<p>Derek,</p>
<p>The colleges will go by what your school puts on the transcript–but then they will modify that to take out the PE courses, the health courses, and will add in points for the honors, APs, and IB courses.</p>
<p>To help in this regard, the application asks you to separate this stuff out–then they have someone verify it to make sure you put it all down correctly.</p>
<p>Your low-income status will help you slightly if you are from an area where there are a lot of low-income people. If you happen to be low-income, but from a high-income area, it probably won’t affect the application at all.</p>
<p>And if you have to focus on 2 out of 3 classes to guarantee 2 As–and then accept 1 B in the third, do so. This happens–and it would be much better to get at least 2 As, than to take the chance that you could have the highest B pluses in all three (that would be a disaster).</p>