What is “Most Rigorous” at Yorktown?

[Anonymous]

This got buried in the post on IB and wanted to make it a separate topic. Counselors mark on transcripts if a student’s course load is “most rigorous” “very demanding” etc.

What is considered “most rigorous?” Where is the line between “most rigorous” and “very demanding”? And is there any guidance for students on this when picking classes?

[Anonymous]

There is no line. It's whatever your actual human child can handle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This got buried in the post on IB and wanted to make it a separate topic. Counselors mark on transcripts if a student’s course load is “most rigorous” “very demanding” etc.

What is considered “most rigorous?” Where is the line between “most rigorous” and “very demanding”? And is there any guidance for students on this when picking classes?

No. They. Don't.

Ask your child's counselor. They will tell you straight up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This got buried in the post on IB and wanted to make it a separate topic. Counselors mark on transcripts if a student’s course load is “most rigorous” “very demanding” etc.

What is considered “most rigorous?” Where is the line between “most rigorous” and “very demanding”? And is there any guidance for students on this when picking classes?

No. They. Don't.

Ask your child's counselor. They will tell you straight up.

NP. No they don’t what? Mark that on student transcripts?

[Anonymous]

"Most rigorous" is just that: For each class a student takes, is that the highest level of challenge available?

English: regular, honors, or AP/IB? Only the last is the most rigorous

Foreign language: First, have they taken one? 1-2 years of repeat intro level classes? Or 4 years of the same one?

Is the schedule padded out with weight training, photography, study periods, 12th grade gym, music appreciation, etc.? Or is each class one that supports college-bound goals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This got buried in the post on IB and wanted to make it a separate topic. Counselors mark on transcripts if a student’s course load is “most rigorous” “very demanding” etc.

What is considered “most rigorous?” Where is the line between “most rigorous” and “very demanding”? And is there any guidance for students on this when picking classes?

No. They. Don't.

Ask your child's counselor. They will tell you straight up.

NP. No they don’t what? Mark that on student transcripts?

Correct.

At a recent meeting I attended, the counselors specifically said there is nothing on transcripts that distinguishes kids who take "advanced" non AP classes from regular classes.

Parents who think colleges are manually looking at transcripts of 10000s of applicants to see how many have a course with an indicator or "advanced", "honors", "H", "intensified", "+", and manually counting those up are delusional. Remember every school district in the country has their own naming convention, no standardization).

[Anonymous]

Counselors have stated quite clearly that they mark whether course load is most rigorous. It is absolutely a thing.

And don’t give me this crap that I should just think about what my kid can handle. Of course I don’t want them overloaded. I’m asking for information from APS — can they tell us what most rigorous means. And saying highest level of classes taken is not enough. Does my kid have to take English 10 honors and AP Seminar as a sophomore to be most rigorous? Do they have to take AP Research? Calculus BC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This got buried in the post on IB and wanted to make it a separate topic. Counselors mark on transcripts if a student’s course load is “most rigorous” “very demanding” etc.

What is considered “most rigorous?” Where is the line between “most rigorous” and “very demanding”? And is there any guidance for students on this when picking classes?

No. They. Don't.

Ask your child's counselor. They will tell you straight up.

NP. No they don’t what? Mark that on student transcripts?

Correct.

At a recent meeting I attended, the counselors specifically said there is nothing on transcripts that distinguishes kids who take "advanced" non AP classes from regular classes.

Parents who think colleges are manually looking at transcripts of 10000s of applicants to see how many have a course with an indicator or "advanced", "honors", "H", "intensified", "+", and manually counting those up are delusional. Remember every school district in the country has their own naming convention, no standardization).

Yeah we get it. That is the reason for this thread. They do look at what the counselor selects about the rigor of the coursework (ask any college counselor who does this for a living) and a kid not bothering with intensified isn’t getting the most rigorous and maybe not even very demanding designation from the counselor. Or at least that’s what people are speculating and a saying it should be transparent.

[Anonymous]

A bunch of schools want to see that you took the hardest courses available to you at your school. Sorry that’s not Gen Ed.

This only matters if your kid is even thinking of more selective schools. If not take the gen ed class with no homework and don’t worry about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bunch of schools want to see that you took the hardest courses available to you at your school. Sorry that’s not Gen Ed.

This only matters if your kid is even thinking of more selective schools. If not take the gen ed class with no homework and don’t worry about it.

I thought Gen Ed is not reflected on the transcript. That’s why many students choose those classes over intensified. Definitely max out on the AP classes though 10th through 12th grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bunch of schools want to see that you took the hardest courses available to you at your school. Sorry that’s not Gen Ed.

This only matters if your kid is even thinking of more selective schools. If not take the gen ed class with no homework and don’t worry about it.

I thought Gen Ed is not reflected on the transcript. That’s why many students choose those classes over intensified. Definitely max out on the AP classes though 10th through 12th grades.

This thread is about this:

Part of the paperwork your guidance counselor fills out as part of the Common App Secondary School Report (CASSR) asks them to rank the rigor of your course load as one of the following: Most Demanding, Very Demanding, Demanding, Average, Below Average. Of course, these distinctions are relative to your individual high school’s offerings.

The question of this thread is whether Gen Ed classes would cause your counselor to select most demanding, very demanding, demanding and so on.

[Anonymous]

Here are specific questions:

Do you have to take English 10 Intensified and AP Seminar Sophomore year?

Do you have to take AP Seminar and Research?

Do you have to take Calculus BC?

[Anonymous]

And I can ask the counselor but so far the one question we emailed to them has gone unanswered.

And please don’t feed me the line about what kids can handle. This is about making choices. And some kids will make different choices if they had this information — off of the options of choices they could “handle.”

[Anonymous]

You have good questions, but I don’t think people on DCUM have this intel. You should ask the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have good questions, but I don’t think people on DCUM have this intel. You should ask the school.

Thanks. And of course gen Ed wouldn’t be most rigorous. I think with so many offerings it is difficult to know how different choices would shake out.

Frankly I’m surprised APS would allow AP Seminar to count for English 10. They seem like entirely different courses. Reading classics versus writing/research. If one has to do both to be most rigorous that also seems odd.