Rigor vs. GPA: What colleges are really looking for, and how to choose the right courses for YOUR teen
with Elizabeth Heaton
The replay period for this interview is over, but you can still access the recording through the Success Package, here.
Rigor vs. GPA: What colleges are really looking for,
and how to choose the right courses for YOUR teen
It seems there’s almost as much pressure involved in choosing the right HIGH SCHOOL courses as there is in choosing the right COLLEGE courses. Should your teen take regular classes or AP? How diverse should their course selection be? Is it more valuable to have a higher GPA in regular classes, or a slightly lower GPA in AP or IB courses? How important really IS GPA to college admissions? And how does your teen choose a course load that will strengthen their college application, but not leave them stressed out and burned out? Elizabeth Heaton is the Vice President of Educational Consulting at Bright Horizons College Coach, the nation’s leading provider of educational advisory services. Join us for this interview to learn…
- What colleges are really looking for in high school course selection and GPA
- How to choose the right courses for YOUR teen
- Whether it’s better to get an A in a regular class, or a B in an AP class
- How to know if your teen has stretched themselves too thin with their course load
- What courses count as CORE classes to most colleges
- How much attention colleges pay to 4-year language requirements
- How colleges are actually calculating your GPA (core vs. non-core, weighted vs. unweighted, regular vs AP/IB)
About Your Speaker
Elizabeth Heaton
Elizabeth Heaton is Vice President, Educational Consulting at Bright Horizons College Coach, the nation’s leading provider of educational advisory services. Ms. Heaton spent a number of years as a regional director of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania. There she chaired university selection committees for the Wharton School, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the School of Nursing. She also served as second chair in the selection committee for Penn’s flagship interdisciplinary Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, evaluated potential athletic recruits as one of the school’s athletics liaisons, and oversaw the university’s portfolio of admissions publications. At Bright Horizons College Coach, she has guided students and families from the United States and abroad through the college admissions process. Her students have been accepted to hundreds of schools across the country and abroad. Ms. Heaton is regularly interviewed for her perspective on college admissions and education-related issues and has been featured on Good Morning America, ABC, CNBC, NPR, Marketplace, and Inside Boston, and in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, US News & World Report, the Associated Press, and FOX Business, among others. The host of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, a weekly podcast on the VoiceAmerica Network, Ms. Heaton has also been a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and USA Today College. She can offer expert advice on a wide range of college admissions and education topics. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Heaton worked as a public relations professional and served for a decade as a member of the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network. She is a graduate of Cornell University.
College Admissions Timelines from College Coach