I did not care about college until junior year and now I will only have 4 APs. I did do really well in these but people on these forums take 8+ APs. Are my college choices downgraded now?
Compare the number with your fellow classmates, are there many APs offered at your school yet you didn’t take many of them? Or not many offered and the four you have taken are pretty decent comparing with other students in your hs? If the latter, then you should be fine.
The “rigor” selective colleges are talking about, is really dependent on the courses that ARE offered at YOUR hs.
You will still have tons of options. Maybe not the top 20 schools in the country, but those are out of range for most other kids, too. Do you want some suggestions? If so, post your stats (GPA, SAT/ACT, home state, interest areas, financial constraints, and whether you want to stay in state or have anywhere in particular you want to end up).
It isn’t so much about number of APs. What is important is taking the most rigorous courses available to you and doing well so you have a good GPA. “Most rigorous courses” are going to vary from school to school, so, if you are a junior, talk to your guidance counselor about what that means for your school. If you are already in your senior year, work on doing well on the SAT/ACT and any subject tests you’re planning on taking - and maintain your grades.
I honestly think students worry too much about taking as many AP’s as possible. My daughter took only the AP’s that interested her. Her schedule was rigorous, but could of been more rigorous by taking more AP’s that didn’t interest her. She got accepted at Notre Dame with only 5 AP’s. Two other students from her school were also accepted. They had taken 8 & 10 AP’s.
Major in Computer Science
3.85 UW / 4.2 W GPA
An upward trend of 3.3 to straight A’s
1420 SAT, taking SAT Math ll in October
Took a UCLA CS course over the summer
Secretary of Chemistry club and Treasurer of Avid Program
Teachers assistant for my school’s Computer Science teacher
Schools I am looking at are UCI, Cal Poly Pomona, UCSB and my biggest reach would be UCSD
You’re not screwed at all. I had friends who took no APs (they were offered) get into great schools like NYU @JoshuaBicera
There is no “magic” number for amount of AP’s to take. You want a rigorous schedule in comparison to your fellow classmates but you also want to do well in your AP classes. Taking 12 AP’s but getting several B’s and C’s in these classes vs. taking 5 or 6 AP classes but getting A’s in the classes will look much better on your transcript and look much better to admissions.
Based on your other posts, you will have 5 AP classes by end of Senior year. So how many AP classes does your school offer and how many of these classes does your top students take over the 4 years?
Also many schools limit when and the # of AP classes a student can take at their school.
My concern would be more that you need to apply to more than 4 schools on your list due to the competitiveness and the high applicantion rate for your major, Computer Science. If you do not apply widely, you may have few to no options in the spring regardless of the AP classes.
Add at least 2 more Cal States and UC Riverside and Santa Cruz to your list. More options= more chances at getting into a good school.
My oldest son did not take a lot of AP classes, maybe 2 or 3 thru HS. He only took the ones he felt like taking. He had decent grades, decent score, decent ECs. He got into some schools like BU, NYU, NEU, RPI etc. You’ll be fine!!
If your guidance counselor won’t check the box saying you have taken the most rigorous schedule available at your HS then the very top tier schools are probably out of reach. The great news is that there are tons of wonderful schools out there which you will qualify for where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
In you other thread that you posted, you mentioned that your uw was 3.70. 3.70 and 3.85 makes a huge difference.
You probably are ok with 5 APs based on your school list in your other thread. For CS since the major is so competitive it might put you at a slight disadvantage. If UCB and UCLA were on the list, I would have said you were probably screwed.
All things being equal (test scores and GPA), it really boils down to 2 main factors 1) how many APs does the school offer / max that you could have taken and 2) how many APs and their grades for your classmates who are applying to the same schools. If you’ve got a ton of classmates who are taking say 8 AP classes, getting all As and applying to the schools that you are applying to, then it’s problematic.
There is no guidance counselor input on either the UC or Cal State/Cal Poly apps. No most rigorous box.