<p>I live in Massachusetts and my high school does not allow sophomores to take AP courses. Add that to the fact that they don't offer many AP courses either.
We have:</p>
<p>Physics
Biology
Calculus AB
Euro History
US History
Language and Composition
Literature and Composition
French
Spanish
Art History</p>
<p>Freshmen and sophomores cannot take any, juniors can take three in a school year, and seniors can take four. Does this put me at a disadvantage, since I won't have the opportunity to take AP classes next year (sophomore year)? I'm a bit worried about it.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it too much, colleges you apply to will see that your school offers only a few APs and the admissions officers will definitely understand if you don’t take them all.</p>
<p>Also, the admissions office usually has some kind of regional representative that knows about all the high schools in their designated area and will let the officers know about any disadvantages in the policies of the school.</p>
<p>Nope. It’s fairly common for schools to not allow sophomores to take AP courses. Mine doesn’t. We still have kids going to really good schools though. (Stanford and Vandy to name a couple)</p>
<p>Plus, your school should send some sort of course offering along to your colleges too and so colleges will be able to see if you’re taking the most rigorous course load. On top of that, guidance counselors have to tell how rigorous your course load is. So as long as you’re taking the most rigorous courses available to you, you should not be penalized.</p>
<p>I would not worry about the number of APs. You can only take what is offered. </p>
<p>My son’s school offers a variety of APs though not as many as some other schools. No one takes them before junior year. My son took 4 (Cal BC, Chem, Physics C, Bio); his decision not to take AP English, US History or Language apparently didn’t hurt him. He got into 5 out of the 6 schools he applied to, including Brown, Wesleyan, and Oberlin.</p>