Common Data Set · Section C7
Of the 143 colleges with Common Data Set filings in Trajecta's dataset, 128 rate course rigor very important in their admissions decisions, 10 rate it important, 3 considered, and 2 say it is not considered — as self-reported in each school's CDS section C7 ("Rigor of secondary school record").
No schools on this page match that search — browse the full college list instead.
Rigor of secondary school record (often called course rigor or strength of schedule) measures whether you took the most challenging classes available to you: AP, IB, honors, and dual-enrollment courses. Admissions readers evaluate your transcript against your own school’s course catalog, so rigor is judged in context — taking the hardest classes your school offers matters more than the raw number of APs. On the Common Data Set it is consistently one of the highest-rated factors.
Princeton University#1
Stanford University#2
California Institute of Technology#4
University of Chicago#6
Rice University#7
Yale University#8
Johns Hopkins University#9
Vanderbilt University#10
University of Pennsylvania#11
Brown University#12
Williams College#13
Columbia University in the City of New York#14
Duke University#15
University of California-Berkeley#16
University of California-Los Angeles#17
Cornell University#18
Bowdoin College#19
Pomona College#20
Claremont McKenna College#21
Dartmouth College#22
Northwestern University#23
Washington University in St Louis#24
Amherst College#25
University of Notre Dame#26
Wellesley College#27
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus#28
Colby College#29
Swarthmore College#30
Washington and Lee University#32
Emory University#33
University of Virginia-Main Campus#34
Davidson College#35
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor#36
Carnegie Mellon University#37
Georgetown University#38
University of Southern California#39
University of Florida#40
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill#41
Harvey Mudd College#42
Colgate University#43
Haverford College#44
University of California-San Diego#45
Northeastern University#46
Barnard College#47
Boston University#48
University of California-Irvine#49
Boston College#50
Hamilton College#51
Babson College#52
Middlebury College#53
New York University#54
Tufts University#55
Bates College#57
Wesleyan University#58
University of Maryland-College Park#59
Grinnell College#60
Carleton College#61
University of California-Davis#64
Wake Forest University#65
Lehigh University#66
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign#67
William & Mary#69
Smith College#70
University of Washington-Seattle Campus#73
University of Wisconsin-Madison#74
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo#75
Villanova University#76
Florida State University#77
University of Miami#78
University of Richmond#79
University of Georgia#81
College of the Holy Cross#82
Vassar College#83
Brigham Young University#84
Stony Brook University#85
Purdue University-Main Campus#86
Binghamton University#88
Santa Clara University#89
University of Rochester#90
George Washington University#91
Case Western Reserve University#94
Tulane University of Louisiana#97
Clemson University#103
Texas A&M University-College Station#105
Rutgers University-New Brunswick#106
Skidmore College#108
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University#109
Brandeis University#110
University of Connecticut#114
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute#117
San Diego State University#118
Ohio State University-Main Campus#120
University of Central Florida#125
Southern Methodist University#131
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities#133
Texas Christian University#134
University of Massachusetts-Amherst#135
Syracuse University#138
Loyola Marymount University#144
The University of Tennessee-Knoxville#145
Denison University#147
Fordham University#156
University of Delaware#157
University of Maryland-Baltimore County#158
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus#164
Indiana University-Bloomington#170
Worcester Polytechnic Institute#176
American University#181
University of California-Santa Cruz#183
University of Colorado Boulder#185
University of Houston#201
University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus#207
Drexel University#208
Pepperdine University#229
University of California-Merced#264
University of Arizona#269
University of Iowa#270
Howard University#289
University of Oregon#304
Towson University#328
Texas Tech University#336
The University of Alabama#339
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University#345
University of Kentucky#371
Temple University#513
United States Air Force Academy
United States Military Academy
United States Naval Academy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology#3
University of California-Santa Barbara#71
Colorado College#96
Auburn University#153
University of California-Riverside#174
University of South Carolina-Columbia#187
Michigan State University#193
Baylor University#199
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus#211
Arizona State University Campus Immersion#380It is the Common Data Set term for the difficulty of your high school course load — how many AP, IB, honors, or dual-enrollment classes you took relative to what your school offers. Colleges read your transcript next to your school profile, so rigor is always judged in the context of what was available to you.
Most selective colleges rate both at the top of their Common Data Set C7 grid, and the two are read together: a high GPA in easy classes is less convincing than a slightly lower GPA in the hardest available schedule. Rigor is what gives your GPA its meaning.
Of the 143 colleges with Common Data Set filings in Trajecta's dataset, 128 rate course rigor very important in admissions, 10 rate it important, 3 considered, and 2 say it is not considered. Colleges rating it very important include Princeton University, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Rice University.
Ratings are self-reported by each college in its Common Data Set, section C7. Every school links to its full data page. Explore the college rankings →
