By Jonathan Schramm
Assistant Director
Undergraduate Admissions
As promised in my earlier post, Holistic Review, we're going to talk a little bit about curriculum choice and how it is viewed in the application
review process.
Whenever I'm giving an information session, whether on campus or at a high school, I always ask students what they think the most important thing is we consider in the review process academically. Inevitably I get a "GPA!" or "SAT!" shout-out well before I get one for "Curriculum!" In reality, course
selection is the one of the most important things we consider. Why? Because the better you do in tough courses during high school the better prepared you are for college.
Essentially, we want to see that you've challenged yourselves by taking the most difficult courses available to you as a student. At the same time,we're not going to penalize you for attending a school that doesn't offer as many Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment, Honors, or International Baccalaureate courses as another. Remember, we evaluate students within the
contexts of their high schools.
How do we know how many advanced courses your school offers? It's on the school profile, which your guidance counselors attach to each application. If you haven't seen it yet, you should run down to the guidance office as soon as you can. On second thought, you better walk. We don't want you getting a detention now do we? The school profile not only tells us how many
tough courses your school offers, but it also shows us the grading scale, the average GPA, average SAT/ACT and tons of other stuff.
Thanks for your detention -- I mean attention. Tune in next time when we discuss grades -- not GPA! To find out the difference you'll have to check back.
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