<p>Is my son's school the only one in the country that doesn't offer AP classes? Individual teachers will help the students prepare for some AP tests (my son will take Calc AB this May), but they don't have any true AP classes. On this board , it seems weird for a school to offer only "honors" classes but no APs.</p>
<p>It is a small, non-religious private school with a graduating class of about 32 students. I feel OK that the colleges will take this into account, our graduates get into some top schools (one went to Stanford last year), but reading about kids taking a bazillion AP classes can start to give one a complex when that's just not an option.</p>
<p>Our small public high school doesn’t offer APs either. The school offers a rigorous college prep education (and similarly preps kids to take various AP tests without AP courses if the kids choose to do so.)</p>
<p>Graduates tend to go to top colleges (including Ivies). Some kids choose state universities. </p>
<p>I don’t worry about it. We moved here specifically for the schools. I know they are getting a great education. Don’t get sucked into thinking that AP and IB are the only ways to get a “good” college prep education. Where other kids from the high school get into college is a good indicator that the school is doing a fine job - if they were all going off to community college, then I’d worry!</p>
<p>Don’t worry, sweet beet, the colleges know what courses your school offers. They want the kids to take the most rigorous schedule available to them. I wish our school didn’t offer AP’s. The kids feel that they must load up on APs to show rigor.</p>
<p>Schools like yours will tell the colleges that their advanced classes are just as good or better than traditional AP courses. And they probably are. If kids are getting accepted at selective colleges, they are probably doing a fine job, both at educating the kids and educating college admissions offices about what is going on in their classrooms.</p>
<p>Selective colleges generally consider course rigor in the context of what classes are available in your environment. I have a relative who grew up in a small farming community where the HS didn’t offer different level classes for different students, such as honors, accelerated, or AP/IB versions of classes. The classes they did offer were taught at something closer to what typical HSs might call remedial. She was accepted to Stanford and at least one Ivy without taking a single AP/IB or honors class. While at Stanford, she initially struggled more than most students due to the weaker preparation, particularly in STEM type classes. However, after getting used to the different level of academics, she did well later on.</p>
<p>Schools without AP courses are likely to be one of the following kinds:</p>
<p>a. academically elite schools who claim that their courses are better than AP courses (and students can take the AP tests if they want).
b. academically poor schools where there are not enough instructional resources or student demand to offer AP courses.
c. very small schools where limited instructional resources do not allow for course offerings other than normal track ones.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input! Our school, being the only private high school on the island (some kids do go to boarding schools on other islands), is a little of a, b, and c! The school is touted as “college prep” and works very hard to provide opportunities for the kids who can handle them, to get more advanced options. But because the school is so small, and could not survive if it kicked out those who were not really “selective college” material, it also has a population of kids who are really struggling. Because there is a lot of individualized attention, the school attracts kids with learning disabilities (and does a great job for them), and others who for whatever reason could not thrive in our public schools. It also attracts those looking for a better education than our (notoriously poor) public schools offer. It’s kind of a ‘catch all’.</p>
<p>They don’t claim their honors courses are “better” than AP, but they are as good as they can make them and still not have classes that only one or two kids can handle. The needs of the more advanced kids are mostly addressed with individual solutions - one teacher (who is just an awesome person, BTW) instructs the advanced math kids more-or-less individually, helps kids prepare for AP math and physics tests; others, like my son, are urged to take courses online through Stanford’s EPGY program or similar, or to work in a class or two at the community college next door. It’s possible to take 4 or 5 years of Spanish or Chinese, and some pretty good English courses, but the social studies options are very limited, and the more advanced science classes are only taught every other (or every 3) years. But hey, the geology students get to go study an active volcano in person! ;-)</p>
<p>Anyway, we still have our fingers crossed for USC. Only 2 weeks to go…</p>
<p>Also I think the Guidance Counselors can indicate that you are taking the most rigorous curriculum possible at your school. My older DD went to a public magnet HS (#4 in nation) and the only classes designated as AP were the math and sciences. Everything was taught at an honors level. But on paper, without context, you would notice no APUSH, AP Lit, AP Spanish, etc on a transcript and wonder. But the school provides a School Profile that gives colleges context., e.g. <a href=“http://www.hths.mcvsd.org/downloads_files/School_Profile.pdf”>http://www.hths.mcvsd.org/downloads_files/School_Profile.pdf</a></p>
<p>Hmmm, I can think of an island with an active volcano, but a quick search suggests that there are five private high schools on that island.</p>
<p>For admissions at those colleges using a counselor’s report, will the counselor indicate that the student chose the most demanding curriculum given that the student choose the top level courses that are available?</p>
<p>For actually going to college, have graduates generally been well prepared to handle college level work at whatever colleges they attend?</p>
