I know I’ve read that HS counselors are asked to rank the difficulty of a kid’s schedule on the college application. Does this selection make a big difference when applying, or will the actual schedule and classes taken be enough to show the difficulty?
A few months ago, we attended an information meeting about the IB Diploma program and it was mentioned that the kids in the program automatically get the “most demanding” selection on the applications. It was also mentioned that non-IB diploma kids need to take 6 AP classes each semester for both Junior and Senior years to earn that selection. A friend of mine and her child had a meeting with the guidance counselor and they were told a total of 16 AP/IB classes over 4 years would be needed to earn the selection, and only non-IB kids get it each year. When S22 and I met with his counselor we asked for clarification and was told that information isn’t shared with parents.
So if S22 decides to do the IB diploma, he should be set. If not, getting 16 AP/IB classes in is going to be really difficult. If he ends up with “only” 12-14 AP/IB classes and does not get the “most demanding” selection marked, will colleges still look at his actual transcript and see he did take difficult classes? Or should we really figure a way to get him those extra few (or just do IB)?
IMO, that is a crazy high number of AP classes to get the most rigorous box checked off, and unrealistic. It would also have kids taking the easy APs like psych, stats, APES just to get a box checked off. IMO, the school is doing a disservice to students electing the AP track.
I would hope that in this situation, colleges would form their own opinion about rigor based on the courses listed on the transcript. Students really don’t need more than 8-10, well chosen, AP courses.
Is there a reason you are not going to do IB? If it had been a possibility for our DD, she would have gone that route.
Good question. I talked to an ex-Swarthmore AO a few years ago and this seemed pretty important when that person was still working there. I can see where it would be an easy way to compare students at various schools. I wonder though if it’s changed much and still it would seem to be more of a college by college thing.
I think the high number is because if someone goes the full IB, that’s 6 IB classes a year, for 12 total. They suggest APUSH and AP World before the IB History as well, so the IB kids have at least 14 IB/AP classes, if you count year 1 and year 2 as 2 classes.
@momofsenior1 I think he will end up doing the IB diploma. The biggest downside is the lack of electives he can take. He would like to fit more of the engineering classes in, but IB fills the schedule pretty tightly. As a freshman, he has 1 elective. He’ll have 2 spots in 10th grade and then just 3 open semesters for 11th and 12th.
I heard the same thing at our high school that offers IB: only the students that take IB get that box checkmarked. Seems to penalize kids who go to schools that offer an IB program who choose not to do it, and that doesn’t seem right. It was a plus to me that our neighborhood school offers IB, but since students aren’t officially IB until Jr year, it’s almost as if you have to know you’re doing the IB program before entering high school (we kind of have school choice around here - lottery based with catchment areas guaranteed spots), and 8th grade is entirely too early to know.
I’ve also heard that in terms of scheduling, the IB kids take priority in terms of getting the classes they want/need. I heard that at the other school in our district that offers IB, the IB kids take priority. The other school allows kids to selectively take IB classes (so they can’t get the Diploma, but can pick and choose which classes to take IB/AP; my school does not) but preference will go to the IB Diploma candidate. So at that school just getting enrolled into AP classes the non-IB student wants could be tough, and I suggest you inquire about that if that’s how your school is set up if your kid ends up not doing IB.
I agree with you about the lack of electives. I think it’s mostly because the TOK course takes elective spots for two semesters. And my school district requires 3 semesters worth of PE which really torques my kid. She does school team sports and those take a hella lot of time but don’t get much credit towards PE.
I do think the IB program is demanding and deserving of getting the “most rigorous” checkmark. It’s interesting to go read the CC thread where graduating seniors post about what schools they got into and what AP/IB/SAT/ACT/ECs they accomplished while in high school. What’s not clear to me yet is if they went to schools that offered IB and they chose to do the AP track instead, whether they still got into the tippy top school they wanted.
The determination of rigor is meant to be exclusively in the context of the student’s own school. So apparently at the OP’s school, they’ve decided on this particular equivalence. (“Most Rigorous” = only [full IB] or [x APs/semester].
