Course Rigor - Are you taking the hardest versions of the courses available to you at your current school? Are you a student who is going to take advantage of the resources you have available to you? Honors, AP, College level courses in your areas of interest are great to see. You need not get A+’s in those courses, a few B’s are fine, and definitely do not take these advanced course only to post C’s. But, you should be showing you have an appetite for rigorous, harder courses than just minimum graduation requirements.

Performance Year-To-Year - Posting A’s with easier courses is expected your freshmen year when it is usually hardest to take advanced courses. But, how do you do from the 9th to 10th grade jumps when you have harder courses on your schedule? What about 10th to 11th? A small dip in grades 9th to 10th, from easier courses to harder courses isn’t entirely fatal, but dropping whole letter grades is. Some programs may recommend cumulatively 4-5 APs over the course of your HS career. Some programs, especially STEM schools like MIT or Johns Hopkins, may want to see you taking the hardest possible versions of Math and Science.

Community Service/Leadership - Are there any special programs or courses or study you might be able to apply for that shows you’re passionate about something outside of the regular classroom experience? Is there an NGO you’re involved with? A volunteer group you started for the children of military veterans? The more granular and nerdier the better. Admissions will be interested in because you’re interested in it.

Core, Unweighted GPA - Most HS’s will weight the rigor of harder courses differently than the weight of easier elective courses. So, when a coach is looking to see your GPA, they are usually looking for your unweighted GPA in your core courses of Math, Science, English and History apart from your electives taken. Sometimes coaches may also want to know what your core GPA is in your hardest courses only, i.e. APs. Not all GPA’s are equal. To help cut down on grade inflation, finding out what the unweighted core GPA is is helpful.

Caution Flags - Any kind of HS transfer is a caution flag for admissions. What went wrong at the previous school? Did the student get into trouble? Did the student come from an unstable environment? How did the student do when they changed schools - did they markedly improve? Where are they transferring FROM vs where are they transferring TO? Are they leaving an easier HS for a more rigorous academic one? Are they leaving a more rigorous academic school for a better sports school but with easier academics? You should prepared and ready to explain why you transferred schools if coaches ask and in the Common App context box.

Grade Dips - While not ideal, they happen and you should be prepared to explain what happened. If there is a significant life altering event that’s outside of control of the student like the loss of a close family member, divorce, major health issue that is one thing. If the reason is behavioral and you were causing fights in school or got into legal trouble outside of school, that’s another thing. If you have them, they’re better to have earlier in high school, BUT admissions’ officers are people too. If they ask for context around your transcript profile give it to them. They understand things happen and you’re still learning/growing up, to an extent.

Provide Your Transcripts, Fast - Ivy+ colleges and universities are unique in that their recruiting processes largely hinge on how well their potential recruits pass academic muster. Some families, afraid of what poor grades on a transcript might do to their odds of an Ivy+ school slow walk turning their transcripts over to coaches. Please, for the love of God, do not do this. If things are not going to work academically, they are not going to work academically and there is no playing reality on this. It is infinitely better to find this out EARLIER rather than LATER.