My daughter will be applying to 12-14 colleges this fall, including most if not all the UCs, for one of the less competitive majors. She needs to choose an additional senior year elective and can basically choose between an honors class she’s not particularly interested in and a nonhonors class that she is. Depending on her choice, she will have either 9 or 10 total AP/honors. I don’t think there will be an appreciable difference in workload between the two despite the honors designation, and her counselor has assured us she qualifies as having taken the “most rigorous curriculum” from her high school’s perspective no matter what choice she makes. Also, neither class relates very much to her major (she has taken or will take all AP/honors relevant to what she wants to study). My question relates to the way UC presents information about applicants (see link below). To be in the highest category for total honors/AP, you need 10 or more classes. What we are wondering is whether this is just a somewhat arbitrary cutoff (so that 9 vs. 10 wouldn’t actually matter that much) or, alternatively, a threshold that is meaningful in admissions. She would prefer to enroll in the nonhonors class but would take the honors one if it would make a material difference to her chances at UCs. Thanks!
If she meets the UC or other schools of interest qualifiers, you had me sold at interested. Mine took nutrition.
10 Honors / AP is not a lot depending on the school. 10 APs is. But at many schools, Honors is the baseline for college prep.
But I’m for taking things of interest in general - where it’s ’extra.’…especially vs an uninterested elective.
Each applicant is reviewed within the context of their HS’s curriculum so if her GC states she has taken the “most rigorous curriculum” available at her HS then she should be fine.
I would have her take the class that interests her the most.
This article might give you insight to the admissions process: How the University of California evaluates student applications | University of California
This suggests to me that 9-10 AP/honors is plenty for your daughter’s high school. Generally UCs try to evaluate applications in the context of the high school, so for most UCs it shouldn’t be an issue at all.
You can check historical admission patterns for a specific high school here: Admissions by source school | University of California
Of all the UCs, UCLA (but not UCB) does tend to have a stronger preference for a higher weighted GPA, so if your daughter is targeting UCLA, you might check the above link for your daughter’s high school to see how students historically do in UCLA admissions, and what GPA they typically accept.
But on the whole, it’s better to go with the class that most interests the student.
Her high school is odd with APs. They offer quite a few, but many are in very niche areas like Music Theory. It is impossible to take APs as a freshman and nearly impossible as a sophomore because of scheduling requirements and preference given to upper classes. Even junior and senior years, many APs can’t be taken without prerequisites you’d have to take over the summer in many cases. Her school is generally very successful with UC admissions, so I am hoping it will be OK (I know some students do take summer classes to enable more APs, but my kid was not willing to do this and is not particularly gunning for UCB or UCLA).
As noted, I was commenting on the Hinors / AP combo. Most us I know - regular college prep classes are Honors. So you’d have a lot more than 10 in combo with AP. Doesn’t sound like yours does that though .
That they say she’s most rigorous and they’ve done well - she should be fine.
In CA, many HS do not work this way even if it is a relatively rigorous HS, because UC has specific criteria for approved honors courses. A HS can’t just stratify its courses into regular / honors and expect UC to recognize those courses as honors. My kids’ CA HS has very few “honors” courses other than AP. Most courses are not designated “honors” even though many are quite rigorous.
Yes, this is the situation at our high school as well.
Same for us. A class is college prep and then the advanced version will be either honors or AP depending on subject - there are no subjects that have both honors and AP as options. So for example no honors classes in sciences, English or history - only AP options. The school is dropping precalc honors this coming year as it shifts to AP precalc, as another example. And following UC guidelines, there are no 9th grade honors options.
Understood - thx for the feedback.
I ‘think’ we all agree she should take the class of interest…..?
I’m not an expert on UCs, but I did find the freshman admit numbers for the 10+ honors cohort vs 5-9.9 cohorts, from your link pretty interesting for many of the campuses. I imagine that’s as much about the impact on the calculated UC GPA as an actual 9 v 10 different decision.
Have you calculated the potential difference in the GPA, and where she falls for her desired campuses?
I’d also say students can be very, very different on these decisions. My son would have never considered a class of no interest to boost his GPA. My daughter found an online AP Art History class her school would accept to help in the valedictorian race. She had zero interest in Art History, but wanted the extra AP boost.