OP: I think this is a good question for the Director of Counseling at Yorktown. I would also want to know how much discretion counselors have in terms of classifying the rigor. At W&L I know only the full IB kids get the "most rigorous" distinction. It seems like the Yorktown counselors should have some guidance they are following.

Anonymous wrote:How do you get the transcript? It's not in ParentVue, is it?

It's on Naviance

Anonymous wrote:How do you get the transcript? It's not in ParentVue, is it?

Ask your kid's counselor. They can email it to you.

How do you get the transcript? It's not in ParentVue, is it?

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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.

What?

There is a common line of thinking that why bother with intensified classes as it doesn't show up on the transcript as such and these courses aren't weighted any more GPA wise than Gen Ed. Therefore it's an easier and more guaranteed A. In this line of thinking, your smart kid will then jump into AP classes and do fine. I have heard it out of people's mouths. It's a thing.

Intensified absolutely shows up on the transcript. I just checked my kid's to be sure. Have you ever seen an actual transcript?

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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).

They write it on the recommendation.

On my Yorktown senior's transcript, it absolutely does say "intensified" for those classes.

Colleges do not look at course weights because that isn’t a fair comparison. APS doesn’t weight intensified but FCPS does weight honors so FCPS students who take the same classes would have higher GPAs. Colleges recalculate your students gpa to their specifics; they have software that does this for them. So yes, intensified does count as more rigorous than non, even if the gpa doesn’t get weighted from it.

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Anonymous wrote: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.”

I asked and was told that colleges do not see anything marked advanced vs regular diploma. I was shocked.

Yes, this two diplomas is just a weird Virginia thing. The only part that matters to colleges is that doing the requirements for advanced diploma is generally what you need for good college prep, all the core classes most years. The "regular diploma" is a watered down option.

For the student's curriculum rating, you will need to try to get that info from the counselors. They don't seem to like to be transparent about it

our daughter's FCPS one was definitely marked "advanced diploma" but i have no idea why

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Anonymous wrote:I thought colleges just look at the course weights, and weights are higher for more intensive classes?

No. Colleges also look at what classes a kid takes. Big difference between taking AP Chem or AP Physics on one hand and AP Psychology or AP environmental science on the other if your kid is looking at highly selective colleges. The latter two are fine but are not replacements for the first two.

+1 Colleges look at the whole transcript. So, yes, taking Intensified/Honors will be noted, even if they aren't weighted in the GPA. Which APs are chosen will also be noted. The transcript is the most important part of the admissions review.

And, FWIW, a lot of colleges now use the "self reported academic record" (SRAR) where the student has to input all the transcript information to save the college from uploading that data from whatever format the individual HS uses. For each class entered you indicate if it was standard, honors, AP, IB, DE, etc. So the fact the APS lists an Intensified classes as "Intensified" is actually irrelevant. The student should code it as "Honors" when filling out the SRAR (Intensified isn't an option, just an oddball APS thing)

https://srarsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408738837403-How-Do-I-Select-A-Course-Level

Anonymous wrote:I thought colleges just look at the course weights, and weights are higher for more intensive classes?

No. Colleges also look at what classes a kid takes. Big difference between taking AP Chem or AP Physics on one hand and AP Psychology or AP environmental science on the other if your kid is looking at highly selective colleges. The latter two are fine but are not replacements for the first two.

Anonymous wrote:I thought colleges just look at the course weights, and weights are higher for more intensive classes?

Not in APS and this thread is about Yorktown. No bump in grade for intensified classes. Only AP or IB.

Anonymous wrote:I thought colleges just look at the course weights, and weights are higher for more intensive classes?

Read what the PP said at 12:19. Counselors provide descriptive comments as well.

I thought colleges just look at the course weights, and weights are higher for more intensive classes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.”

I asked and was told that colleges do not see anything marked advanced vs regular diploma. I was shocked.

Yes, this two diplomas is just a weird Virginia thing. The only part that matters to colleges is that doing the requirements for advanced diploma is generally what you need for good college prep, all the core classes most years. The "regular diploma" is a watered down option.

For the student's curriculum rating, you will need to try to get that info from the counselors. They don't seem to like to be transparent about it

What's even more weird is that you can take all "general ed" classes and still have the advanced diploma. You don't need to take any intensified classes. My Jr takes a mix- AP classes and then gen ed for a different subject to give them a break. The counselors actually suggested we do this and will help keep the GPA up since colleges don't see what's intensified in any meaningful way.

How are intensified classes listed on the transcript?

Unless there has been a recent change, they are listed as "Intensified" or "Inten" on the transcript. That's how it was on my kids' transcript. So, yes, a college can tell if you took the more challenging classes.