How much rigor matters in college admission

[mmoommoo]

D26 is on stem track. She is taking all advanced stem courses in the school, so far all As or A-s.

Taking Advanced Calc in 11-th grade, and linear algebra in the 12-th. Private high school. Overall GPA reasonable with a few B+. Her school does not give weighted gpa for advanced courses.

How colleges view the rigor of her courses, given that the school does not provide ranking and does not provide weighted gpa for advanced courses?

[Anonymous]

Colleges will be happy with the math rigor, but that’s not uncommon in this area. They like to see rigor across the board.

[Anonymous]

Short answer: Course rigor is usually much more important than many other things, including ACT/SAT scores.

Longer answer: Check Common Data Set for basically any college. Section C shows the considerations for admission, and are those items Very Important, Important, Considered, Not Considered. It is eye-opening.

[Anonymous]

OMG. NCS mom, you are obsessed.

The school provides a list of which courses are honors track. The regional admissions rep for most private colleges will also have a sense of the curriculum at different area schools.

At any rate GPA and test scores alone will not get your daughter into top schools. I interview for a school that turns down countless valedictorians and kids with perfect scores.

Rigor matters but so do other factors. The school wants to know the kid can do the work. After that, they’re looking for kids to create a well-rounded class and kids who will graduate and do things that make the school look good.

[Anonymous]

It matters a lot.

[Anonymous]

I think perceived rigor of the HS matters more than individual kids path.

[Anonymous]

I don't know OP. I have been reading lately that college admissions are looking at taking top 1-3 kids from high school classes. So rigor might matter, but it seems grades matter more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know OP. I have been reading lately that college admissions are looking at taking top 1-3 kids from high school classes. So rigor might matter, but it seems grades matter more.

It's a mix of both. Most colleges have an admissions system where admitted students who have rank (50-70% of students) need to be in the top of the class for their admissions page "we have [x]% valedictorians." But, if the school doesn't rank, lower gpas can sometimes be aided a ton from highly rigorous course loads. DC's school only ranks top 5, so they post their rank, get in their amazing schools. DC had a 3.7, but also had 21 APs and that propelled his app to an Ivy. It really depends on if the school ranks and how rigorous we're talking.

[Anonymous]

If your school sends 15%ish to ivies or equivalent, your D26 with rigorous courses and reasonable number of B+s would be fine.

But if the school only sends 2-3 to ivies per year, that's hard. not matter how many APs she is taking. so give up.

[Anonymous]

mmoommoo wrote:D26 is on stem track. She is taking all advanced stem courses in the school, so far all As or A-s.

Taking Advanced Calc in 11-th grade, and linear algebra in the 12-th. Private high school. Overall GPA reasonable with a few B+. Her school does not give weighted gpa for advanced courses.

How colleges view the rigor of her courses, given that the school does not provide ranking and does not provide weighted gpa for advanced courses?

Rigor matters a lot.

IMHO, the academic profile of a student consists of GPA (unweighted/weighted; recalculated by most colleges), rigor (numerically reflected in the weighted GPA but a deeper look includes the number of APs as well as their composition (e.g. AP CS A has more value than AP CS Principles)), and test scores. Everything else is a secondary.

The more selective the school, the larger the pool of applicants with a perfect academic profile.

[Anonymous]

Crazy as it sounds, I’ve advised my child to take what they are interested in and don’t chase the APs just to rack them up. They’re not all created equal so concentrate on the heavy hitters. This is really a child and family decision on how much student wants to work and what their other time commitments are. There’s a life outside of college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Crazy as it sounds, I’ve advised my child to take what they are interested in and don’t chase the APs just to rack them up. They’re not all created equal so concentrate on the heavy hitters. This is really a child and family decision on how much student wants to work and what their other time commitments are. There’s a life outside of college admissions.

Agree. The school does not offer any APs only their own advanced courses. Often I found APs less rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think perceived rigor of the HS matters more than individual kids path.

This was def true this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know OP. I have been reading lately that college admissions are looking at taking top 1-3 kids from high school classes. So rigor might matter, but it seems grades matter more.

Maybe in public schools. Not in private schools where sometimes 50%+ of the class is admitted to a T25.

[Anonymous]

Colleges recalculate to an unweighted gpa, then look at coursework and the school profile.

Why isn’t your college counselor explaining this sort of thing?