Schedule rigor woes

My kid (junior) is part of an arts magnet program at his school. It’s competitive to get in and the teacher covers college-level material. I’ve always assumed that the magnet classes were counted as high rigor. Kiddo takes AP and GT classes for the rest of his schedule.

I talked to the guidance counselor last week and asked if kiddo’s schedule met the criteria for ‘highest rigor’ on the Common App. GC told me that she thought he was qualified for “High rigor”, the 4/5 level, but not the 5/5 level because of the magnet classes.

Will the Ivies and other highly selective schools even look at someone who didn’t take courses at the highest possible rigor level? Kiddo is maintaining mostly straight A’s (one B) in classes so he could go for a tougher schedule next year by dropping the magnet classes, but the theater is what makes him come alive and I don’t want to have to take that away from him.

Why is it important he get into an Ivy? Let him take theater and then craft a college list that will allow him to continue coming alive. There are 3000 other schools out there.

“the theater is what makes him come alive”

Then let him do it, and encourage him to do it. As @“Erin’s Dad” says, there are a lot of schools out there. I might add that there are a lot of very good universities and colleges where a strong student can do very well.

I think @“Erin’s Dad” is on to something. Based upon this and your other posts, I question who is driving the college selection process. Once you and he have the financial discussion, he should really drive the process.

But to answer your question, yes, AOs will review his transcript within the context of the school’s offerings. Rigor is one part of the application packet, but it is certainly not the only aspect. The fact that “the theater is what makes him come alive” is an important consideration as well.

He’s doing theater, that’s non-negotiable. It just annoys the heck out of me that this very rigorous magnet class that he is taking knocks him out of the ‘most rigorous’ list in the guidance counselor’s eyes. I’ve got 9 months to work on her to change her mind, I guess.

Is the magnet class a class in theater? It’s not really clear from your post what the actual magnet class is; if you’ll explain a little more about what the magnet class involves, we might be able to give you some strategies to use with the GC.

What does kiddo want to do? What are his thoughts about you talking to the guidance counselor? What are his colleges choices?