<p>“I’m not passionate about learning math and science…I don’t ever want to lose my love of learning (and piling on 10 AP classes would probably make me start to feel like I’m just overwhelming myself with every rigorous course just for it to look good on transcripts, not because I genuinely and honestly am interested in the subject matter) or feel like I’m taking a class that I’m not engaged in at all.”</p>
<p>same reason i didn’t take some of the ap’s. i didn’t want to taint my whole education with classes that don’t interest me and are too overwhelming. people at my school who did take them all often had to cheat in other classes or bs their hw in certain classes just to keep up with them all. i preferred to take a smaller number of ap classes so i could truly learn the material in them, do my hw thoroughly, LEARN SOMETHING. and i guess it shows. most of the kids who took all of them got 2’s and 3’s on the exams while i got 5’s.</p>
<p>but that doesn’t matter to colleges, huh? it’s a shame.</p>
<p>are you sure it’s not rarer than you think? cuz one of my friends who took all the 10 ap’s got a’s in the class through bs-ing her work. i know a lot of ap students that just copy off each other’s hw for different classes, you know the drill. so how can you really know if someone is learning the material thoroughly and not just bs-ing? i guess no one can really know. but it’s kinda a shame that colleges judge how “worthy” you are just by “whoever has the most ap’s wins”.</p>
<p>personally, i agree a whole lot more with stanford’s philosophy:</p>
<p>"We expect applicants to pursue a reasonably challenging curriculum, choosing courses from among the most demanding courses available at your school. We ask you to exercise good judgment here, and to consult with your counselor, teacher, and parents as you construct a curriculum that is right for you. Our hope is that your curriculum will inspire you to develop your intellectual passions, not suffer from unnecessary stress. The students who thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP, Honors, or Accelerated class just because it has that name.</p>
<p>Our admission process allows – and indeed encourages – the flexibility of a high school to design the most appropriate curricular offerings and opportunities for its students. What a course is named or whether it concludes with a standardized test is considerably less important to us than the energy a student contributes to the learning process and the curiosity with which he or she pursues questions and ideas. Sometimes this challenging high school course load will include advanced placement classes; other high schools choose to offer equally demanding courses that neither carry the AP designation nor lead to an AP exam.</p>
<p>We want to be clear that this is not a case of “whoever has the most APs wins.” Instead, we look for thoughtful, eager and highly engaged students who will make a difference at Stanford and the world beyond, and we expect that they have taken high school course loads of reasonable and appropriate challenge in the context of their school."</p>
<p>i hope stanford really views it that way, and i wish other top-tier colleges would too, but oh well.</p>
<p>These colleges get way more candidates who have taken the hardest course loads at their schools than not.</p>
<p>You have to look at what Stanford and every other college says in context. They have many candidate from schools that offer 30 APs plus classes past AP. Kids who took calc as freshmen and got through linear algebra and MV calc, those who took 2 languages past the AP level, kids who were dual enrolled at colleges…they really don’t mean it’s fine if you skipped AP English because you’re a math/science kid unless you won national math competitions.</p>
<p>Whitecadillac: The colleges you mention make their decision based on the whole package. That includes things like teacher recommendations, your essays, your school profile, your ec’s, etc etc and of course the rigor of the courses you took.</p>
<p>It sounds like you feel good about the choices you’ve made. I’m sure you are putting together the most positive picture of yourself possible, in your application. I can’t tell you that you’ll definitely make it into your reach schools – but I think chances are very good that you will make it into some very good schools. </p>
<p>Anyways, it’s senior year now, and you can’t change the courseload you took – and it doesn’t sound like you would want to even if you could. Stick to your guns - your reasons for choosing your courseload the way you did, and the integrity with which you performed in the AP classes you did take, should be evident in the totality of your application. I bet some very good schools will like what they see. Just be sure you present your story as fully and as well as possible in the applications, and then relax. (Also, I trust you do have some matches and safeties.)</p>
<p>From one of the admission books that I’ve read, I think admission officers look at your transcript very carefully, not just what the counselor check off.</p>
<p>and hmom5, if they expect that, then why would they say “reasonably challenging curriculum, choosing courses from among the most demanding courses available at your school. We ask you to exercise good judgment here, and to consult with your counselor, teacher, and parents as you construct a curriculum that is right for you. Our hope is that your curriculum will inspire you to develop your intellectual passions, not suffer from unnecessary stress. The students who thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP, Honors, or Accelerated class just because it has that name.”</p>
<p>a reasonably challenging courseload does not sound like the ones you mentioned (if what you’re implying is that the student takes calc freshman year PLUS ap lit freshman year PLUS taking ap foreign langs and then progressing past them PLUS dual enrollment at a college, etc). a reasonably challenging courseload where someone picks from the most demanding classes at school sounds like what i did, i took the most challenging courses in subjects that would allow me to develop my intellectual interests, just like they said, and i took challenging–though not the very most challenging–courses in the subjects i’m not interested in. the courseloads you mentioned sound like the over-challenging courseload stanford is specifically saying they’d don’t necessarily deem great just cuz they’re ridiculously rigorous cuz they say nothing of where one’s interests lie.</p>
<p>I suggest just apply where you think you would like to attend.
