My school has about 200 kids, is out in the Nebraska countryside, and offers exactly zero APs. They let me take one a year online, but I get that that’s not too much in comparison to some other applicants to some of my target schools, so is that going to majorly screw me over or what (everything else being equal)?
No, it may actually help. Many selective colleges value geographic diversity and will evaluate your academic achievement based on the resources available to you. In fact my son does some admissions outreach work for Yale during the breaks and he is usually assigned outlying rural high schools vs the high schools in our medium sized city.
No. Your application will be evaluated in the context of your school, which will submit a profile that includes info on what (if any) advanced (honors, IB, AP, etc) classes are offered. Your GC will have a place to indicate on your application whether you took the ‘most rigorous’ courses possible.
I’ve peeked at your other threads, and will say that of the schools you have been talking about ND looks like a super option for you- if it’s affordable. Have you done the NPCs for the schools you are interested in?
One thing that should concern you is that your school doesn’t know what it has to do to help support your application (LORs) if they do not normally have applicants to top schools. This was a bigger problem before the internet (sites like CC). Now you don’t have to rely on just local resources.