Curriculum Matters

LJCDS has an exceptionally diverse and engaging curriculum that allows students to deeply engage in such nuanced topics from European History: From the Guillotine to the Bomb to Organic Chemistry to Materials Science and the History of Precision, and the courses you take paint a picture of your journey as a student. 

Here’s a hypothetical thought exercise to consider: In an alternate universe, where transcripts don’t have letter grades, you may challenge yourself by taking only two honors or Advanced Studies classes per school year, but you know your transcript has to tell a story about the type of student you are—which courses would you take and why? 

This exercise can be helpful because colleges don’t reduce a student’s academic performance to a simple GPA: many high schools across the country recalculate GPAs to their weighted scale, and doing so wouldn’t make sense. They do, however, look at a student’s transcript as a landscape, meaning they take note of the progression a student makes over time, the classes in which they choose to challenge themselves, and the letter grades in those classes. The end goal is the Goldilocks Effect, meaning you want to take a bite out of the apple, but not more than you can chew. Ultimately, it makes sense to challenge yourself in subject areas that interest you while still maintaining a social and extracurricular life outside of LJCDS. 

There is a misconception that students must take an advanced curriculum across all disciplines to stand out in the college admissions process. This is simply not the case; rather, colleges would like to see certain courses on a student’s transcript depending on their interests. For example, if a student is applying as an engineering major at a highly rejective college, admissions officers would like to see that the student has taken the most advanced physics and math offerings available to them. If a student wants to major in international business/relations, admission officers would prefer to see a student exhaust their opportunities in world languages. But for the most part, those same colleges would not expect the engineering candidate to have taken honors English, nor would they expect the humanities student to have advanced mathematics.

LJCDS College Counseling believes the transcript tells a story and adds context to the student’s academic journey. Make sure the story it’s telling aligns with your academic interests and your unique story—after all, that’s what makes you interesting!