ASU Does not Consider Rigor

Any knowledge whether U of A or any other large state schools with 80%+ admit rates are following a similar path?

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U of A has always said they use unweighted for admissions and merit. One of the reasons why S25 didn’t apply there.

UofA I think has pretty much the same requirements as ASU

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The following have stated assured admission by stats for a large portion of their classes:

  • Texas public universities
  • Nevada public universities
  • Mississippi public universities
  • CSUs in California that are not impacted
  • Arizona public universities
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Adding Iowa publics (Iowa, Iowa St, Northern Iowa) with their RAI formula.

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Also:

  • Montana public universities
  • South Dakota public universities
  • University of Wyoming
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Not sure what that means. Best and brightest at what?

Regardless, the statement seems to undermine the value of the school just because of the admission criteria. I have a family member who got into ASU without any APs or Honors, graduated top of his class (had incredible internship opportunities; lots of companies hire ASU students), went on to MIT, and is a successful owner of three businesses. And as an employer, he prefers to hire graduates from schools such as ASU than some of the highly selective schools.

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Does admission by stats mean course difficulty not a factor?

I will only speak to the Iowa publics…the RAI does not take rigor into account, just number of ‘approved’ core courses. For ASU, I expect the answer is in the document ucbalumnus linked above.

https://www.iowaregents.edu/institutions/higher-education-links/regent-admission-index

Some of the mentioned schools on this and the new thread may consider rigor for maximum merit and/or honors college admissions.

Not necessarily. Some colleges may recalculate a GPA with weighting for honors or AP courses, for example.

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^ This, exactly.
You can get into ASU relatively easily. But for Barrett, you need to cross a much higher bar in terms terms of rigor and grades - and the Barrett experience is very different from the “general” experience (class size, class content, personal contact, advising, even material perks like the dorms and cafeteria…)
As a result, they manage to cater to 2 different populations and meet the state’s needs to educate as many students as possible while also offering the more ambitious/successful students opportunities to push themselves.
For instance: Not everyone (not many undergrads) is interested in doing research, but those who are have an opportunity and if they’re good at it they’ll find extra support to compete nationally.

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The subject title is factually wrong. Perhaps if it had been worded “ASU does not use weight GPA.” But by its own statement, ASU does consider rigor important. It’s silly to believe that weighted GPA is the only or even main basis on which course rigor is evaluated. It isn’t.

Also, its too bad if someone thinks admission is the only “incentive” to take harder classes in HS. Many kids would take them entirely independent of college considerations. And regardless of weighted GPA, there’s a bunch of other practical incentives – coming into college with credit, option to graduate sooner (and spend less money), skipping straight to less basic classes in college, having more room on the college schedule for electives and other classes the student wants to take, more flexibility to multiple major or minor, more understanding going into college of which subjects they excel at, etc.

Some students/parents seem to make more of their school’s weighted GPA’s than their value in reality. Many colleges don’t use them, rightfully so since there is no standard for weighting. They always seem like the least significant fact set in any students profile. I find them entirely irrelevant in any “chance me” or “real world result” posts here – the UW is much more relevant.

The one place they can really matter is the small subset of colleges that tie scholarships to weighted GPA. If you know you’re targeting those schools and do the calculation that the value of those scholarships exceeds potential for early graduation from AP or DE credit, worrying about class difficulty may be a factor. But that also presumes a worse GPA in those harder classes and many students still excel in them. It also implies a high level of gamification of course selection. Personally I think students should take the level that interests them and they feel they can handle in HS regardless of college admission consideration, either way – that may be the AP course and may not be. Shouldn’t push for AP and shouldn’t avoid it.

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It means they don’t require honors or AP in the approved courses. As for “difficulty”, that might depend what you mean. For example I know of some students for whom the math requirement of four years of math including one year of math beyond (and requiring) algebra 2 puts it out of reach. Probably not the average student on this board, but there are a number of colleges who only require 3 years of math up to algebra 2, and some who only require 3 years and may waive algebra 2.

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Please correct if I’m wrong, but I think it’s clear that your child still got into ASU. If you’re upset that your child only received the Dean’s Scholarship instead of President’s Scholarship, just say so. I’d suggest applying for additional scholarships as well. I really liked the transparency of ASU as far as admittance and scholarship thresholds.

Honestly, if you’re taking AP/Honors courses, your GPA should be such that you will gain admittance. If you’re counting on the highest scholarship amount, there is probably some strategy to being willing to accept grades less than A and being in the highest rigor your school offers.

However, the rigor is important for admission into Barrett Honors College which is exceedingly important for some students - even the entire point of going to ASU for some like my kid. Additionally, by virtue of the rigor, a student may be entering with better preparation and chance of success and/or with enough credits to shave a year or more off of their college journey if desired.

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I do understand their frustration if for example you challenge yourself taking rigorous classes gets a couple B’s in say Calculus or AP and IB classes and a classmate that never attempted to challenge themselves, Im getting A’s in gen ed classes Im good, is going to the same school for less money.

I get it to an extent, but they are very transparent about the process and it hasn’t changed. There are also plenty of other scholarships available than the ones that automatically confer based on GPA.

The hate just seems based on a pretty specific case: An A-B student that took maybe half of the honors/AP classes available and does not want to be in Barrett is mad because the ASU scholarship does not reward them at the very highest level.

They needn’t apply there if they don’t like the merit set up.

If a school based on a GPA or a GPA and test - and there’s many examples of this, then that’s what they’re doing. It’s a pretty easy thing to understand.

Rigor matters - think of how many credits that student with rigor can shave off via APs, etc. The non rigorous student cannot.

Schools are free to reward as they want - and students are consumers, free to take their money elsewhere.

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It is also not a secret how ASU admission and scholarships are determined, and the use of unweighted GPA has been the policy for more than four years, so a student entering high school with a goal of maximizing scholarships at ASU knows what they have to do from the start.

Of course, if the student has additional goals, such as preparing to do well in college and applying to more selective universities and scholarships (or ASU’s honors program), then the student needs to balance the competing demands of rigor for those goals versus the goal of maximizing unweighted GPA. But that should be known before the student entered high school, so the student could have planned accordingly.

I emailed the admission rep for our state as well as one of the admission directors and received an email back.

My daughter received merit $$. I don’t know which because we aren’t applying to colleges based on receiving merit. So far, she’s received merit from all of the schools that she applied to. Students who are in all honor and AP classes and receive more B’s instead of A’s won’t get admittted to the tougher schools within the college. I was just passing along the info about the GPA for awareness. Not our case but if a student has straight B+ in all AP’s opposed to a student who received straight A- in all CP classes, the student who enrolled in a less rigorous course load through high school will be accepted over the other student. I wasn’t aware of this and wanted to pass along to other parents who may be unaware. Same goes for University of AZ.