If they don’t like your transcript, or do not think your program of studies was rigorous enough, they may reject you. On the other hand, they may accept you. It is what it is at this point, isn’t it, and the evaluation of it all is out of your hands. It will be what it will be.</p>
<p>If you’re 8/500, I see absolutely no reason your GC wouldn’t mark you as most demanding. And as long as your other classes were still honors (if you school offers them), I doubt you’ll be at any disadvantage to your peers. Your AP scores will probably be important, though–if you only took a few APs and got unimpressive scores, then your schedule no longer seems rigorous.</p>
<p>Colleges say a lot of things such as race, religion and where you’re from doesn’t matter. They go to schools and preach their holistic approach and tell kids not to worry about scores and then admit high scorers. They say a lot of politically correct garbage in other words. I actually did all that for 2 years!</p>
<p>The counselor at my school only gives most demanding to the valedictorian, and I I’m about rank 10-20. I guess my chances have dropped even though my course rigor is equal to the person that is rank 1. For me, taking a few bad electives damaged my GPA.</p>
<p>I’m sure it won’t kill me though. The same goes for you.</p>
<p>Students are putting themselves at risk if they ignore what colleges say they’re looking for. When schools look at all their applicants considered to be holistically desirable, they will indeed tend to select those with higher numerical scores.</p>
<p>“If you’re 8/500, I see absolutely no reason your GC wouldn’t mark you as most demanding. And as long as your other classes were still honors (if you school offers them), I doubt you’ll be at any disadvantage to your peers. Your AP scores will probably be important, though–if you only took a few APs and got unimpressive scores, then your schedule no longer seems rigorous.”</p>
<p>thank you! i hope you’re right!! and yeah, i got all 5’s on the three AP tests i took.</p>
<p>@ tigerton, that’s really unfair that your gc would do that! you might need to talk to him/her…sounds really unfair.</p>
<p>@ vossron: “Students are putting themselves at risk if they ignore what colleges say they’re looking for.”</p>
<p>well i didn’t purposefully ignore it. i didn’t ever consider applying to an ivy until this year. i just took challenging courses and all that cuz i wanted to (which i still think is a better reason). but if i had been on the ivy track since freshman year (like a LOT of kids are), i would have done it slightly differently…taken spanish classes earlier and then taken ap spanish my senior year. also i would have taken ap psych. but oh well, i guess what’s done is done since i wasn’t prepping for an ivy all through my hs career. we’ll have to just see how the officers feel about me. :)</p>
<p>They shouldn’t ignore it, they should consider and understand the context. </p>
<p>The colleges are talking to their own constituency which ranges from elite prep schools where no class is called an AP because all classes are at least that level to inner city schools with no honors classes and everything in between.</p>
<p>Most kids go to average schools like the one the OP seems to describe–a few AP classes, no counseling to tell kids how to be competitive at top colleges, schools where taking a few APs makes you a top student.</p>
<p>If Stanford were addressing just these students and being completely open, what they would say is we expect you to have taken a harder course load than everyone else and still come out at the top of your class. Without a hook, that’s who they accept from average schools.</p>
<p>but don’t colleges understand that public schools, like you said, don’t usually have the counseling or the “let’s prepare all our students for the ivies!!!” mentality or resources that elite prep schools do? they must understand that students who grow up rich/elite have much better resources/opportunities to “prep for the ivies” all their lives than normal kids in public high schools.</p>
<p>Yes, they do understand this, perhaps private colleges (considered a bit more holistic) somewhat more than publics (that tend to look a bit more at raw numbers), though UCLA, for one, has recently admitted some students at the low end of the economic scale over students with higher raw numbers.</p>
<p>I think you should be ok. DD’s high school offers 20-23 APs but there is no way any student can take all of them, I think the norm at DD’s high school is between 5-7 APs by the end of senior year.</p>
i hope you’re right.</p>