<p>I take a very rigorous courseload right now (3 APs and the rest are honors. 4 is the max amount of APs my school offers to all juniors except for those who skip classes over the summer/have modified schedules). The thing is, I have Bs and B+s in a lot of my classes because of their difficulty, and my GPA is really suffering because of them. Will I be compatible with top colleges (except for ivies) if I get several high Bs in difficult classes? My GPA is around a 3.4-3.5 UW.</p>
<p>i ain’t no expert but i’m gonna guess it’s gonna be tough. and i guess it also depends on what kind of school you go to.</p>
<p>I think the answer to your question depends entirely on what you mean by “top.”</p>
<p>Duke or Virginia or Haverford? I don’t think so. The sad fact is, those schools have enough applicants every year to fill their classes several times over with students who took equally rigorous schedules and got A’s. </p>
<p>But there are lots of good, well respected colleges and universities that would be happy to enroll you. Search the message boards for threads devoted to B+ students for more advice.</p>
<p>A few questions:</p>
<p>What’s your rank? Where are kids with comparable ranks from your school traditionally competitive for admission?</p>
<p>Where are you aiming?</p>
<p>My school doesn’t record class rank. Dunno about the second question. I’m aiming for schools like Boston College, NYU, Babson, CMU.</p>
<p>Based on what I’ve seen in my school, no.</p>
<p>Like many students, I thought taking these classes would make me stand out. While I’m not some hardcore-study-allday-errday kid, I thought I did pretty well (92-94) on harder AP classes. </p>
<p>As a Hispanic, I thought I was making a good impression.
However, some of my fellow minority friends laughed at me for taking them. They opted for classes like AP Environmental Science and easy electives like Neurobiology and Nutrition. My Hispanic friends all took Spanish, giving them a free 100. I took French and received my 93/96s.</p>
<p>“Bro, don’t you know Ms.______ gives out 98s in Environmental!?”</p>
<p>We all have 22XX SATs, extracurriculars, etc.</p>
<p>They all got into schools like MIT, Columbia and Princeton due to their “academic excellence.”
And no, they’re not poor, or suffer any sort of socioeconomic barriers (we’re all middle-class).</p>
<p>I got into Northwestern, UChicago, Boston College, NYU, and others.</p>
<p>I will be attending my state school due to financial issues, however.</p>
<p>Sure, I’ll never know if our essays were of the same caliber, but grades do play a major role in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>I don’t really mind, because I’m leaving high school with knowledge that I wouldn’t have gained had I not pushed myself to succeed. I took these classes because they interested me, and I’m glad I did.</p>
<p>Just thought I’d like to share.</p>