Higher GPA in harder courses is always the answer.
Note that some choices of AP courses may not look better to an admissions reader. Skipping precalculus to take AP statistics, skipping physics to take AP environmental science, or skipping foreign language level 3 or 4 to take AP human geography would not necessarily look better.
Based on your answers, I would have to say this:
2)For T40-80 w/merit, (especially auto merit schools):
As @RichInPitt said:
âIn your specific scenario, I think the 5 or 6 solid AP course while maintaining a 3.9+ would be best. Once you get over 5 or 6 the incremental value to rigor decreases, especially if itâs at the expense of grades.â 6 was the number we were given in info sessions
3)For Stem:
As @ucbalumus said:
âNote that some choices of AP courses may not look better to an admissions reader. Skipping precalculus to take AP statistics, skipping physics to take AP environmental science, or skipping foreign language level 3 or 4 to take AP human geography would not necessarily look better.â
And as @DadTwoGirls said: âI think that each student has to take whatever course load makes sense for them. Then find a school that fits what they have done.â
@jh123 everyoneâs given you great, honest advice. Itâs hard work; many of the parents posting will probably tell you their high stat kids do 4-6 hours of homework/night. Do the best you can and good luck!!
âFor example, what would be better for a school like Ohio State or UC Irvine? Higher GPA and less AP courses OR lower GPA and 2-3 more AP courses. Would it matter if the major is STEM or history/philosophy?â
For a place like UCI, for sure getting the higher gpa with less APs is preferred to lower GPA with more APs. First, the UCs only count honors and APs in 10th and 11th so you can, as many do that get in, not take a single honors or AP in 9th. Then they max the number at 4 year long courses or 8 semesters for their gpa calculation. As others have posted, public colleges like OSU would probably be similar.
STEM/non-stem makes the biggest difference in admission chances, but Iâd say that for UCI, taking math/sci honros/aps for stem is fine, you wouldnât need a class like apush, however the more selective UCs would want to see more rigor.
First off, donât base your decision on the assumption that rankings mean anything. Rankings are a lazy way to research schools, and the fastest way to find a school mismatch, which will lead to 4 long years of misery.
Second, just get the best grades you can and take classes that interest you the most. Do some real research on affordable schools based on your interests and career goals. Send them what you have and the ones that like you will send an acceptance letter.
Unless you are at a California high school, UCs only consider AP and IB courses for weighting - only honors courses from a CA high school are considered for weighting. Since, for UCs, both UC GPA and UC weighted GPA are important, as much as I do not like supporting the âmore and more and more APsâ attitude, an OOS student who wants desperately to apply to a UC needs to have a decent number of AP classes.
Splitting the difference of 30-100 is 65. One of the schools in a 6 way tie for 64th place in the USNWR National U rankings is UMass-Amherst. According to their CDS:
https://www.umass.edu/oir/sites/default/files/publications/cds/common_data_set_2017.pdf
Overall admissions rate was 57%
Percent who had GPA of 3.75 and higher - 65.5
Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 - 25.3
Based on that, Iâd feel better about an applicants chances with a 3.9 and 4-6 APs. Though, with a 57% acceptance rate, both students would probably get in assuming reasonably high SATâŠ
I would approach it in three parts. For any course you consider taking, ask first, Is this an âacademic solidâ?
Hope that helps!
If youâre really stuck, go for GPA-- again, with the hard requirement of not fewer than 5 academic solids each semester.
It depends on many factors including which classes have lower grades, which classes are APs, what college and program you are applying to and how it fits in to the classes with lower grades or less rigor, the specific HS + rank related issues, etc. But as a general rule of thumb, a 3.9-4.0 UW with 4-6 APs is more desirable than a 3.6-3.7 UW with 7-9 APs, regardless of the collegeâs USNWR ranking.
How do you know you wonât get Aâs in the more rigorous classes? If are really struggling in the pre-AP level classes, then thatâs a good reason to avoid AP and instead focus on getting a good foundation. However, if you are not struggling and are getting straight Aâs in the pre-AP level classes, then I wouldnât automatically assume youâll get Bâs in the AP class.
