<p>My niece is at a HS which has regular, Honors, and Gifted Honors and AP. AP only starts in 11th grade. There is some chance that she would compromise her all A record if taking GHon.</p>
<p>I guess my question is… just how sophisticated are the Highly Selective College Adcoms. With the number of apps and thus the time allowed to scrutinize an individual’s app, I wonder if there might be a point in ‘strategizing’ to a degree. Would they be likely to dissect the difference between Honors versus Gifted Honors? After all it does not jump out from the application as if it was A.P. PS she will be offered AP starting in 11th grade.</p>
<p>The colleges ask for international school supplement. From that they can discern the honors and gifted honors courses. So, if your niece wants to enter the top-notch colleges, she needs to take the most rigorous curriculum available at her school and get good grades in those courses.</p>
<p>I have always considered it foolish to make decisions based on what strangers might consider important at some point years in the future. Your neice should challenge herself and make decisions based on what is important to her. Life is not complete when college acceptances roll in.</p>
<p>In response to your specific question, adcoms at highly selective schools are very sophisticated and have likely seen every trick you can imagine to manipulate transcripts.</p>
<p>This is an issue my D is dealing with as well. Even among APs, there are differences in rigor, even though (at D’s school) the APs are weighted the same. So, a student who wanted to increase their GPA could take, say, AP Human Geography - a course that most selective colleges don’t recognize in terms of AP credit - instead of AP Physics or AP Euro, which are very tough classes.</p>
<p>If your niece wants to get into a selective college, my advice would be to take the highest level of rigor possible. Hopefully, the guidance counselor letter will address the various levels of classes at your niece’s school and explain the differences.</p>
<p>Your niece should take the highest level of classes she can do reasonably well in - say B or better. The emphasis should be on what the appropriate level for her is. It should not be so difficult that she has no life outside of school, nor so easy that she’s bored. Highly selective colleges want to see a challenging curriculum, but there are plenty of colleges that are less picky. My kids did pretty well with a mix of very challenging courses and some much easier ones. You don’t have to take every AP your school offers, but if you are selling yourself as a budding historian to a very selective school, you probably want to take most of the history APs, if you are a budding scientist, you probably should have AP Calc and a couple of AP sciences under your belt.</p>
<p>It isn’t that the college ad comms see honors vs “gifted honors”–whatever that is. It’s will the school mark that she took the most rigorous courses available to her. If the “honors” classes are 3rd in line for course difficulty, not a good idea. They want to protect their GPA to a point but a 3.8 with high test scores is as good as a 4.0 with high test scores for all practical purposes. Keep in mind these schools have a 6% acceptance rate and a LOT of 4.0 perfect test score kids don’t get into ANY of the top schools. What else does she have to present to the school besides good grades?</p>
<p>I also struggle with this issue. I have received conflicting recommendations from numerous friends who have completed the college process. Some feel that they were not well served by the advice to take the most rigorous courses. They believe that the B’s or B+'s in those AP courses contributed to a declination or wait list at a target school. Others felt that the AP courses were the reason their child was accepted to a school of choice. </p>
<p>We have addressed this issue by advising our child to take the most rigorous courses in those areas where said child is very strong (Math and Science). We have also advised our child not to take any more that 3 advanced classes in one academic year. We chose this route because College Counseling advised that they see more “disappointments” with students getting in over their heads, than they do with students being conservative with course selection.</p>
<p>How high is your niece aiming? If she is shooting for the very top schools she will need to take the most rigorous courses available and get all A grades, or something very close to it. She needs to “go for it,” not go around it.</p>
<p>Highly selective colleges ask the HS GCs to made a formal designation whether a given student has taken the most-rigorous courses. “Most-rigged” status is one of the check boxes high-end colleges will be looking to check off in evaluating a candidate.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean to taking something less than the most-rigorous courses will automatically disqualify an applicant, but it will constitute a smudge on her record.</p>
<p>My 12th grade son chose to NOT protect his GPA.</p>
<p>He began dual enrollment course in 9th grade; AP in 10th. He also took more than the “academic” norm of his school by taking 7 academic courses instead of the typical 5 (+ art/band/electives).</p>
<p>Ask him, he would not have done it any other way.</p>
<p>Ask us parents, his GPA suffered (A-/B+) enough that I expect he would not get into our state flagship honors college nor is he eligible for some big scholarships.</p>
<p>Overall, he has plenty of college options given the strength of his transcript. He is confident he is prepared for college academics. It helps us financially that he is willing to travel most places in the country for college.</p>
<p>My second son is in 7th grade and is more willing to listen to advice of parents. I will strongly advise him to protect his GPA by limiting academic courses to 5/year while striving to take the highest level he can.</p>
<p>This is truly a question of not only putting niece in the best position for college entrance, but also in college success freshman year and financial success. So, what does the family want/need most? </p>
<p>Also, keep in mind, she may be competing against those in her high school class. Say 10 kids all apply to the same very select college, the college may choose to only enroll 5 kids from that high school. She needs to have a strong schedule compared to those 5.</p>
<p>"‘Most-rigged’ status"? I bet they see that a lot, but not with a box checked for it!</p>
<p>If the OP is thinking about the most-most-selective colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc.), then the answer to this question is like the answer to someone asking how much a yacht costs: If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. If a student has to wonder whether he will do well enough taking the toughest, most challenging schedule he can, then he’s not really a candidate for any of those colleges.</p>
<p>The problem is that taking the insanely challenging courseload may be the WRONG choice for the student’s second-choice set of colleges, like his in-state public flagship, some of which may only care about unweighted GPA and class rank. Getting all As in less-than-top courses would doom you at Harvard, but it might guarantee you Flagship U</p>
<p>In my experience, large public Us tend to go by numbers - GPA (unweighted), test scores, maybe rank. Period. Rigor is often not taken into account.</p>
<p>Selective, mostly private LACs, very selective Us, do care a lot about rigor and would rather see a student with B+ in hard classes than A in easy ones.</p>
<p>I know the schools S applied to cared that he challenged himself. I also know parents whose kids didn’t get merit or honors at our state schools because they chose harder classes and their GPA suffered. It goes both ways but my own experience was that it mattered what the college’s formula allowed for and didn’t. Any “holistic” admissions will take rigor into account.</p>
<p>I will also put this out there…my S generally got higher grades in his harder classes. He liked the subjects more, he was with a motivated group of students, teachers perhaps expected kids in the class to do well, less time was wasted dealing with discipline or lots of kids who weren’t getting the material right away. So it might be that the advanced classes are both most rigorous and interesting and also deliver the highest grades.</p>
<p>The gpa goes on the student portion of the CA, but adcoms will look at the transcript, will see the level of courses- and will know from the School Profile, what the tiers of rigor are. </p>
<p>Your neice can ask the GC if he/she considers her course choices to-date most rigorous or rigorous. Some hs consider all their honors classes challenging. Others have whackdoodle distinctions for that check box. JHS makes a very interesting point- if a student needs to hold down a notch or two in rigor, how will she fare in a high rigor environment of a “highly selective” college? It’s important to aim for the right match, not the most prestigious college.</p>