA.</p>
<p>Aside from all that, we don’t even know a single test score, or have much detail at all about the students.</p>
<p>Post #51, after reading your post, I think I know why student #1 was rejected. Some tip top UCs care very much the unweight GPA. Student #1 has 2 Bs(or 4 semester Bs) so out of 10-11 grade, that must bring his uw GPA down.</p>
<p>^^^That’s possible too. I’m merely saying we don’t get the full picture from the information given. And some of these UCs are getting as mysterious as Ivy League trying to figure out their decisions. You would think if you get accepted to Cal you would get into UCLA or UCSD, but it doesn’t always happen.</p>
<p>The UC’s have their own list of classes that they will weight. Some high school Honors classes are weighted the same as an AP class. With careful selection, and a good understanding of the list, it’s possible to have a very high UC GPA without taking any AP classes. And they cap the weighted classes at 8 semesters. The list of classes is on the UC Doorways site (by high school).
<a href=“A-G Policy Resource Guide”>A-G Policy Resource Guide;
<p>According to D’s GC getting accepted to Cal and UCLA is not all that common. One or the other and UCSD is more common (she told D after she was accepted to all three…I don’t know why). This has something to do with the weight they give various components during holistic review. Others have mentioned that they believe the UC’s use both the UCGPA and a fully weighted GPA to determine rigor. D is an IB Diploma candidate.</p>
<p>In the naviance, there is weighted and unweighted GPA, when I see the reject I flip back to uw GPA to see if it’s 4.0 uw or slightly less. I believe Cal is more holistics. I have seen rejects in the combination of GPA/SAT score range for my daughter that I didn’t see at UCLA nor UCSD. So that means the essay/EC part matters.</p>