Maybe nobody’s misreading this, but just in case, it’s crucial to remember that plenty of schools offer demanding, rigorous curricula of all different kinds - from not one single AP or IB, to a mix, to one or the other. And plenty have strict restrictions on numbers of APs a student can take, and what years they can be taken. Some schools offer semester APs; many don’t.
Just saying, there is not a reliable way to look at someone’s schedule from a school you don’t know that much about and compare it to a student from a different school. That’s one of the reasons the college counselors at each individual high school are asked to be the ones making that judgment/determination about schedule rigor.
The other thing to note is that for any college that fills out the Common Data Set, you can actually just go find out the answer to this question (how much weight does College A put on rigor of h.s. schedule?) yourself.
@Treesha I have heard the same thing about scheduling for the IB kids. One thing for sure is that IB Physics and IB Chinese can’t be at the same time, for example, since they are both required courses. But, AP Physics and AP Chinese could be offered at the same time causing kids having to choose. A friend’s son ran into that exact problem this year.
The kids here can do IB classes for a certificate, and I know some do. It can be pricey do just do 1 though, as they have to pay the registration fee and the class fee, so it’s about $300 for one class. Costs average lower with more IB classes taken.
@HarrietMWelsch I do understand the rigor is within the school. If he does not do IB, he’ll likely have 10-12 AP classes. We do not have any honors level, so it’s a slower pace, regular, AP or IB. If he only takes 12 AP classes, he won’t get that “most rigorous” designation. So if a college says course rigor is very important (on the data set), does that mean only having 12 AP will be a negative because of the lack of the designation? Or will they look at the classes and see he’s had AP Calc, Stats, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Chinese, Physics, etc and realize he did take tough classes, just not as tough as were possible? This is what I’m not sure about.
I would not be overly concerned. A college will view within the context of the HS. As an IB school, your HS is probably known to AOs, at least the ones in the general area. But part of it will depend upon which colleges your son is applying, and how many applicants from his HS are also applying. The state flagship will likely be less of an issue than HYPSM.
That said, if the school profile shows that 20% of the graduating class take the IBDP, and your son is not among them, the AOs may wonder. But there are very valid reasons for not choosing IBDP, which may or may not apply to your son.
The other unknown (at least for us) is how the HS weights. If IB and AP both carry the same weighting, then the number of APs needed to match the IB weight advantage is going to need to be 12 between junior/senior year (assuming the UW GPAs are comparable).
@Luanne, they’ll certainly see that your S is taking rigorous courses. Whether or not they understand fully the particular set of hoops your school insists on, to get the “most rigorous” designation, depends on a couple of things, primarily any historical relationship with your S’s school, and the transparency of your S’s school’s “school profile.” It’s a good idea to get your hands on that document promptly, btw.
Does “getting 16 AP/IB classes in is going to be really difficult” mean that certain classes your child is already planning or hoping to take might preclude getting up to this limit your school has set? Just randomly picking an example, could it be the case that your child’s choice of, say an AP lab science might bump him out of a different AP? If that’s the case, then there’s an opportunity to clarify the situation further. (Though why this wouldn’t allow the counselor to take that into account in choosing the designated rigor is beyond me.) Will your counselor give you a straightforward answer to the question, “When outside circumstances restrict my student’s ability to take the APs he wants, do you cover this in your recommendation?”
The difficulty in taking 16 APs is the same as why he may not choose IB - electives. In 9th grade now, he has APUSH and he’s signed up for AP World, AP Stats, and AP Eng Lang. for 10th grade. Assuming he gets those, he’ll need 12 AP classes over 11th and 12th grade, which corresponds to what we heard in the IB info meeting. That leaves 1 elective space per year again.
It’s frustrating, as the school offers some great engineering and robotics classes that he’d like to take. He’d also love to give auto repair a try and he’d like to have room for band. But, it’s just impossible to fit that in and do IB diploma.
