Knowing this, I might re-think IB Diploma for one of mine, who had a particularly rigorous EC. Looking back, none of us really know how she pulled it off. It was insane from a time management standpoint and it made college seem manageable by comparison. The math/physics sequence was probably time/energy well spent, since she majored in physics. And I’ll resist my initial knee-jerk thought that maybe she didn’t need IB English HL because I think writing is important and she wasn’t a naturally gifted writer right out of the box. I think that sequence helped her excel not only at her SLAC in non-STEM coursework, where writing is valued at a premium, but also in her STEM grad school program, where her advisor routinely commented that she was the best writer in her cohort by a long stretch.
But did she need the IB History HL sequence? The IB Biology/Bio Chem sequence? Apparently, she probably did not.
I totally agree on story packaging and showing strong personal qualities over adding on another AP. Once cleared the academic threshold, it’s this in my opinion for the unhooked.
Why does everything feel so extra obvious after the fact?!
Hindsight is 20/20. I think S24 could have spent a little more time on creating a “story” - everything else was really strong - but he had such diverse interests, it was a challenge. He was the consummate well rounded student - the unhooked kids that were successful this year (from our school) were pointier - with ECs that supported their academic interests. The well rounded, super smart kids (including our Val and Sal) were not as successful.
The question then becomes, what is the threshold? I was especially intrigued to learn that calculus (setting aside AB, BC or HL) isn’t really an unofficial prerequisite. Every bit of advice we received suggested strongly that, while not technically required, it would be hard to be competitive for T20 without it. We also heard a lot that “schools really like to see it.”
Anecdotally, we also heard that Wesleyan and Brown “love to see physics on the transcript” even if the kid isn’t planning on STEM. In fact, the way it was explained to us, a kid who was demonstrating depth and interest in the humanities would be well served to have physics and calc on the transcript to “show their range.”
My grandkids are a ways off, but if they were at it today, I’d really like to know if that’s required. All of my kids were good math students, so doing it wasn’t a massive task. But for many good students, taking those courses adds a significant burden to the HS experience, and adds a huge risk of earning a bad grade that could really blow up the the presentation of themselves as a “package”.
So even being the Val and Sal didn’t count as pointy. Wow.
Do you have a real life example of pointy that wouldn’t compromise a kid’s identity? Not including sports, of course, or URM or similar “institutional priority” markers.
No one tells math and science focused students aiming for highly selective colleges that it is not a disadvantage in admissions to take only the minimum history and social studies (probably 1.5 or 2 years in many high schools) or to stop foreign language at level 1 or 2. That would be the analog of humanities and social studies focused students stopping math at algebra 2 (with a possible side track to AP statistics) or not completing all three of biology, chemistry, and physics.
While some of the highly selective colleges do like “pointy” applicants with outstanding achievement in some academic or extracurricular area, they also likely want the “spike” to stand on a well-rounded base of high school subjects.
Ok, but can we pull this back to the topic as introduced?
I’m not talking about the extreme case of going all the way back to the minimum. The question is about the threshold, beyond which the incremental effort isn’t helping the kid’s admissions chances.
In my example, she wasn’t going stop foreign language after year two. But did she need it to be HL her junior and senior years? Or if she did that, could she have just taken regular history courses?
If the point is that you don’t need “12 APs”, or whatever other version of fully loading up on the technically hardest tracks your HS offers (in the case of HSs whose advanced course offerings are robust), then how much is enough?
Taking 4 years of Spanish is fine. Taking Spanish HL in an IBD program your last two years, while you’re also taking Calc HL, Physics HL, English HL, History HL, etc. is an added burden. IB Spanish HL is a lot more demanding and, importantly, time consuming, than a regular Spanish class.
We just were told of a kid who got into Dartmouth without taking calculus … at all! That runs counter to the advice we received. I believe it, but it runs counter.
S24’s very good friend is an avid fisherman (dating back to elementary school) and was involved with several national fishing/environmental organizations - he was also a part time fishing instructor (and he had a few other ECs I don’t know the details of). He will be pursuing a degree in environmental science at Dartmouth (a perfect fit for him). He is an excellent student and did well on the SAT but he only took 4 APs out of a possible 8 (max at our school) and bypassed an AP calc course for Stats. He is a terrific kid but his rigor was a little less than the tippy top kids in the class. He wasn’t nationally recognized in any way nor did he win any significant awards but he did have a well defined (and somewhat unique) passion. That’s what I mean by “pointy”.
My understanding is that IB DP students take 3 (sometimes 4) out of 6 IB courses in typical subjects (not including IB-specific stuff like theory of knowledge) as HL, with the others SL.
By choice (i.e. completed precalculus 11th grade or earlier, but opted out of calculus after precalculus, or completed algebra 2 10th grade or earlier, but opted out of precalculus) or by middle school math placement (i.e. not placed into algebra 1 before 9th grade)?
Also, what intended major and academic narrative in the application (i.e. favoring science and math, or humanities and social studies, or arts, or ???)?
IDK. The originator of the sub-topic, and the person who knows the kid, is @Thorsmom66. But I would assume, given the topic, that she would have pointed out if one of those scenarios were the case. It would have been an important detail to omit given the point of the entire discussion.
Again, read what @Thorsmom66 had to say. Looks like we’re talking a spikey fisherman who wants to major in environmental science.
I personally think of it as showing intellectual curiosity above all else. In some that may be a spike and in others it may be lots of interest in a wide variety and a genuine love for learning.
I think kids that can communicate this effectively will be the ones that stand out in a sea of high stats as the ones that will make an impact on campus and add to their community.
I think kids who have a story they can tell will definitely stand out. However, I think there are many kids that would add to a campus in a meaningful way - I don’t think that is necessary apparent from an application. How can it be?