<p>The active volcano isn’t on our island (Kauai), but our geology class takes a field trip there. (It was kind of weird getting used to going on field trips by plane, but it’s common in this state! We fly for swimming, robotics, geology, even for the state competitions for Poetry Out Loud, Science Olympiad, etc. Just another reason why living here is so expensive. I know, I know, no sympathy…)</p>
<p>Yes, our GC will state that our top students have taken the “most rigorous” curriculum possible, and most of our students have had no trouble adjusting to college work. I think Bronson is doing well at Stanford, and many of our students go to fairly selective LACs and do fine. Our GC is pretty good at helping the students find schools that are good matches.</p>
<p>My kids went to a private independent high school with about 55 in a class. No APs offered until senior year, and then only in 2 languages (so realistically a kid could take one of those), and then AB Calc and Stats. So kids who took them typically just took 2, and the scores were not in by the time the college acceptances were received.</p>
<p>Every year a couple of kids go to Ivies, and my D2 got into everyplace she applied (U of Chicago, Swarthmore, and Harvey Mudd included) last year. Now… she is scrambling as a freshman at Mudd, partly because most of the kids there HAVE had AP sciences, and so they have seen a lot of the material already that is new to her. So I don’t think it was a disadvantage in admissions, but at least in the sciences it is putting her at a disadvantage her first year of college. Very few kids place out of the intro courses there, too. But I think that will mostly even out by sophomore year.</p>
<p>If students graduating from the high school are doing well in both admissions to colleges and actually doing college work, then you should not really worry about your high school’s preparation for college being inadequate (regardless of whether there are courses officially labeled as AP courses).</p>
<p>The main concern at a very small high school in a place with just one small community college is if the student is super-advanced in some subject (most commonly math), then his/her progress may be stalled in that subject due to lack of local offerings unless s/he wants to do on-line type courses or self-study.</p>
<p>I too have this worry because D2 goes to a school that has a number of college level courses and uses the identical textbooks as the colleges but, while weighting them for GPA purposes, can’t put an AP label in front of them and I just hope schools will recognize this during the admission process. </p>
<p>With your school’s track record I think you are in great shape. </p>
<p>If students at your D2’s school tend to be successful in both admission to colleges and in college, then it should not be an issue. The main issue might be if the college level courses in her high school truly cover the equivalent of actual college courses but do not give college credit from a dual enrollment arrangement, she may have no choice but to boringly repeat them in college (as opposed to checking the college’s old final exams and then taking advanced placement beyond the courses she has verified that she knows the material well). One possible way to try to alleviate that is if there exists an AP test for the subject, she can try the AP test, even if the college level course is not labeled as “AP”.</p>
<p>@UCB I have asked about the admission rate to top schools and have been told that “a few” each year get into very top schools whereas our zoned HS (where my other 2 kids went) has many kids each year. I also have no idea how they do once there. However, the overall competition at D2’s school is much lower so it is easier to be near the very top. D1 and D2 are almost identical academically but D2 is tied for 3rd while D1 finished 13th to 17th.</p>
<p>The unfortunate part is that these are VERY specialized courses and there isn’t even anything close to applicable in the AP realm and there isn’t dual enrollment because our local colleges don’t offer these courses. </p>
<p>Assuming that she has specialized enough interests to be attending the high school with specialized advanced courses, then perhaps it is most relevant to consider both admission to and performance at colleges which have the offerings for her specialized interests, which may or may not be the same as the “top colleges”.</p>
<p>Of course, the quality of the “usual” courses (English, math, history/social studies, science, foreign language, art/music) that she takes at the high school would also be relevant generally.</p>
<p>@UCB When she went there her interests were very specialized. Now that she is a few years older she has broadened her interests more. She has turned more into a STEM kid instead of strictly focusing on being a Dr. Now she wants to be an astronaut, engineer, math major, or something in medicine. She should still end up with some APs (incl. Calc, Physics, and Chem), just not the 9 that her sister had. </p>
<p>As for the quality of courses: I don’t know. Generally the “regular kids” part of the the school is one of our lower achieving HSs. Her “school within a school” does much better (and has a separate group of teachers for almost all subjects) but is far from an Ivy League factory. I think their SAT scores avg 209 pts above the national avg. </p>
<p>My kids’ hs does not offer AP classes. While colleges say they want to see that the applicants take “the most rigorous courses offered…” this is true, except that the kids’ applications are not merely evaluated with respect to their own hs, they are also evaluated as compared to other applicants. So many colleges believe the kid with the APs (and good grades) has a “proven” chance of success at their college (as well as experience coping with a more pressing workload) than the kid without the “proof” (regardless that this particular kid had no way of proving this, given their lack of opportunity to try an AP class). I am not saying that the kids without APs on their transcript have no chance at all when applying to “higher” tier colleges, I am saying that it can impact their application. (I wish it was not so, however I do understand that a high GPA without the challenge of AP classes is not as telling as a high GPA with AP classes, in terms of a student’s ability). </p>