I am a bit worried because my international high-school AP program doesn’t have a good reputation. The best student ever was accepted to Duke and she was a professional world-class golfer and this was in 2006! Ever since, my school never had anyone accepted to TOP20 high schools. Does this affect my chances a lot? They only offered 2 AP classes junior year, and I took both of them and studied AP Computer Science on my own and got 5. Will Admission Officers understand my circumstances when they review my app?
No.
There are 37K US High Schools and, well, 20 top 20 colleges. So 99% of HS’s don’t have students accepted to this tier of colleges. On top of that, you are an international student, whose chances to one of these colleges is cut in half simply based upon that fact. If a college accepts or rejects you, it will not be because of your HS.
Yes. Every AO in the world knows that one cannot take a class that a school does not offer.