<p>Hi, all...newbie here. I have a 11th-grade daughter at Berkshire. She entered the school in January last year as a mid-year transfer, due to a family move. She was previously at an excellent public high school (US News & World top 15) where a huge emphasis was placed on taking pre-AP and AP courses. As a sophomore, she was only eligible to take one full AP class and unfortunately, lost the credit due to the mid-year switch to Berkshire. This year, she is taking 2 "advanced" classes and dropped the one AP she had selected, due to huge amounts of reading nightly. She has ADHD and although she takes medication, she has a tough time with extensive reading in the evenings. Up until her transfer to Berkshire, she had a 3.8 public school average and at Berkshire, rec'vd a 3.4 (honors, but not great) for the spring semester. We are concerned about this and are unclear in general about the differences between private "advanced" classes and AP selections. Additionally, most prep schools tend to offer a smaller selection of AP classes, many of which can't be taken until senior year, when college applications are already under way. Do colleges place the same AP emphasis on candidates from prep schools, or is the "rigor" touted by private institutions given some weight when comparing candidates? In other words, does a prep school candidate need to have as many AP classes on their resume as a public school candidate? She is quite strong in math and will probably end up applying to smaller liberal arts colleges and perhaps one state school. Thanks so much in advance for your feedback. </p>
<p>This is an FAQ. Colleges compare your course rigor to your school, not the nation. If your school doesn’t have the APs, you aren’t expected to take them. Take whatever the most rigor schedule is at the school.</p>
<p>Many boarding schools offer few to no AP classes because a) they do not feel the need to subject themselves to the College Board audit; b) they do not feel the need to teach to the test; or c) they believe that their courses are superior to AP classes. That said, many students still take the AP test and score well on them, but they do this more for potential college credit/course placement. </p>
<p>As mentioned above, colleges will view the schedule based upon what is offered in a particular school vs. other applicants from that school. As seen by the link below, Berkshire’s curriculum does not seem to impact college matriculations.</p>
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<p>@SkiEurope, I understand why the top boarding schools place less emphasis on AP classes, and frankly I applaud them for this. What the original poster may want to know – as do I – is whether top colleges still expect students to sit for AP exams after taking related courses, even though the courses are not official AP courses and the syllabus may or may not cover the same topics as the AP syllabus. Or do adcoms think, " oh! this is [insert fancy name school here], they took advanced courses and did well – that is good enough for us on that front."</p>
<p>My kids’ school (Concord) is one of those without any AP classes. The school eliminated them for the reasons mentioned by skieurope, but most particularly because it felt that that the breadth of coverage required in AP courses didn’t facilitate critical thinking and analysis. Students do take AP tests (though not nearly as many as honors students in public schools) and the vast majority get 4s or 5s. The tests are held at the school for the students’ convenience. For college purposes, courses with equivalent or greater rigor than AP are marked as such on the transcript (usually all or most of the classes taken junior and senior year, along with a few others).</p>
<p>@ISpy42 IMO, which I’ve stated elsewhere, AP scores will play little to no role in college admission decisions, particularly for seniors when the exams come post-admissions decisions. I do not believe that adcoms will expect students to sit for AP exams for courses that are no “official” AP courses. I do believe that adcoms will review the transcript and the grades against what a school offers, whether the school chooses to call them AP or Accelerated or Advanced.</p>
<p>AP courses/exams are not a game in which the one who has the most wins. Admissions is much more complicated (not to mention opaque) than that.</p>