Reply to For students who took 12 AP- gpa vs rigor?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All I can tell you is my son's experience with this last year.  Same AP's (he had 15, including AP BC calc, Phys C, etc). When he applied to colleges, he had a 3.9 uw at a W high school, and 5s in all APs taken to date (obviously there were a handful of APs he was taking senior year so wouldnt get those results until after he graduated).

When we asked whether the rigor or the grades were more important, we were told by his private college counselor, and by any admissions rep we asked this of while he was looking at colleges, that ideally the applicant will have all As AND the highest rigor of classes (not helpful!). His private counselor seemed to think his 3 Bs took a number of colleges off the table for him.

If your son is at a W high school, I don't think that GPA will be offset by the classes he is taking. There are too many other kids taking those classes who have all As.

Nonetheless, I still think he'll have a good chance at the colleges you listed, especially if he applies ED to one.
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Your kid sounds impressive! Where did he end up?[/quote]
Yes he does!
Op here: the thing is most kids don’t double up in science and math, and then also take the hardest humanities courses at his HS according to his counselor. So it is hard to compare the gpas of those who don’t against his. That’s why I find the sort of comments PP shared that the admissions people told her about rigor vs grades so unhelpful. Taking AP psychology is not the same as AP Chem for instance. Is opting to take take no electives and doubling up in math and science classes during junior and senior year the norm at your W school? 
I am worried that his over reaching with his rigor has damaged his chances by not taking easier classes and then (likely) getting more As. It seems some colleges are more aware of this, does anyone know which ones are more course selection focused?[/quote]

I’m the poster who said her son with similar stats wound up at emory/bc type college. My son also took APs in bc calc, physics c, MV (non AP but higher than bc calc), and world history, lit, spanish lit, etc which are all considered tough APs at our W hs. But many kids took these same classes - yes, some opt to take ap bio/chem and not do ap’s in english and world language, and others do the flip. But plenty incl my son did both.

In hindsight, my two cents are that I don’t think colleges care as much about what dmv public consider rigor as they do about perfect grades. What I mean by that is that a student taking AP ab calc, 1-2 AP nat’l sciences, and some but not all of the APs in social studies and english, perfectly well satisfies the college’s definition of rigor, instead of said student killing themselves and jeopardizing their gpa taking mv calculus, ap lit, multiple ap sciences, etc. The exceptions to what I am positing are stem-focused schools/programs and perhaps hyps. And again this is just my two cents. [/quote]

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