I attend a very low-income public school in Alabama with limited AP classes. I think we only have about 5 or so. The AP program is also new to my school, it started about 3 years ago. To put it in short, the teachers are not at all qualified to teach college-level material, which results in absolutely nobody passing the exams. Not even one of the top students, including one that made a 35 on the ACT and plans to attend Yale can even pass the AP U.S. History exam. This is my freshman year, but AP classes are not offered for freshmen and sophomores, and I have my goals set on Harvard and the Ivy League. I don’t want to take an AP class if I’m not learning the adequate material to pass the exams. So I’m considering Dual Enrollment, my school offers lots of those courses from JSU, University of Alabama and Gadsden State CC. But that raises the question if Harvard and other top schools will consider my situation and see that the AP classes at my school are completely worthless and Dual Enrollment is really the only way I can be introduced to college-level material. Will they accept any credit I earn from Dual Enrollment? Will my chances of admission be affected if I take no AP classes?
Harvard, Yale and most Ivies (MIT, Stanford, etc) do not accept AP/IB/CLEP credits.
Harvard’s policy for accepting transfer credits is here: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/transferring-harvard-college/transfer-credits
Note that any dual enrollment coursework you take that is used to fulfill high school graduation requirements will not transfer to Harvard. (Or any other college.)
Also be aware than any dual enrollment credits that do transfer may or may not be accepted for fulfilling graduation requirements in your major/minor. All transfer credits are evaluated on a case-by-case basis by each department.
This is an issue that should be addressed by your counselor when s/he writes your counselor’s recommendation letter which is a required part of your application for Ivies and many private colleges. Admission offices at universities cannot be expected to be aware of the quality of teaching at every high school in the US. (That’s why college admission offices want standardized test scores. These help put high school grades earned into context so that student achievement can be compared across diverse schools.)
One the questions asked of your high school counselor is “has this student taken the most difficult courses available?” Whether you take CC classes or AP classes, your counselor should be able to answer yes to this question.
Actually, this is not true, although they are selective about which ones they accept for subject credit and advanced placement, and often require minimum scores higher than 3. (also, MIT (NEWMAC) and Stanford (Pac-12) are not Ivy League schools)
https://fdo.fas.harvard.edu/ap-ib-exams
http://catalog.yale.edu/first-year-student-handbook/academic-information/acceleration/award-acceleration-credit-advanced-placement-test-scores/
https://www.princeton.edu/pub/ap/table/
https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/degree/policies/advanced-placement
http://courses.cornell.edu/content.php?catoid=28&navoid=7243
http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/freshman-admission/externalexamcredit
http://uaap.mit.edu/first-year-mit/first-year-academics/incomingcredit/previous-study/ap-and-transfer-credit-advanced-placement
https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/transfer-credit-and-advanced-placement/advanced-placement/ap-credit-chart
Some colleges will accept college courses taken while in high school for transfer credit regardless of whether they were also used for high school graduation requirements. Each college’s transfer credit policy must be checked individually (although there may be common policies across state university systems).
Dual enrollment credits are accepted at many schools even if they are partly for fulfilling high school graduation requirement. However, each school has a different policy and may very selective on how or where the dual enrollment courses were taken. Some may not accept OOS dual enrollment, while others would not accept any dual enrollment if there are only HS students in the class or the it was taken place in a high school.