My school only offers 1 history AP class which is APUSH during Junior year. I am a junior right now and I didn’t take the class since I am already taking 4 other AP classes that I am more interested in. So, I am currently taking normal US history. Will there be a negative effect on my application especially when applying to liberal arts colleges or T20s? I will be taking AP Gov senior year.
I’m sure it’s fine.
What’a top 20? Top 20 in major or Top 20 in US News or Top 20 in Wall Street Journal or Top 20 in Forbes -often these are very different.
Also, you need to be able to afford said schools.
Nonetheless, typically you need a high level or rigor but it sounds like you have it.
Just be the best you and things will fall into place.
Good luck.
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yeah that is true but my dream school would be Stanford, would there be any difference for Stanford specifically?
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Well - they admitted 3.7% so likely everything matters and yet it might not matter. They turn down far more unbelievable applicants than they can accept. Rigor matters but so do many other things - most importantly rank, GPA, test score, essay, and ECs according to their common data set.
Control what you can. If you’re in the right class for your, then that’s what matters.
You’ll do your best for Stanford or whatever school you’re interested in - and if you get in great, and if not, it’s ok - there will be lots of schools for you.
If you’re a junior, you might start speaking to your family about budget. A school like Stanford will meet need if they determine you have it. But if you don’t, it’s $88K - so you’d need to make sure your family is ok with that - x 4 + 5% yearly inflation.
Best of luck - just be the best you that you can be!!
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Thank you for your advice!
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PS - there’s no such thing as a dream school - so get it out of your head. There are many schools you could like/do well at and many go to their dream - and want to leave ASAP.
There are bad profs, bad roomies, and other issues.
Schools can be and are wonderful - but dream is overstating it. You can have a great experience at Stanford or otherwise.
Best of luck.
Yeah, I have no expectations of getting into Stanford, I just keep it as a goal, so I can do the best I can.
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Yes and no. The top colleges get students who will crazily push themselves to get all of the rigorous courses on their schedules. You wont know if your schools will look favorably on your courses, or not.
Your previous posts indicate that you hope to be pre-med. Getting into Stanford undergrad does NOT guarantee you a spot into their med school.
Also, spending $88K a year, and then spending another ½ million $ for med school just sounds too crazy.
We’ve been through this process with our daughter. Most of her med school roommates and classmates were on loans, loans and loans and they aren’t scheduled to pay those back until possibly 20 years from now.
Hubby went to Stanford. They build specific classes and have a “theme” for each admitted student class. You will never know that they are looking for. Each class is tight and they build life-long relationships as a support system. No one knows what that will be.
Don’t focus on so much on Stanford because you will not know what they want. It’s their decision and they are pretty elite about how they choose their classes.
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Likely not.
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So the most selective colleges often say something like they want to see you taking whatever advanced classes are available in all the core subject areas, which would include history. However, they understand in many high schools you can’t do everything. So they often express some version of the thought you should have ONE of the possible very rigorous course schedules, but different students with different interests will end up going more or less far in different areas, and that is fine.
OK, so as a general matter, what you are describing seems OK–you were taking advanced classes generally, just not in US History, because that is not a particular interest.
On the other hand–I think if APUSH was possible given your schedule, maybe in some theoretical sense they would have preferred you take it.
But I don’t think you should somehow be alarmed by that thought, because I seriously doubt it will make a difference in practice.
But I am mentioning it because I think it actually does lead to something actionable, which is just that whenever you get around to applying, just make sure you are in the mindset that you were not not taking APUSH, what you were actually doing is taking other APs that interested you. And that’s the important point–you didn’t even tell us what those were, but that’s what is really going to help you, to paint a picture of yourself as someone who took those classes because you were really interested in those classes specifically, whatever those were.
And then I think if you paint a compelling picture of yourself as someone who was pursuing your academic passions in HS, whether or not you took the AP version of something that was not a passion of yours is not going to be something they really even think about. At worst, there will be some mechanical transcript processing thing where you don’t get some tiny fraction of a point. And that tiny fraction will very likely not really matter because you will be either significantly above or below what they are looking for in a transcript anyway, such that adding that fraction either wouldn’t help or wouldn’t be necessary.
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Acceptance or rejection will not be decided on the basis of a single class. It will depend on the overall rigor of your classes. This one class is very unlikely to be the deciding factor on your application.
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My kid chose not to take APUSH and took regular US History instead (he preferred the teacher) and got into an ivy. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.
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For the most competitive ones , it might be an issue. As others have said, you are considered in the context of your school and there are a large number of applicants that take ALL the hardest APs their school offers.
And many of the topmost candidates do not bat an eye at this nor stay up all night accomplishing it. The competition is very high for these schools. Data from HS I know indicates no unhooked kids have gotten in to the tippy-tops without a hardest course taken in all core areas, barring an unusual scheduling circumstance. There are very specific patterns at play and course rigor is key.
Colleges do not count the number of APs: they look that you have pushed and stretched yourself in all core areas. They want to see from your courses that you have challenged yourself by taking the hardest courses across subjects, considering what is offered at the HS. We toured almost every top10 school and they all said similar sentiments in the admissions sessions. Mine weren’t interested In Stanford but I doubt it is too different.
Jeff Selingo’s book even mentions a college that “scored” applicants based on how many core courses they took each year and how many of those were at the highest level offered for that high school. I don’t remember but I think it was Emory. Skipping one or two did not lead to automatic rejection but it gave the AOs pause and made them dig deeper, and in many cases was part of the reason to pass on the candidate, especially if scores and the rest of the app indicated the person was capable of the challenge but dodged it.
You can’t change it at this point: just put your best foot forward and know Stanford is a very difficult admit even if you have all the hardest courses.
Don’t think:
What can I do to get into Stanford.
Because probably the students that are getting into Stanford are taking AP History and all the other APs. But even if you took all APs you still probably would not get admitted.
Instead you are taking hard classes in subjects that interest you and not taking AP History. There will be a great college out there for you that matches your interests.
Stop trying to make yourself match a college… find a college that matches you.
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