Do Colleges care more about your GPA and major test scores, or the courses you take?

I will take the same classes i was planning on, but i will be taking a less advanced math class next year but will be making up for it my junior and senior year, as long as i have a good GPA and stuff does it matter as much???? b/c many different schools have different courses and course names.

Do Colleges care more about your GPA and major test scores, or the courses you take?
Well, its better to get an "A" in a regular class than a "C" in an honors class.





When colleges look at your resume, they skim a bit. First, they see if your application looks good (A's) , THEN they look at the classes.





A lot of colleges do not look at your FRESHMAN year as much as the rest.





If its only one class, then thats fine, as long as you take at least 1-2 AP's Junior year and 1-3 AP's Senior year.





Its good that you worry about your grades! Good luck :]
Reply:Lets not forget... colleges are a business they care first and formost that you pay your bill. They care about the GPA and/or tests to show they are prestigious, which will in-turn make them more attractive and able to allow them to charge more money. Most colleges will allow just about anyone to transfer in once they have gone to college for a semester.
Reply:It really depends on which college you apply to and which High school you are at. Ivy league and major intellectual colleges care about everything including volunteerism, at a crap H.S. you need great classes and GPA to get into good colleges, but mostly as long as you are on a good track(e.g. Trig or Calc not Math3) it won't matter.
Reply:Your best bet is to find out the minimum requirements for acceptance to the schools you are interested in attending. Once you know what the minimum is, you can make sure you exceed it. You'll have a much better chance at being accepted if you've got more than what they are looking for and have done well through out your HS years. If that means you have to take some classes over the summer--do it! Some states even allow you to get both HS %26amp; college credit for taking college level classes while you are still in HS. If you've got a class that you know will be hard for you get the help you need to get it done as soon as possible. That way it won't be in your way later!
Reply:They care about both. If you get a 30 on ACT and have a 3.0, you should be way good. Like me, I got a 22 on ACT and have a 3.8 and the college that I am going to is happy with me.





Courses too are useful. If you get a B in AP Calc they will see you stepped it up.
Reply:they look at everything, they want well rounded people. if you have a 4.0 GPA thats great, but if the classes were just mediocre and you didnt do any extra activities it doesnt look as good.
Reply:Most colleges guard their exact entrance formulas very carefully (they weight different things differently, give them number values, and plug it all into a big equasion to spit out a number that says how well you'd fit there), but it does depend on the school.





At a really top-notch school, taking a "regular" class when there's an "honors" section is a definite black mark against you - a "B" in an AP class is better than an "A" in a regular one, because it shows that you were willing to try the harder class right from the beginning. If you take mostly honors classes and you take one regular one, though, as long as you do well in it you should be okay - especially if you get great test scores for it later. Schools do realize that sometimes the "hardest" class isn't actually the hardest, and if it looks like you're a hard worker otherwise they assume you knew what you were doing.
Reply:Colleges do care more about your GPA and SAT and ACT test scores than what classes you've had. This is mostly true because these rankings are standardized. Let's say a scholarship was between you and another student who took the same classes at different schools. You had the class at a prep school and therefore made a 30 on the ACT while the other student took the class in a public school in the inner city and made a 22 on the ACT. Different schools certainly carry different credibility. The best test of your actual knowledge in comparison with other students will be the SAT and ACT. Even your GPA is skewed by your school. Taking the best classes possible will help you prepare for these important tests.