<p>When assessing whether or not your curriculum has been sufficiently rigorous, do adcoms factor in which electives you’ve taken?</p>
<p>Define elective. If you took 8 random courses that had the lowest weighting (non honors/AP) like floral design and computer animation, it could hurt you. If you only have a few blowoff electives here and there, it’s considered normal, particularly in your freshman/sophomore years. If you took additional honors/AP courses (outside of your core classes), it can help you. Many colleges recalculate GPA and eliminate any courses they consider electives (ex. gym, health), but it’ll still look bad if your transcript is just 4 core classes + 3 random blowoff electives every year.</p>
<p>A sufficiently rigorous schedule just means you took every opportunity to challenge yourself. If you consistently take unweighted and blow-off looking classes, then yes, it will damage your “rigor.” If you dedicated some elective classes to something with more depth, it will help you get to that rigorous level.</p>
<p>Maybe an example could help clear this up, if you have one in mind.</p>
<p>It depends on your intended major/minor and what kind of electives. I assume you are not going to be majoring in any realm of the fine arts, but correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>Generally, if you took electives like business, psychology, and technology, colleges are going to like that. Some colleges/universities also really like for their students to have taken some fine arts classes consistently. Obviously, if you took band for 4 years, it’s going to look more impressive than if you took band one year, culinary arts the next, then theatre, then shop.</p>
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<p>I second Pancaked’s comment. You shoud challenge your potential with classes related to [but not limited to] your interests.</p>
<p>@Pancaked: My school is very small and has limited offerings in terms of AP and Honors courses. When possible, I have always “elected” to take as many AP/Honors courses as I can, when the choice is between, say AP Calc and Pre Calc, but these are not considered electives exactly. An “elective” at my school is a course which is only offered for one trimester, and is usually in the ilk of “service learning,” “digital art,” and the like. Since freshman year, my electives have been:
Ethics and Philosophy
Music Appreciation (took because I’m a musician and it’s the only music-related class offered at my school)
Model Design
Music appreciation again
Mock Trial
CAD Model/design
Study Hall (I had an internship during this tri as well)
Mock Trial
AP Bio Preparation
This year: Mock Trial two tris.
As you can see, these electives aren’t exactly challenging in the traditional sense, but once again this is because pure academic classes aren’t offered as electives. How does this look?</p>