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I'm a mom who is trying to help my 10th grade son with college selections. He hears from his friends at school that it is better to take courses that will help bump up his cum. gpa than to take elective courses that interest him. I say take a couple of art classes that will be relaxing and fun and rely on the core subjects and language courses (all rigorous--highest level in a very good public school program)to establish GPA. Do schools really look at weighted cumulative GPA from h.s. or do they only look at core subject gpa? He has roughly a weighted cum. of 4.0....My understanding is that colleges also want students who are well-rounded. Seems art classes, interesting electives, etc. will add to that piece of the pie....I'm interested in benefitting from the experiences of others....Focus totally on academics, gpa, etc. or have some fun, interesting experiences???

By Sac (Sac) on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 11:08 pm: Edit

As long as he takes five classes that are what used to be called "solids" (Eng, Hist, Math, Science, Foreign Language), then I'd agree with you that he can afford to take electives that really interest him. For example, my son has taken four years of jazz band. A friend of his took four years of art classes, two senior year. They both got into great schools. The key is not so much that colleges want well-rounded kids as that they want kids who follow their passions as far as they can. So, if art is a genuine interest of your son's, he might take art classes at school, do something art related over the summer, even get an after school or summer job that is somehow art related. If art is not a genuine interest, and he's only trying to avoid the harder classes to protect his grade point, that would be viewed differently.

By Maemay04 (Maemay04) on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 04:57 pm: Edit

Okay... this is one that I know I can answer... I'm a senior, I have a 4.4, but I've never taken anything I didn't want to take. About half of my solids were honors, but everything else (yearbook, art, tech ed, etc) were just your regular run-of-the-mill classes. I'll be choosing from full rides to Tulsa, Oklahoma City University, Texas A&M, OU, OSU, etc. simply because of my SAT score and my ACT, and EC's help a lot. Don't stress over your schedule. A lot of colleges are finally starting to see that there is a lot more to learning than your GPA.