<p>I applied RD, and my SAT scores, essays, and teachers/counselor recs were all good. Unfortunately, my school is a tiny little Christian academy (my graduating class will be 68, biggest in school's history), and they only offer 6 AP courses. Also, there were no competitions for math or science in which to compete. So I'm just wondering, do colleges know/care about that? I see some of the people in early action thread who took 10+ AP courses and had all sorts of competitions under their belts, so I'm getting a little nervous.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry so much about tests and competitions and such. What's more important is what you have done with what you have. How do you show your love for math/science? How much have you gone above and beyond the norm? What have you built/calculated/learned/researched etc? Why did you choose Caltech? If you were able to communicate why you absolutely belong here even though you don't go to some big high school with lots of easy ways to improve your resume, I doubt they will hold it against you.</p>
<p>Your school sends a school profile, which informs colleges about the number of AP courses. I wouldn't worry about it. Colleges deft. understand that every school is different and it is seriously taken into consideration.</p>
<p>Every school doesn't send out a school profile. The semi-competitive to competitive ones that are used to sending a few people to top tier schools will but not necessarily all schools. I go to a suburban public high school where pretty much everything is geared toward admission to the state U (UConn) and that's about as competitive as it gets. I found out after I sent in my EA to MIT that my school doesn't send in a school profile so I had to ask them to send them in with the rest of my applications.</p>
<p>This was something that my son mentioned specifically in his app, the size of his school, the size of his town, the lack of AP classes and the lack of competitions. His school does not send out a profile, they have one counselor who barely ever deals with counselor recs since just about everyone goes to a state school.
But certainly admissons will see that the graduating class is tiny, and this is a pretty good hint that there are not usually many (if any) AP classes.</p>
<p>I sure hope colleges take this into careful consideration. My school may not be small but it's country as hell out here. Nobody's ever gone, let alone applied, to a top tier college.</p>
<p>They take this into consideration if you tell them. If you don't tell them, you can't really count on them to know.</p>