<p>Do they really matter in the admission process? </p>
<p>My country does not offer any AP courses, am I in a severe disadvantage?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>
[quote]
Do they really matter in the admission process?
[/quote]
They are definatley an advantage
[quote]
My country does not offer any AP courses, am I in a severe disadvantage?
[/quote]
No, Check with American Embassy school in your country, they may allow you to take APs through them.</p>
<p>Well, the thing is, there are no american embassy schools in my country.</p>
<p>If your school doesn't offer them you are not at all disadvantaged. Most intls don't have any such things.
You would be (and severely) disadvantaged if your school had them and you didn't take any.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with negru's post.
The admission competition for international students is much more competitive than that for American students. Most colleges that accept around 50% of all applicants accept only 10-20% of the international ones.
I've read somewhere that there are 4 major factors that matter for admission decisions: academics (generally the most important) & test scores, extra-curriculars, personality and diversity. If you haven't taken any APs you would be fairly weak academically in comparison to most other international applicants, and thus would have to be that much stronger in the other areas.
And in contrast to what negru has said, most international students actually do take AP courses. E.g. to get a high school diploma in Germany, you are required to take calculus, and a lot of other courses at AP level as well. The same holds true for the rest of Europe and I am fairly sure that most Asian school systems at least offer (if not require) courses at AP level as well. Courses are simply not labeled APs outside the US, and most international students do not take AP exams but their own countries' final exams.
Of course it largely depends on where you want to apply if APs will matter in the admission process. Community colleges won't care, neither will less selective colleges or universities. But your academics will be really important if you want to apply either to a college that's considered competitive or highly selective or for financial aid, or both.</p>
<p>But I think it's surprising that in your country there are really no high school courses at AP level. May I ask where you are from?</p>
<p>Aren't APs specific to the US and maybe some Asian countries? that's what i thought</p>
<p>in Romania, for example, each and every single student in the country takes exactly the same courses (or about 90% the same).
(if they are in the same kind of profile - science or humanities)</p>
<p>The concept of APs is specific to the US (it is one of the really few nations that doesn't have a standarized curriculum for secondary education). But almost everywhere in the world high school students are required to take courses that cover the same material as APs do, though these courses are not called APs.
I guess in Germany it's similar to Romania; all students have to take mainly the same courses too. But what we do in these courses, e.g. calculus in math, is what an American what learn in an AP course.</p>
<p>the material may be the same but the official course title is not designated as AP. I think that is what the OP was referrring to.. not the level of difficulty of the courses</p>
<p>@b@r!um
I'm from Indonesia</p>
<p>I don't get it, so how do I know that the subjects I learned in high school are what the Americans learned in their AP courses? I mean, how do I know that I am currently studying in the AP level or not.</p>
<p>@hiall: That's fairly easy. Simply look at the AP course descriptions at collegeboard.com and look if/how that matches with what you are studying in high school.</p>
<p>@fuzzylogic: I think it's pretty clear that international students cannot be expected to have taken courses that are labeled "AP". Why should the course designations include a reference to some foreign exam, unless you attend a school with an international focus????</p>
<p>Colleges are either familiar with foreign school systems and thus know what courses that you've taken are equivalent to APs, or they ask for your transcript to be evaluated for admission purposes and would see the course level there.</p>
<p>but for example here we do calculus, trig, algebra, everything, and it appears as only "mathematics", from grade 1 to the end of highschool in our transcripts
how do they know what "mathematics" includes?</p>
<p>maybe it should appear in the School Profile thingy?</p>
<p>It appears only as mathematics on my transcripts too. But as you said, your country (as well as mine) has got a standarized curriculum and you are most likely not the first applicant from Indonesia, so the adcoms should know what you've taken/are taking. And as I already said, most smaller colleges that are not familiar with many foreign school systems require an official evalution of your transcripts (done by a special agency, e.g. WES), and the evaluation would state the exact US equivalents of the courses that you've taken and the grades you've received.
If you are really worried about that either get your transcripts evaluated even if it's not required, or take as many AP or SAT II exams as you feel comfortable with to show your abilities.</p>