I’ve been thinking about this for my D25 with average gpa, high test score. Her story as I see it is her kindness, the one that finds the person sitting alone, reads the energy in room and tries to help. I definitely think she’d make a great add to a campus and hope she can communicate some of her personal qualities to help her application.
In my opinion, I think this is right. Of course, it also depends on the selectivity of the schools being applied to.
Most of the selective colleges will have requirements/expectations that look something like this:
English: 4 years
Social Studies: 3-4 years
Math: 4 years
Science: 3-4 years
Foreign Language: 3-4 years
Essentially, they want students to take each of these academic subjects every year. If one started on the +1 math track (Algebra I in middle school), then I think many colleges would like to see calculus or AP stats senior year. But if one was a +2 or +3 kid and was taking multivariable calculus as a junior, I don’t think a college is going to sneer at a kid’s rigor who chose not to take math their senior year (unless they are thinking of being a math major or similar).
With respect to the rigor, I think that most selective colleges would expect to see honors coursework throughout high school and AP classes where possible and appropriate. So, maybe they take AP US History in social studies, AP calc in math, AP Lang or Lit for English, an AP foreign language, and an AP science (after doing honors bio, chem, and physics), and perhaps one more in a subject of the kid’s choosing. So, let’s say about 5-6 AP classes in core subjects, assuming that the classes were offered by the high school. This should, however, also be reflected in the AP scores received (i.e. not 1s and 2s).
Let me also just emphasize that this is a general sense of where the floor for rigor might be and not a rule that anything less than this won’t count as sufficiently rigorous.
Among the kids I know about in S24’s class at his feederish HS, I’d say it is extremely hard to draw any firm conclusions.
For sure, some of the kids who got into the very most selective colleges were not in all the hardest classes. But some were. And then some of those kids probably counted as particularly spikey, but I am not sure all really do.
One thing I would say is all the kids I know about who had high rigor and very good grades at least got into very selective colleges, if not always the most selective colleges they applied to. So CMU was big this year, a close friend is going to Tufts, and so on. For that matter, S24 counts in that category, and I was certainly fine with him choosing between WUSTL (another big destination for our HS this year) and Carleton and such.
What I don’t really know is what sort of “floor” kids had if they were more going for spikey and were not one of those all-around-top academic kids. Again I know some of those kids did very well, but I learned about some of their “spikes” after the fact (as an explanation of how they might have gotten accepted). So how many kids do I not really know about had some sort of spike and are NOT one of kids who got into a most selective college? And where are they going?
Given all this–I am still thinking if you want to maximize your chances of getting into a very most selective college you should probably try to do BOTH–near perfect grades with max rigor and ALSO some activities that might help you truly stand out. But what if like most kids, you can only do at most one of those still and have a healthy and happy childhood overall?
I’d just go with whatever you like best, because I am not at all sure one compromise or the other really dominates, particularly once you understand that you probably are NOT getting into one of the very most selective colleges either way.
I think this is a great approach. My D23 was a test optional 3.7 GPA kid who applied to a bunch of second tier schools and was accepted everywhere, she attends a great LAC in Texas. Her “story” was that she was an enthusiastic and kind kid with a lot of school spirit and no drama. She was Cheer Captain in high school and on all the social and event committees. One of her interviewers told her that it was nice to interview a student who was a happy kid, and she is
All fair points, and the way I would proceed again today, if I were required to do so.
But, I point out again, for some very good students, some of the courses (I thought were) required for “most rigor” status could very well endanger a lower-than-ideal grade. There are smart kids who might be blown up in an area of relative weakness.
My D’s IBD program is instructive. There, a “pre-IB” course that was (and might still be) notorious for its difficulty, attracted good students in droves likely because its reputation as a hard course preceded it. I can’t remember if it was titled as a Chem or Bio class, but it was “Pre-IB” something. By second semester it wound up being a bio-chem course. The teacher was excellent and was a notoriously hard examiner and grader. Many kids who selected into IBD would drop IB altogether because of this course after being confronted with D and F grades. It was tragic for two reasons. One, because the kids who took the course tended to be “don’t give up” people, they would wait too long before going to the counselors for help and it would be too late to drop. So they’d get a D or, sometimes, an F. Imagine a serious HS student who’d had success all along running into that reality. Two, it wasn’t even necessary to complete the IBD! You didn’t even have to take it! You only needed it if you were taking the IBD Bio track. My kid didn’t need it, for example, because she did the physics track. Like, seriously. I remember her working through that course. She is a smart cookie and will tell you to this day that course (10th grade year!) was a butt kicker.
I don’t know if the counselor would not check “most difficult” if you did IBD and skipped this class, but among the top serious students in my kid’s cohort, none of them would have avoided it on principle. What I’m thinking now is that it was entirely unnecessary unless you were married to the bio track.
The point of all that being, you might have a nice selection of colleges if you take challenging courses but not THE MOST DEMANDING track you can coble together. The kid who went on to Dart. to study environmental science without having taken calc at all … super instructive to me.
Just to support your point, I believe all the highly selective college AOs I have seen discuss this have said something along the lines that they want to see you challenging yourself across a broad range of classes, but that doesn’t mean you literally have to take every possible AP or whatever in every area, you can in fact choose for interest sometimes.
And if that sometimes means dodging a specific class where the teacher is known to be difficult, or you just don’t like the subject? In many cases as long as you are substituting something you have a plausible interest in, no one may ever know you were also dodging a class that didn’t even appear on your transcript.
So yes, none of this is formulaic, different kids will likely have different versions of “max rigor” based on their own personal interests, and you can likely sometimes make use of that fact to be protective of your “near perfect” grades (and mental health).
