Hi,
My school doesn’t offer any AP or IB courses and I was wondering if a lack of these would make me less competitive for top US and Canadian schools. My grades and gpa are very high, but I’ve only done regular courses.
You cannot take what is not offered at your school. Your application will be evaluated based on what your school offers so no worries.
My daughter’s school does not offer IB or AP but does offer honors. Students are getting into UCLA and UC Berkeley consistently, so the lack of IB/AP does not seem to be hurting them.
One of my daughters also went to a small high school that did not offer AP classes. She only applied to schools in Canada (we live in the US but have dual citizenship), and got accepted everywhere she applied with merit scholarships. Some classmates were accepted and went to very selective US colleges (well known LACs in the northeast).
As @Gumbymom said, you can only take the courses that are offered at your school. I might also add that a very small high school can’t offer AP classes because there won’t be enough students to take them. Nonetheless very small high schools can provide a very good education and can graduate very good and very well prepared students.
I think that you will be fine.
The NU grad who did our info session at Northwestern University was from a small rural school with no AP. If you are doing rigorous course work for what your school offers you should be fine to apply and they take that into account.