Top Universities for International Students Episode 21

Okay, so the first question that I'm gonna get to is my biggest FAQ when it comes to course selection, which is, "Is it better to get an A in a regular class or a B in an AP class," right? Or an honors class.

So my answer to this is really, that depends.

I have kind of two mantras when it comes to class selection that I always go by, which are, number one, always challenge yourself, and number two, never get a C, okay[laughs]? So th- that's the balance we're trying to maintain.

If you're at risk of getting a C, you probably shouldn't be taking the class, but I always want you challenging yourself.

So that means I want you taking as many AP and IB classes as you can fill and handle without imploding.

So that's general advice.

But in reality, what does that come down to be? I realize that there's a lot of you out there, and you guys are in different places in life.

Whatever your situation is, here's kinda my breakdown.

Wherever you are, I wanna see your unweighted GPA probably no lower than about a 3.5.

So if you are basically in all AP classes and literally you are Bs straight across and a couple of Cs, you probably should think about taking less challenging and rigorous courses because your overall unweighted GPA is really slogging and lagging, and that's gonna hurt you.

And it would look better to get some As in some classes than be bogging yourself down in courses where you're getting Cs.

47% of US high school students right now have an unweighted 3.5 or above supposedly, okay? 47%, that's a huge chunk, especially considering that 66.2% of American high school students are college-bound, okay? So if you think of it that way, and you think of, well, the A average students are probably the ones that are going to college, right? Yeah? 47 out of 66.2 is 71%.

So I'm just telling you guys, if you wanna go to college and you wanna get into a four-year university, and just a four-year university you've heard of, you wanna be in that 70%.

You get what I'm saying? And you don't wanna be below it.

At a certain point, there are diminishing returns to taking all honors classes.

If you are straight Bs in all your honors classes and all your AP classes, you should swap some things out.

You are probably going too low, okay? And that 3.5 is really a huge tipping point for me.

Ideally, I'd probably even rather see you at a 3.6 or a 3.7.

So if that means you need to ease up on a few of the honors classes, fine, do it, but I wanna see you at least taking a couple.

I don't wanna see your transcript be like zero honors classes, zero AP classes, right? Nothing, and just coasting in straight As, right? Now, that being said, let's go to the other end of the spectrum.