Hey im an international student attending school that offers 4 AP classes. They are calc ab, stats, chem and bio. I didn’t take chem and bio because I am not very interested in the sciences. I am taking ap calc ab however I did not take ap stats because of some difficulty I had with the teacher teaching the course in previous years. I am not expecting the universities to understand this but Im just wondering how much it will hurt me. The schools I am planning applying to are Stern Business School, Ross Business School, UC Berkeley and a couple others. THANKS.
Not taking AP stats isn’t a big problem. Obviously, given the level of schools you are targeting, the competition is fierce and small things might make a difference. Frankly, however, if you don’t like the teacher you are probably better of not taking it.
Talk to your guidance counselor to see if he/she will still check off that you have taken the “most rigorous schedule” available" without the one AP. If they will, it is not an issue.
Bump
Since you chose not to take AP Bio/Chem, your course rigor will probably be less than your peers. Not taking AP states will further lessen the rigor and might pose a problem in admissions as you chose to take 1 AP out of 4 AP’s at your school even when you had the opportunity to do so. Ask your counselor if your course rigor is enough to be checked off as “Most Rigorous” when you took 1 of 4 AP’s.
Don’t you still need 3-4 years of science to graduate high school? What are you taking instead of AP Bio/Chem?
UCB, NYU, and Ross are all highly selective for internationals. Also, keep in mind that all 3 give basically no aid so Ross/UCB will be around 55k a year I think and NYU 75k a year.
UMich (Ross) considers course rigor to be very important although you don’t need to be overwhelmed with AP classes. Ask your counselor if your schedule can be considered most rigor or not. It does not look likely as you only take one of the 4 AP offered not due to schedule conflict. Being interested in science or not is not a good excuse as you need to take science classes anyway and you choose the easier ones. Nevertheless, if taking that AP class may hurt your GPA, you better skip it.
I still took science classes just not ap science classes.
So do all guidance counselors rate all students course rigour?
That is part of the GC recommendation/report.
While all GC reports will rate rigor, not all colleges (e.g. in the OP’s case, Berkeley) require recommendations. For those that do, [url=http://www.du.edu/apply/media/documents/2012CASSR.pdf]Here’s[/url] an example.
My GC said that they dont rate out schedules.
Your GC is either lying or doesn’t completely fill out the Common App’s counselor recommendation form.
“In comparison with other college preparatory students at your school, the applicant’s course selection is
○ most demanding
○ very demanding
○ demanding
○ average
○ below average”
That is quoted verbatim from it