I took a regular English class instead of Honors one year. I had honors the year before that and am now back on the honors/AP track. I realize it was a mistake but how much would that hurt me? All of my other classes are the hardest possible and my number of AP/honors classes throughout high school will probably the most of anyone in my grade since everyone takes senior year easy at my school but I won’t. Will it help at all that I still ended up taking the most rigorous schedule of anyone in my grade?
Not at all.
That’s all that matters. I think you have an inflated idea of how much time colleges will spend looking at your transcript. While you will labor hours and hours on an application; the AO will spend 10-15 minutes tops reading it. S/he is not going to overanalyze your schedule. S/he’ll look for the checkmark from the GC on where the course rigor lies.
@skieurope Is the checkmark based on how your schedule compared to others in your class or compared to what was offered?
Both, but each HS sets its own parameters. At my school, it was pretty formulaic, although AFAIK, not published. [url=http://www.trinitypawling.org/uploaded/Amy_Foster’s_Resources/Trinity-Pawling_School_2015-16_Profile_for_website_101815_ver_10_(1).pdf]This[/url] is an example of a school similar to mine:
[quote]
Most Demanding (13%) ≥ 4 AP classes
Very Demanding (20%) 3 AP classes
Demanding (29%) 1 or 2 AP class(es)
Traditional College Prep (37%) No AP classes
@skieurope , thanks, I have never seen that list. But, don’t Honors classes count as rigorous too? Example, in junior’year, my daughter took 2 APs and 2 Honors. It is difficult at our school for juniors to do more than 2 APs, and most kids have to pile them on in senior year if they are aiming high. Sophomores, with very few exceptions, are not allowed to take AP, so she took three Honors, but also did Science Research, and had no study hall. Would those two years be counted as most rigorous?
Absolutely. I was just giving this as one example. Like I said earlier, the is no standard rubric as to what constitutes “most demanding.” Each school does according to its policies.
Thanks, useful to know.