<p>wow MIT 012! that just made me feel so much better, i sure hope it’s true!</p>
<p>Basically,
if you get at least B’s in APs
go with AP.</p>
<p><2) A “C” in an AP is not good, almost fatal as regards Top 30 admissions. > </p>
<p>Two students taking the exact 6 AP classes in the same high school.</p>
<h1>1: 3 As 3 Cs</h1>
<h1>2: 6 Bs</h1>
<p>So student #1 is fatal while #2 isn’t even though they have the same GPA?</p>
<p>AP course rigor varies by school and instruction. Some teachers really make it just fact memorization and your grade depends solely on how much you are willing to work in the class. Others, however, milk the “college level” motto for all its worth.</p>
<p>My AP English Lang/Lit classes are especially intense. Last year in Language, we would write a timed essay every week in class while reading a college textbook and composing longer essays (2-5 pages) at home. Our semester finals were 5-7 page critical analyses. During our 8 week break between semesters, our teacher assigned 8 novels/short stories which we would have to read and break down in 3 page essays; due on the first day back. And that doesn’t even take into account daily homework. The only multiple choice we did in that class was vocabulary exams. </p>
<p>This year, in Lit, we’ve got two 5-7 page papers per semester along with timed essays and reading that we have to do on the side. We have homework weekly from another college textbook where we write about 4-8 pages of short responses for a particular play, short story, novel, or poem. And in our break, we have a slew of poems to analyze as vacation homework. Again, multiple choice exams are scarce.</p>
<p>If you want to get better grades, take the regular course. But if you want to have a better transcript and prepare for college level work, take the APs. Regular or Honors courses just don’t compare.</p>
<p>^Yes, AP in some schools is a complete joke. Mine has to be one of them.</p>
<p>I think most adcoms from top schools will usually respond to this question with a cheeky “the A in the AP course.” Looking to the average UW GPAs of incoming freshman at top colleges, it’s evident that they didn’t overextend themselves with impossible schedules in high school (Princeton, for example, has an average HS GPA of 3.8). Challenge yourself, certainly, but don’t spread yourself thin. If you’re not particularly brilliant at history, taking honors World History isn’t the end of the world (and then you don’t have a ho-hum AP score to report). Play to your strengths! Take AP Lit/Comp if you’re a bookworm, AP Bio and Chem if you’re a future doctor. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, (I think) most colleges regard your UW GPA and the rigor of the curriculum, but would that extra AP Chem or Euro in which you got a B have affected whether your GC marked “Most Rigorous” on your apps? Keep in mind that at most schools, your GC will mark “most rigorous courseload” if you have honestly challenged yourself–it’s usually not a specification reserved for those who have taken absolutely every AP course offered. So it’s a balancing act–how can you keep your grades up and still have “Most Rigorous” checked off on your apps?</p>
<p>think of it this way:</p>
<p>say you’re a good college football team, like say Ohio State.</p>
<p>You’ve got a few choices on your schedule, you can play your 4 non-conf games against Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, all at home. Sure, you’re virtually guaranteed to win all 4 but what will you prove? nothing really.</p>
<p>Now let’s say you go play Florida, Alabama, Texas, and USC all on the road. You may end up losing all 4. In this case, you’ve probably bitten off more than you could chew and the schedule would be insanely difficult. You’d be way in over your head to face a schedule like this.</p>
<p>So, you want to balance your schedule by challenging yourself, but still giving yourself a great shot of winning. This may be paradoxical but in many cases, you may end up with a lower grade by taking an easier class since you won’t be as motivated whereas in a harder class, you’ll have to be on your toes more.</p>