If he didn’t do the IB diploma, he would not take IB History (2 years) or IB Psychology (1 year) or TOK. He’d likely take the others in either IB or AP form (physics, English, math, and Chinese). It would open up a decent amount of space.
We have another year to make the decision to continue IB or not. Good things to think about!
It sounds awfully frustrating, @Luanne. Glad you have time to keep gathering information and thinking it through. Good luck.
Every family has to make their own decisions, obviously, but I’m a very big fan of electives and opportunities to explore other interests. And I love that auto repair is an option at your S’s school!
Our school has a similar policy. While I understand people would rather have more flexibility - the reality is that a schedule with more electives is not the most demanding at the school. Even requiring 12 AP classes in junior and senior year will not match the rigor of the full IBD as the students still don’t have the CAS or EE requirements. I have one in the program and one who chose not to enroll - partly as accelerated math students find it challenging to navigate the IBD, and partly as he doesn’t want the rigor of the full diploma program. I have no issue with him making the choice to have more flexibility and take classes that wouldn’t fit into the context of the most demanding schedule the school offers.
It’s interesting that your school seems not to be making a distinction between IB SL and HL courses but rather equates both with an AP course. At our universities, only IB HL is considered equivalent to an AP course and eligible for transfer credit.
I am not an ad com, but if I were, I’d be looking at the courses taken and the grades received, not at some stupid box. If the courses look rigorous and make sense for the kid’s interests and plans, that is what I would care about.
Many STEM kids may choose AP or IB because it’s more flexible and allows them to delve deeper into their interests. I had one kid who took 5 math/science APs plus three non science ones. The other kid took 3 AP history courses along with some math and science, because that was his interest.
I guess the ultimate question is how much grief are you willing to make your kid go through to meet unreasonable external expectations. And for what purpose? If your kid maxes out on AP’s he doesn’t want or need in order to get that little box ticked… will that guarantee admission anywhere? Or is there a good chance that your son will still end up at a somewhat less selective match school that wouldn’t have accepted him without having jumped through that extra “most rigorous” hoop.
My daughter opted to break ranks in high school and do her own thing, which completely decimated the ability to get to “most” even at a high school that was far less academically demanding than the one you describe. In my daughter’s case, that was due to a choice to spend a semester abroad as a foreign exchange student – which made it impossible to take any year-long AP’s her junior year, and created scheduling conflicts that stood in the way of AP’s senior year.
And what was the net result? My daughter got accepted to high reach (for her) colleges that probably wouldn’t have considered her but for the unconventional path she had followed. If she had stayed home and taken the most difficult courses, she would have had a higher weighted GPA and a more substantive set of completed courses… but it would have been much more difficult for her application to stand out against the others.
But that was a risk my daughter took with no guarantee that it would pay off. She could as easily have been rejected from those reach college as accepted. I certainly would never advise a parent whose heart was set on an elite college to send their kid off to a foreign exchange instead on the theory that it would somehow “look good” to the college.
But the point is that you can take the attitude of planning high school courses and activities around “what colleges want” or “what super-selective prestigious elite colleges want” … or you can plan high school and activitie around the kid’s preferences and interests and what seem best to meet the academic, social, and psychological needs of a teenager.
Or to put it another way, what’s more important? The student’s emotional well-being and happiness? or getting into a desired college?
We’re in Michigan and if I look at the CDS for UMich, it says secondary school rigor is “very important”. Currently, he’s interested in Computer Science. Will having that box checked make a difference for UMich?
I wish our school had more options of levels. I think he’d be good in an honor’s level language arts or history class and doesn’t really enjoy them enough to be in AP, but he prefers AP over the standard level. Or maybe different classes to meet the requirements, like a college writing class for a language arts option. I really want him to be able to have good electives and have time for outside interests over pushing him into many AP classes. Going IB limits the elective space, but doing AP almost has too much space and he ends up filling it with classes he’s just kind of interested in.
Good thoughts here all around. I think nothing changes for his plan for 10th grade, so we’ll revisit the IB/AP decision in a year or so.