<p>I'm currently a junior and have yet to take any AP classes thus far, however I have completed 10 Honors classes (with 8 As and 2 Bs). I signed up for 3 AP classes for my senior year (Lit, European History, and Art History). My high school offers a total of 18 AP classes, so 3 doesn't necessarily look good. However, although 18 are offered, I think the most one can possibly take is 10. One of these AP classes was also added this year and it's a freshman class so I didn't even have the chance to take it. Additionally, 3 of the APs are languages, and it's impossible in my school to take more than 1 of those, unless no electives were taken, which isn't allowed because we have graduation requirements that can only be fulfilled by electives. The 3 science APs (bio, chem, and physics) also have prerequisites of either regular or honors bio, chem, and physics. (For example I took honors chemistry this year but could not have taken AP chem instead). When I apply to colleges, will they see all this? I've put in a ton of hard work in high school and I don't want them to look at 3/18 APs and think my course load wasn't rigorous, even though it was.</p>
<p>It’s water under the bridge at this point, but why didn’t you take AP English Language and APUSH this year when you had the chance? So colleges will immediately see that. What effect that has on admissions decisions is unknown by anyone here.</p>
<p>You have to play the band you were dealt, and even if perhaps you played the hand badly so far, you still can’t redo junior year. All you can do is move forward and do the best you can from here. HYPSM is probably out of reach, but then you probably already knew that, there are plenty of great schools still open to you. Work with what you’ve got and control what you can control - the past is gone, don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>Your guidance counselor will let schools know via his/her recommendation/school profile if you took a rigorous load, as defined by your school. Is 3/18 sort of the norm for top students in your school?</p>
<p>APUSH is a sophomore year course, at least at my high school, and at that point I barely knew what an AP class was, and really wasn’t ready for that caliber course after a super rough freshman year (not reflected in grades, thankfully). I signed up for AP Lang, but my family travelled all over the country last summer and I didn’t have the time and resources needed to complete the summer work for the course (plus the teachers are notoriously bad, as in one literally does not teach and none of her kids are prepared for the test. I promise I benefitted much more from my Honors English III class). 3-6 APs is pretty normal for the top kids. A couple kids got into Ivies and took like 9 or 10, but that’s probably <5 kids out of 3000 students in my school over the course of a few years. I never really wanted to consider Ivies anyway. I’m looking at small LACs.</p>