Time management is key in order to have a rigorous course schedule and achieve a high GPA. While it sounds unnecessary, setting a screen time limit on a phone helps with time management.
There is something that really irks me about the response, âWe want high grades in tough classesâ. Of course thatâs what everyone wantsâthatâs not answering the question at all and is a cop out. Itâs almost like saying, âI want to marry a super rich, super intelligent, funny, honest and beautiful person, both inside and out.â Who wouldnât want that, but sometimes marrying a person with a few flaws is ideal. Finding a student who doesnât have the entire package will be who they choose. Thatâs why you sometimes you see people get in with lower grades than a straight A student. If all they wanted were test taking robots with perfect grades, how would that serve the interest in getting a student body representative of the state of California?
Iâm no admissions counselor, but I would imagine even the UCs, with their emphasis on GPA, will take a holistic approach. First, they will look at your course rigor, then they will look at the quality of your high school (sorry, but not all high schools are equal) and GPA, then your test scores and your ECs and essays. I would also believe they will look at geographic balance as they want geographic diversity in state. There probably is no hard and fast rule that says they will always favor the higher GPA and less challenging classes than lower GPA and more difficult classes.
Some UC schools receive over 100k applications. Good luck on holistic review.
With UCs, you can calculate the three variants of GPA that they will use under various hypothetical conditions.
But that still means guessing what your future grade will be in the harder or easier course. It is not assured that you will get exactly one grade lower in the harder course, for example.
UCs charge $70 per application. If there were 80k without fee waiver, that would be over $5.6 million in application fees. That $5.6 million can contribute to the costs of evaluating a large number of applications holistically, such as hiring a good sized admission staff, including seasonal temporary staff⊠Itâs not impossible to evaluate a large number of applications holistically. As such, UCs do use a holistic review of the applications, which has been well documented in public reviews. This holistic review includes things like reading multiple essays/statements, considering ECs, etc.
Fortunately the UCs have put the data out in the public domain for you to dive into, filter, sort, play around with.
Use the tabs in gray, located above this interactive data set, to see GPAs for applicants and for admits at every UC, for every high school with >5 applicants, for every year going back to 1994:
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-source-school
Also, here are histograms showing 2018 admit rates for different UC campuses for different (weighted) GPA bands and also bands for ACT, SAT EBRW, SAT M, SAT Essay scores as well as # of "A-Gâ Courses taken:
(nb. you can see the standard profile for any campus by substituting the final word in the URL, before the â.pdfâ)
Right. And what those charts show is a strong preference for a high GPA, preferably 4.0, or at least 3.7. I donât see a column for the "3.5 GPA but in really tough courses"admits
Note that the listed GPA is UC weighted 10th-11th grade GPA⊠A â3.5 GPA but in really tough coursesâ applicant may be grouped in the tableâs 4.0+ GPA category, if those really tough courses were honors/AP for in state or AP for out of state. This weighting relates to why such a large portion of applicants have a 4.0+ in the table. For example, the table for Berkeley indicates that the majority of applicants had a 4.0+, yet a small portion of applicants who were in the minority with below a 4.0 were still admitted.
The UC system includes consideration of the following 14 criteria when evaluating applicants. I agree that UW GPA is important, but there are also many other considerations, as part of the holistic admission system.
Regarding UC recalculated HS GPA, the weighted capped version is typically 0.3 to 0.4 higher than unweighted for students taking 8 or more semesters of honors in 10th and 11th grades. Fully weighted may be significantly higher, depending on availability. Unweighted is also calculated.
Most UC web sites use weighted capped HS GPA unless otherwise specified.
The UC system may work fine for the California public schools it draws from, which is fine, but as noted OOS honors courses do not get extra weight, so for OOS applicants, a more rigorous course isnât helpful. While I appreciate the elucidation of UC factors 2 thru 14 for holistic evaluation, given that 97% of applicants with a 3.69 or lower GPA are rejected from UCLA, for example, one might wonder just how important those other factors are. In any event, OP was not just focused on UC schools.