Seems like personal finance really should be part of the “required 12th grade life skills class”, since the content is not likely to need a whole semester to teach.
So it looks like the more academic courses that could be available for a sixth course would be:
Correct?
It would be AP Spanish, AP World History, AP US History, or AP Psychology.
The problem with AP Marcro is that it’s a one-semester course and he is taking AP Micro now, so that would leave a semester with only five classes or five classes plus an elective.
He has to take the life skills class at his high school to graduate from that high school.
The other piece to this conversation is, what do you or your son mean with “selective college”?
Because having another core class (or not) senior year isn’t going to be the reason he is accepted or denied from a school, even the most highly selective ones. Most of his application is already baked in and isn’t going to meaningfully change.
Even the in state flagship here is extremely selective. I mean schools that accept 10-20% of their applicants. His school won’t give me a rank, but they were willing to give me a decile and said he’s top 10%.
When you are looking at schools with acceptance rates under 20%, students aren’t getting accepted or rejected because they did or didn’t take another AP class or core class their senior year.
Talk to the guidance counselor about what rigor will be checked off, and I would spend more time helping your son figure out how to craft/shape his application than I would worrying about a single class choice.
Yes, they are getting rejected for that reason.
Academics are still the main driver for admissions, and “Rigor of Academic Record” is marked as “Very Important” on just about every Common Data Set. The unit requirements many colleges “recommend” on the CDS may be more than this student has.
I agree that “Rigor of Academic Record” is marked very important on almost every CDS, and my first piece of advice was to ask the counselor what make she would be giving this student’s overall transcript.
What I disagree with is that a student that has taken a rigorous schedule for three years is going to be dinged because they are taking 3/4 AP and/or honors core classes senior year, but not taking AP Spanish, AP Psychology or AP World History.
I don’t believe any AO is going to look at that transcript and say, “Well, this would have been a yes if only they’d taken one more class senior year”.
If the counselor isn’t going to check the most rigorous box - I would be asking if another AP class changes that perspective. If so, then add AP Spanish (many selective schools have Foreign Language Requirements that AP credit could help fulfill). But I would be shocked to find out that a single class, senior year is the difference between most rigorous and rigorous.
Require 3 prefer 4.
We have a friend who is an Olympic caliber recruited athlete to HYPS. They made him go back and redo his schedule to include a social science despite plenty of rigor through Jr year at a well regarded public.
Graduation requirements and college preferences can be quite different. This, of course, depends on the schools he is looking to apply to.
IMO you need a very compelling reason to not take all 5 core subjects all four years. DD wanted to take AP stats (in addition to AB calc) instead of an AP science (after successfully completing Honors Bio/Chem/Physics) due to very strong humanities focus. GC strongly advised against it.
There are going to be students who apply to selective schools with 4 years of all 5 core subjects…who get rejected.
There are going to be students who apply to selective schools without 4 years of all 5 core subjects…who get accepted.
The answer to your question is dependent upon your school’s offerings, and what is considered most rigorous at your high school. That’s what your son’s transcript will be measured against.
If he is missing a 4th year in both Social Science and Foreign Language…according to some conventional wisdom on this thread - that will keep him out of selective schools. So either he needs to get both of those 4th years to be at all competitive, or he doesn’t. But if he does need both of those - the issue isn’t with his senior year course schedule - the issue is with his course choices all along.
No one said this course selection will automatically keep him out of schools. For instance, I said that “they (students) are getting rejected,” for lacking enough core courses. I didn’t say ALL students, because there are always anecdotal exceptions.
But in nearly every admissions presentation I have attended lately, the AOs explicitly state they want to see all five cores all four years. Someone can pipe in with an example of their STEM student getting into school with only 2 or 3 years of a foreign language, but I am not going to place my bets on being an exception when AOs are clearly communicating the college’s expectation.
These aren’t only the 10%-20% acceptance rate schools that the OP mentions who are telling prospective applicants these guidelines. Schools with far higher acceptance rates want to see it, too.
Like @TonyGrace, I know a recruited athlete who was told by Duke that she needed to change her schedule from Honors English 12 to AP Literature. If these schools expect rigor from their athletes, they certainly expect it from their non/athletes.
This is literally all I’ve been saying all along. That the choice of one course isn’t going to be the issue with acceptance or rejection at a selective school. Sounds like we don’t disagree.
Would it be “optimal” to have 4 years of all 5 core classes? Perhaps. Has this student’s schedule been optimized throughout high school? Who knows? We don’t know what this school offers, we don’t know what is considered rigorous for this school. That has been my point all along. If this student has been taking the highest courses offered each year in each core class, this is an easy answer. If this student has a mix of courses, or is doesn’t have 4 classes in more than one core subject…does one class even matter?
5 core subjects, all 4 years. That takes precedence over any high school specialization or activity.
Without knowing the HS, this may not be an option.
At my HS, it was physically impossible to take 5 core subjects every year and meet the HS graduation requirements. AO’s will view the course selections in this context.
Then taking APUSH should not even be allowed by the school.
OP came here to ask for feedback on the schedule. I am assuming other choices can be made otherwise it’s pointless to ask. People here think five core subjects is compulsory. That is what I walked away with from every tour last year, and the rigor is the most important factor - not grades, not test scores.
Yes, rigor is evaluated in context, so no one expects OP to take AP Euro or Spanish 4 if not offered, but if it is it’s the better, safer, course of action. There is very little in an applicants control so you have to control what you can. Maybe it matters maybe it doesn’t, but why wouldn’t you make the choice that is least likely to be an issue?
It sounds that CC believes less rigor is better due to athletic commitments. I think this is uninformed advice.
We are at the end of Jr year and OP asked about selective colleges. Has he been recruited yet? If yes, ask the coach. If not, I’d definitely be more worried about setting myself up academically then counting on athletics to get me in.
One more note: if rigor is low, even due to school’s offerings, I would most definitely put time into achieving a high test score.
I’ll try explaining this a different way. It is on his school profile but I can see this is not typical.
His school requires a concentration to graduate. There are 6 periods in the day. They cannot take more than 6 classes. This is to prevent any student at the school from taking a lighter load in senior year. They have been successful at getting students into highly selective schools, so they must have to explain this to the AOs.
In order to finish his concentration, he has to take two sciences next year. He didn’t have the prerequisites for AP Chem until senior year, so that’s why he’s planning to take it then. In the course catalogue, all of the APs have prerequisites.
He can’t take both a fourth year of social studies and foreign language or else he won’t graduate. He can’t take seven courses next year.
I can see this is going to be an issue with AOs so I will just steer him away from selective schools unless they are communicating with him at this point. It is a weird requirement but it’s what his school does and he wants to graduate from there.
I will ignore the advisor, though. That advice sounded off to me. Glad I checked. Thanks everyone.
He is being recruited by two schools so he can ask them directly. I didn’t know that. Thanks.
Of the choices, I would add AP euro history as a 4th year of social studies course. It sounds like the school can explain the rest. Some selective schools are less focused on the FL requirement. Rice for example.
He can’t take a class that’s not offered
Right, I guess his choice would then be AP world history, per OP
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is if any of the colleges your son is considering has a FL language requirement. If they do, and your son isn’t interested in taking more FL, having AP Spanish may get him out of needing to take it in college. That may be reason enough to try to add that to the senior schedule if possible.
As noted by many other posters, rigor is all relative so if your GC is saying this schedule meets their definition, that’s the advice I’d be listening to.
And FWIW, my D’s HS only had a 3 year social studies option too. None freshmen year and then euro (10th), us (11th), gov/econ (12). Plenty of kids had great options for colleges.