<p>Hey,</p>
<p>As I'm more than halfway through my junior year, I've begun to think about colleges and my resum</p>
<p>Truthfully?
If your high school only had 2-3 APs it would be fine because you were challenging yourself as much as possible without overdoing it. Since you are getting such high grades in classes and taking NO APs the colleges are going to think that you did not challege yourself at all. It is pretty important that you challege yourself so this is probably a bad disadvantage. Doing challging is one of the most important things that everyone has been saying for applying to college. </p>
<p>I plan on taking at least 6 APs before the end of high school.</p>
<p>Good luck with everything.</p>
<p>hmm well where are you from? I’m from vancouver, BC canada
my school ONLY allows us to take AP exams if we are enrolled in the cooresponding AP course. not even the regular course in the same subject. We do not have the opportunity to “self study” as CCers call it. ALSO, unlike some US schools, we cannot take an AP course without taking the four years worth of prerequisites (ex AP Chem… must take Science 8 honours, Science 9 honours, Science 10 honours, Chem 11 Honours) first! </p>
<p>So that leaves me applying to IVIES with no APs last year, and four this year. However, the schools have assured me that they will look at the situation in the context of my HS. </p>
<p>so dont worry!</p>
<p>basketball: Your situation is completely different from the OP’s. You had no choice for picking APs and I bet if you could you would have done more of them. Colleges know how many yoiur school offers and what you have to do to take them so they know it isn’t your fault.</p>
<p>For macintosh, they said that their school has a lot of APs but they just didn’t do them and took the easier classes and got really good grades. The colleges will see this and it will seem like they didn’t challege themselve at all. This is a problem for them.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to upset or scare your macintosh, just give you the truth.</p>
<p>Well, it’s true what other posters have said. I understand that you didn’t want to be too stressed, but you probably could have managed one or two without overloading. But it’s too late to do anything about what’s past. What kinds of college are you considering? There’s a big difference between how a school like Harvard would see this and how a state university of somewhat lower liberal arts college would view it. Also, if you are URM, it may not hurt you as much as it would an over represented ethnic group.</p>
<p>yeah i know i hope in my case, they notice.</p>
<p>and OP, i didnt realize you said they offered lots, i tought you said they did NOT offer lots… in that case, if you are applying to top 40 schools, it can hurt you because they expect that you challenge yourself, and that you ARE able to handle stress, because going to a top 40 school, ivy or not, you will have 953953049242902942044839583058 times more stress than you do now! but good luck anyways!</p>
<p>It will be a factor definitely. They are going to look at how you challenged yourself with what your specific school has to offer.</p>
<p>Wow, I think it may harm your chances if your looking to attend a well ranked university. </p>
<p>I think my high school offers about 6 Ap’s.</p>
<p>Macintosh, dont listen to these people. I met someone on this forum who was in the same position as you: she took 6-7 honors courses, but took no AP’s until her senior year, and the number of APs she took then was like 2-3. </p>
<p>And she got into Cornell U just fine. </p>
<p>Unless your school offers like 30+ APs, and you only took 2-3 of them in your senior year, I’m sure you wont be automatically rejected or anything from any of the top universities. If you are really strong in all other areas (standardized test scores, ECs, essays, recs) you should be competitive. But try your hardest to take as rigorous of a courseload as possible for your senior year.</p>
<p>^ well the OP wants opinions, and im sure (s)he was prepared for hearing what (s)he may not have wanted to hear.</p>
<p>Oh you’re right, I just read the part about how his school offers a lot of them. Eeep for him. </p>
<p>Why take just 2-3 your senior year if they offer a lot? How about having every course your senior year be AP. It seems to be all you can do at this point.</p>
<p>^^
Yeah I agree that you should take all APs senior year. That is what a lot of people do even if they have taken a lot of APs already.</p>
<p>the OP said him or herself that he/she (wow this is getting annoying, im going with he)
cannot handle stress and therefore doesnt want to take too much on.</p>
<p>the other posters are right, if there are many available, than you should try to take more.</p>
<p>otherwise, the schools are going to get the same message youre giving us: that you are not strong enough to handle academic rigor that is most likely present and prevalant in top 40 colleges.</p>
<p>Take some online AP classes and some college classes. You don’t have to put the online AP classes on your high school transcript, unless they give you an extra point on the transcript.</p>
<p>If you think that you can’t handle taking more than 2-3 APs senior year because you’ve never taken one before, then I guess you shouldn’t. I will probably hurt you but not as much as taking lots of APs and doing horrible at them.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on the type of colleges you want to apply to. It will be harder for you to get into the top 25 (or more…not quite sure) schools.</p>
<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses so far. Obviously, this isn’t the information that I would love to be hearing, but what’s done is done and I can’t go back and change my schedule.</p>
<p>A couple of points/questions I’d like to make:</p>
<p>1) While my courseload certainly isn’t extremely rigorous, I still am in a decent amount of advanced classes (i.e. precalculus, french 5 honors), etc. along with some other honors. Yeah, there aren’t the letters AP in front of the class on my transcript, but I still believe I’m being challenged a fair amount (I should have made this clear in the OP). Does this count for anything? I’m obviously not counting CC standards where the norm is to take 10+ AP’s, haha.</p>
<p>2) Wouldn’t colleges see that I’m taking them my senior year, thus noting an upward trend in my rigor?</p>
<p>3) Again, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, is the advice given somewhat biased because it’s from the brilliant, high-achieving people on this forum? I mean, you don’t really see people who haven’t taken APs and gotten into good colleges posting here, do you (lol, perhaps I’m just trying to make myself feel better on this one)?</p>
<p>4) As I said, what everyone’s said is kind of panicking me a tad…I’d love to please hear more opinions and insight!</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>For your #1…even if your courses are challenging, they are not the most challeging you can take. This wouldn’t be an issue except that you are doing so well in the classes that you should challege yourself more. The colleges would like a low A in an AP class MUCH more than a high A+ in an honors class, even if the class is more challeging for others. The colleges will just see it as though you didn’t challege yourself. Maybe you can take more than just 2-3 APs next year or some self-study APs.</p>
<p>For your #2…yes they will notice and that will help some :)</p>
<p>For your #3…Not all of the CC people are like that but even if that were true it doesn’t mean that the advice is biased. It is kind of fact that colleges think this way and not just our opinions that go a certain way.</p>
<p>once again good luck with all of the college stuff</p>
<p>I have only taken 1 ap my soph year, but 10 honors fresh-junior year, with 2 more ap’s my senior year. I plan on taking 3 community college courses which is pretty much ap classes. Even though my gpa may only be 3.5-3.7 according to Cal Poly/UC’s, I have a somewhat even chance with someone who only took say 5 honors and 1 ap senior year with a 4.0.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on where you plan on applying…</p>
<p>I agree with dukie, if you are not applying to a top 40 school you should be perfectly fine, I think.</p>