Which would the Academy rather see?

[rubio1996]

Would the U.S. Air Force Academy rather see: high grades in a regular class or mediocre grades in an advanced class? For example, during my freshman year, my final grades were a C- in Geometry Honors, an A+ in Concert Band, a C in Chemistry Honors, an A- in Multimedia Design, a B- in English I, a B- in Spanish I, and an A- in Civilizations. Unless something changes, I will be taking mostly regular classes in my sophomore year, which are Algebra II, Concert Band, Biology, Introduction to Computer Science, English II, Spanish II, and World History AP. Would doing excellent in these classes look better than doing mediocre in harder classes?

 

[flieger83]

Would the U.S. Air Force Academy rather see: high grades in a regular class or mediocre grades in an advanced class? For example, during my freshman year, my final grades were a C- in Geometry Honors, an A+ in Concert Band, a C in Chemistry Honors, an A- in Multimedia Design, a B- in English I, a B- in Spanish I, and an A- in Civilizations. Unless something changes, I will be taking mostly regular classes in my sophomore year, which are Algebra II, Concert Band, Biology, Introduction to Computer Science, English II, Spanish II, and World History AP. Would doing excellent in these classes look better than doing mediocre in harder classes?

The academy, any SA really, is going to want to see superior performance in whatever courses you take. Whether they are or are not "honors" courses is a different question. Some students can take honors courses and some can't. That's all "accounted for" by the school "description" and "course description" that your school supplies the SA's.

YOUR performance though is what will be looked at. Look at the word you chose to use: "mediocre."

Is ANY SA looking for "mediocre" in anything?

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

 

[AFAYahoo]

If you're going to take mostly regular classes next year, then you need to nail them--get a 4.0. That will help get your overall GPA headed in the right direction. Then jr. and sr. years you need to take honors/AP--whatever you can handle--to show the Academy that you can handle tough classes and get good grades. A 3.0 isn't going to cut it unfortunately to get into the Academy, especially now that they're cutting back on the size of the incoming classes--there are just too many talented, well-rounded kids applying for the spots. When you do apply, 60% of your WCS (whole candidate score) will be your academic scores (grades, strength of classes, ACT/SAT scores, etc.) so its obviously a major part of getting into the Academy. Just an FYI, the Academy will request a school profile, which includes a list of the classes offered (among other things). So if the Academy sees your school offers x number of honors classes, and y number of AP classes, and you didn't choose to take any of them (or very few), that will be taken into consideration. They want to know their students can handle a rigorous course load--the Academy is a tough school, with everyone taking plenty of science and math courses.

I don't mean for this to seem disheartening, as you are early enough in your HS career to turn things in the direction you want them to go. If you were a junior going into your senior year, that might not be the case. You'll be sending in a transcript at the end of your junior year, and even though you can update your file after 1st semester senior year, 1 semester isn't going to change your overall GPA enough to make a huge difference either way.