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Articles / Applying to College / Will Skipping Honors in Math Torpedo College Acceptances?

Will Skipping Honors in Math Torpedo College Acceptances?

Sally Rubenstone
Written by Sally Rubenstone | March 14, 2012

Questions: Selective schools want students to have taken the most challenging courses available to them. I've taken honors classes in all core subjects EXCEPT for math where I take the accelerated classes. It still means I will take calculus my senior year. Does this put me out of the running at a selective school (not an IVY...but still very selective - 20-30% acceptance rate)

Your curriculum will not put you out of the running at ANY college, even the MOST selective. Granted, the Ivies and their hyper-competitive counterparts fill many of their beds with applicants who boast a head-spinning array of rigorous courses on their transcripts. But there is always room for an interesting candidate who has elected very challenging classes, even if not the tip-top ones across the board.


(posted 3/14/2012)

Written by

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.

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