A question I get often—from students, from parents, from strangers I’ve just met—basically comes down to “should I do A or B? Which is better for college applications?”

I can take AP Chemistry or AP Biology. Which should I take?
Should I take Calculus or Statistics?
I can take this really cool elective course or do one more year of baseball. Which should I do?
My daughter wants to quit the robotics team to be in the school play. Will this look bad to colleges?
My son wants to quit doing schools plays to try out for the robotics team. Will this look bad to colleges?
We’re thinking about moving high schools. How will this affect college acceptances? Does it raise red flags?
Can I take one fewer class my senior year to get more hours at work, or will that ruin my college chances?

My answer to these “A or B” questions is almost always “it doesn’t matter.” If you’re choosing between two good options, then you can’t go wrong. Pick the one that feels right to you and move on.

How can I say that these decisions don’t matter for something so consequential, and daunting, as college admission? For one, there is no secret set of standards and choices that colleges demand. To be clear, they do have standards. Take this example from the University of Oklahoma.

You can see that they require three years of math and recommend four. You can see that calculus and statistics are both things they recommend. You can see that they don’t tell you which one to take. If they really want you to take calculus and not stats, they’d say so. But they don’t.

A lot of our anxiety around college admission is this idea that there are secret expectations and rules. We love the idea of holistic admission. Holistic admission means that we can highlight our positive aspects and get credit for them. Holistic admission means that we’re not penalized for not taking a class that isn’t available at our school. Holistic admission means that our application will be taken within the context of our own life and not just a list of rules and requirements. We love all this…but we don’t always really believe it. Take a deep breath and accept it. There are no secret rules or requirements. You’re going to be accepted to a college—or denied—based on your whole application in context of your school and experience. You’re not going to be accepted—or denied—based on how well you guess what the secret rules are and adhere to them.

“Ok,” some of you may be thinking now, “I accept that there isn’t a secret rule about which option I take. But within my context, which would look better for me in a holistic admission context? Does it make my application look less polished, on the whole, if I switch from robotics to drama, or from debate to drums? What does it say about me?”

That’s a great question. I get it: “it doesn’t matter what you do” is unsatisfactory. Colleges accept some applicants and deny other applicants, so obviously “anything goes, don’t worry about it” is not a complete answer. So I say instead, “it’s not the choice you make, it’s how you explain it.” Because you get to decide what it says about you when you explain what it says about you.

Context matters, so explaining the context helps you out no matter which choice you make. Explaining your choice moves you away from a passive “tell me what to do” attitude and gives you more agency and control. It also highlights your critical thinking and illuminates your personality.

So don’t just focus on the choice, but the reason for the choice.

Even though I know that AP Biology aligns more with my intended major, I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to take another class from a really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship. I’ll be taking plenty of biology in college and don’t expect the AP credit to transfer to my college in the first place.
Even though I had to pass up another class with really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship, I ultimately decided to focus on my intended major and take AP Biology. I can still talk to my chemistry teacher after school, but I can’t get solid biology instruction after school.
It was difficult to let go of a unique elective course to play baseball another year, but I’ve developed into a team leader and didn’t want to let the team down my senior year.
It was difficult to walk away from the baseball team I’d spent three years with, but I know that my future is more academic than athletic, and this elective course was the ideal place to start making that future real.

In all these examples, it’s not the choice that’s really important—it’s the explanation. By explaining your choice, you emphasize personal qualities and priorities. You are showing colleges your decision-making process and your values. Preparing for the future, prioritizing relationships over grades, leadership, and intellectual curiosity are all things that colleges value. All of these explanations, even though for opposing decisions, mark you as having qualities colleges are interested in.

The more the reason for your decision aligns with the qualities you’re trying to emphasize in your overall application, the better. If you write an essay about how personal relationships are the backbone of a successful life, but also explain that you chose the class that aligned with your intended major over the teacher with whom you have a strong relationship, then that does indeed muddy the application. If you explain that you chose the relationship over the curriculum, but then don’t have a letter of recommendation from that teacher, it can be a glaring omission. If you want to emphasize your leadership capabilities in your application but also explain that you walked away from a leadership position to take an elective class, that might raise suspicion. But again, it’s the explanation that raises suspicion, not the decision. Let your defining qualities and priorities guide your decisions, not what you think colleges want you to do. The more you do that, the stronger the application will be.

But where do you get to explain your decisions? In the most basic, literal way, where does that happen? Throughout the application. If it’s a really major and important choice, then it may even become the subject of your essay. More likely it’s going to answer a supplemental question and/or be something you make sure to talk about in an interview. While there probably won’t be a question about “explain why you took one class over another” on an application, there will be places where you have a chance to explain your choice if it needs explaining. Most application supplements even have some version of “is there anything else you want us to know about you?” That can be where you briefly explain a choice you think might need an explanation.

There’s a real possibility, though, that the choice doesn’t even need explaining. Once you’re thinking about your own needs and goals and not just what “looks good to colleges,” you very well may decide you have better things to talk about than being defensive about a single decision. As a basic guiding principle, realize that the bigger and more difficult the decision, the more likely you’ll want to be prepared to explain it. This class over that class, this extracurricular over that one—not a big deal. Moving schools, quitting a team, or drastically changing your workload in either direction will raise questions, though. Be ready to answer them fully and honestly. That really is the best thing, both in terms of college admission and in terms of being the best version of you possible.

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