How Many Advanced HS Courses?

Gangsturr123 · 04-03-2008, 08:04 PM

To anyone who's been accepted to UVA..I know of course there's no set number..but i was just wondering how many IB/AP courses did you take senior year? My school offers IB Diploma and some AP courses as well. I'm trying to decide on courses for next year but trying to find a balance so that I can have enough advanced courses but also perform well academically at the same time. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! =)

bln_1975 · 04-03-2008, 08:32 PM

There are at least 3 things you should consider:

(1) SAT (at least 1350/1600 or 2000/2400, higher is better)

(2) GPA (3.75+ (uw) is desirable) ; IB diploma helps a lot.

(3) ECs + leadership (club president, newspaper editor ...)

Excellent letters of recommendation and essays also help.

Gangsturr123 · 04-03-2008, 08:47 PM

yeah, it's too late for me to do the IB Diploma, but i'm doing 3 IBs and 1 AP currently and will do more next year. thanks so much!!

Stresst · 04-03-2008, 08:51 PM

Someone from my school got into UVA, with only 1 AP class all 4 years (you can take up to 12 at my school)

Gangsturr123 · 04-03-2008, 09:25 PM

oh wow thats crazy!

tb2588 · 04-03-2008, 09:46 PM

Well, UVa will look at how difficult your course load is compared to the rest of the students in your school and your entire district.

I'm not sure how IB classes compare to AP classes in terms of difficulty, but I would think that 3 IB's and 1 AP or more per year would be a pretty competitive load for applying to UVa.

I ended up taking 9 AP's total (3 as a junior, 6 as a senior), but I believe that is 2 or 3 more than average for accepted students. My GPA was very low my freshman year of high school, but I believe that the large number of honors and AP's I took (along with increasing my GPA after that year) saved my application.

Just keep in mind that admissions would prefer to see that you've challenged yourself even if those grades aren't straight A's, instead of taking easy classes to pull up your GPA.

Gangsturr123 · 04-03-2008, 10:05 PM

thanks for your response!! i've gotten practically all A's fresh & soph years but that's definitely not happening this year so i really need to do well senior year

db123 · 04-04-2008, 08:39 AM

I took 10 APs overall; my school doesn't offer IB. I took 4 junior year and got 5s on U.S. History, Psych, and Lang, and a 3 on Chem (I fell asleep.) I'll be taking 6 more this coming May.

When the Dean from UVa visited my school, this question came up and the answer they offered was this:

If you have the chance to take an AP versus a regular class, we would prefer you to take the AP class. We would rather see a B in an AP class than As in regular classes. Better yet, we would prefer to see an A in an AP class.

I think you don't need to take an ungodly number (like 10) but 5-7 seems to be the norm for high school in terms of AP. I'm not familar with the IB system so I can't offer any insight about that program.

Gangsturr123 · 04-04-2008, 02:23 PM

Once again, thanks so much! Yeah the IB Program at my school is very difficult and i believe the biggest in the country so i dont wanna go overboard or else my gpa will suffer.

Wazhoom · 04-04-2008, 02:47 PM

IB is the most rigorous HS curriculum offered in any US public high schools, hands down, but that is not debated.

Basically the more you take the higher difficulty classes (and do well) the better. I came from an IB school so that meant going full IB diploma to try to get the most difficult schedule I could. Aim for showing colleges that you can take the hard classes, and do well.

Wazhoom · 04-04-2008, 02:49 PM

also to note, you won't actually know if you received the IB diploma until after you've been accepted and been to orientation, so being an IB Diploma Candidate is what schools look at for taking the toughest course load in an IB high school.

Gangsturr123 · 04-04-2008, 03:22 PM

Thanks!!! Unfortunately, it's too late for me to be an ib candidate --but i will probably end up doing just as many IBs as a lot of the Full-IB kids anyways. Yeah that's going to be the hardest part for me, making sure I can do well in the IBs i choose..

Wazhoom · 04-04-2008, 04:15 PM

yeah you got it, keep it up

katiewahoowa · 04-05-2008, 03:56 PM

I also took 10 APs and got 4s and 5s on all the exams. It probably saved me a little bit grade-wise because I only had a 3.87 upon applying.

galoisien · 04-05-2008, 05:34 PM

I only took 6 AP's (my school only offered 10; 2 were art-based, and 2 conflicted with my other AP classes) and my GPA was 93.8% -- depending on how you analyse it could be a 3.9 or 3.35-3.45 LOL.

I however, made up for my school's deficiency by dual-enrolling at my local state uni. (Third Year French Conversation [it was the highest course I could find that didn't conflict with my schedule] + Calculus B in the fall, French Phonetics + Linear Algebra in the spring)

Also I didn't hold that many traditional leadership positions and I wasn't in a lot of clubs, which made me real-worried. I did however debate [our team only started this year, and we had no official captain because we were so young] and win top positions at various tournaments, regularly play in chess tournaments all over my state, and swim. I also made light of the fact of my being a sysop for Wikipedia. I made sure I showed my passion for these as much as possible -- so yet another reassurance you don't have to be captain of 10 different teams and president of 10 different clubs to get in.