Thanks! Would they view senior year course rigor the same as junior year course rigor? I heard the main difference is that colleges will get to see your GPA for junior year, so technically it could be more wise to have somewhat-rigorous junior counseload and a very rigorous senior course load (that is, if it’s manageable along with college apps). Thoughts?
You do not want to slack in your senior year and again the sequence is important for the really selective colleges, if you take Spanish honors in junior year and don’t take ap Spanish, that will not look good. That’s why typically most applicants will have senior year be the most rigorous, taking the next course in sequence.
I’m not a fan of loading too many AP classes at the risk of being over stressed, that’s why I recommended 6 or 7 is all you need. These are the ones adcoms will look for - AP Calc, APUSH, AP language, APLAC, AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Lit, AP Bio, AP Gov. If you’re STEM, you’d go for the math/science, non-STEM, you’d go for the humanities, social sciences one.
6-7 total for junior and senior year?
For me, I’m doing a bit of a mix with STEM and social sciences (CS/econ/business?), so it might be a bit worse that I only have one humanities ap, one mathematics ap, and one science honors junior year (I’ll probably be taking some social science CC too) 
. Senior year I’m planning on taking two humanities, one science, one math, and one cs AP (5 aps total since I’ll hopefully be done with standardized testing).
6-7 for your HS career, although personally, I would say 6-8. Since most HS’s limit the number of AP’s taken by freshman and sophomores, most of AP’s will be junior and senior year.
I disagree. Adcoms are not looking of specific AP’s, although they will be looking for breadth across subjects. But AP’s in every core subject are not necessary. That said, AO’s know that not all AP’s are of the same rigors, and that the ones listed above (with the exception of government) are more rigorous than most of the other ones.
Okay, as of now, I will have 3 APs up to junior year (1 soph, 2 junior). I’m planning on taking 4 or 5 senior year, so would colleges be suspicious and think that it’s too big of a jump from 2 junior year to 4-5 senior year? B.T.W. I’m taking 2 junior year because I wanted to do both econ at CC instead of APUSH.
Limit yourself to three or four senior year, you will be very busy with applications. 5 woukd be overkill. Also, a class at a community college has as much value as an AP so you have 3 junior year+1 sophomore year (and if you take another cc class another semester, it adds one more.)
You have to choose judiciously - no need to take ever AP but the kitchen sink. Your choices have to “make sense”. AP English Language typically makes sense no matter what, then it’s up to you and your high school’s offerings.
Thank you! Then would it be worth it to take more CC courses even if each course is like 4.5 credits but they only count the first 11 credits (or should I just take 2 since the others won’t really count)? Would taking two at “X” CC and then take two more at “Y” CC work then?
I would not take a harder load senior year. You want to make sure you get top grades and want to have time for working on standardized tests and college applications. Possibly overloading yourself would be a mistake.
yes I agree but my junior year is relatively light in comparison so I thought I needed senior year to make up/balance the rigor
It’s not about colleges being suspicious. It’s about what that load does to you. Adcoms will see first semester grades and you don’t want a mess up.
You keep returning to jr year being light. But we’re saying a cc course (equivalent rigor) does add. And I’m saying that you need the right ECs.
I’m not clear what you will end up applying with. Skipping APUSH?? Econ’s not a replacement. I also disagree about US gov replacing world or Euro.
Ski’s right about the right breadth. But for “upper/upper” privates, you should be selecting rigor in the courses most related to the possible major. Not foregoing that because you have some count of APs.
Hm, that’s interesting. I’ve always thought that CC courses were not as rigorous as AP courses,-- at least from what colleges may think–, but after seeing what others are saying I’m not exactly sure.
If you really think you can balance the rigor and you’re genuinely interested in those APs, then go for it.
Really? Well, I don’t know if CC=AP in adcoms’ eyes.
Yea, I think I’ll look at how I do this year and choose APs from there.
Yes, that’s what we’re saying - in some way, they’re more indicative of college performance, because they go twice as fast as AP classes and require much more autonomy.
Your junior year is not light and if you worry too much, take a second cc class in the spring rather than overload your senior year.
For UC’s it is pretty important to make sure you complete the 8 semesters of approved AP/Honors classes by end of 11th grade to maximize your UC GPA. UCB also considers uncapped so more may only help. I may have missed it but do you have a UC approved honors class to go with your 3 AP’s?? If so you are probably just fine.
@my2caligirls - disregarding freshman year, I have 2 honors sophomore year and one honors junior year. I thought colleges looked at course rigor over GPA, so I’m not sure how much honors is worth in comparison with an AP class.
@preciouscanoe the honors reference was with regard to UC admissions only - UC GPA based on 8 semesters of approved AP/Honors classes - pretty sure there are just a couple of UC approved honors classes that fall in that category (believe Honors Precalc is one of them). Also need to be taken in 10-11 grades. Anyways, my intent was to see if that would get you your 8 semesters to bump your UC GPA.
If you are aiming for higher UCs such as UCLA or Berkeley, they don’t use the UC GPA as much, but rather use the uncapped weighted GPA. Thus, it’s not only 8 semesters maximum of approved honors courses credit, but basically as many as you like. IMO, completing just 8 semester honors (4 year-round honors) in 10-11 is not enough, from what I think. You need more than just that to have a “rigorous” course schedule.
A rigorous schedule is going to be a minimum of 5-6 academic classes per year, with 5 honors or AP starting in 10th grade (for instance 4 honors 1 AP in 10th, 2 honors 3 AP S in 11th and 12th ), with one CC semester class being equivalent to one year long AP.
For top 50 Universities/LACs and UCLA/UCB that’d be an expectation, with grades of A or A- in most classes (a B here or there is OK).
An allowance is made if you attend a school that doesn’t offer many honors or AP classes. However, a dual enrolled class at a community college will be given as much weight as an AP class, so if you live near a cc and a form of dual enrollment is offered you should try to complement your schedule that way.
^ But there’s no formula and it depends on the hs. I wouldn’t call it an “allowance.” Rather, that it’s hs-centric from the start. That’s why OP needs to see what his GC says. And why the “rigor” section on the Common App is left to the GC to indicate.
Kids don’t need a count, rather the look is at the choices he/she made, in context. The clearly high powered stem kid may be forgiven a non honors 10th gr English class, eg. Maybe the humanities driven kid sticks with physics, not AP physics. And just taking any DE course isn’t it. It all needs to make the right sense.
And suggesting the count matters over choice is what gets kids without APUSH, but AP econ. Or APES or AP stats over something more core.
Since I’m aiming for a Business/Economics/CS major, what courses (AP, honors, or CC) are recommended?