<p>
</p>
<p>Local context is meaningless when everyone – even the very smartest kids in the class with lots of AP’s, honors, etc. – wants to go to the state flagship! The GC’s can’t adequately answer “what it takes to get into certain colleges” when hardly anyone from the hs has ever applied there!</p>
<p>
momma-three, would you mind elaborating? In what way do you think the lack of APs hindered her application?</p>
<p>One data point.</p>
<p>Zero AP from a school that offers 20 APs.
GPA is less than 3.5 uw
Got into Penn State(rank?)</p>
<p>D got into all 3 schools you mentioned. She had taken 8 AP’s (both Eng, US Hist, Govt, Stat, Calc AB, French, Chem) but I don’t think you need that many. She did get the max # of credits GW allows for AP, I think 23 or 24. I would think around 4 AP classes would be a good number.</p>
<p>Columbia Student, we know someone who got into Penn State engineering with
3.16 UW
1 AP (psych)
school offers ~20 APs</p>
<p>But to give the # of AP exams some context, here is a nifty link from College Board about the number of APs students took last year (both in just 2009 as well as the # of APs for this cohort over a four-year period):
<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/number-exams-per-student-09.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
<p>Really shows what kind of a bubble CC represents.</p>
<p>Even in the 30-80 ranked schools, APs do depend on where you apply to. </p>
<p>Schools that you mentioned like George Wash U, American U and BU are in popular locations (Boston and Washington D.C.). So, when someone’s mom tells their kid to put on a couple safeties, you can bet that these schools often get the nod. End result is a ton of applications with GWU getting 20,000+ and BU north of 30,000 applications.</p>
<p>Large and popular schools don’t like to admit that they slot only so many kids from individual schools and ‘technically’ they don’t. However, a quick check on Naviance will show that these schools are going to accept X number of kids from your school plus or minus a few. For example, in a (still) relatively small sample, you might get a bunch more legacy kids than the normal distribution . If it’s a university where a bunch of kids from your high school apply every year, AP courses could be the difference in the cut line of those getting accepted or not (grades being equal otherwise). </p>
<p>Large and popular schools obviously are going to pay attention to ensuring that a kid meets their course requirements and weighing major classes and grades so they can rank kids within a school, so AP and honor classes will matter. However, if you think that they are comparing your kid head-to-head against some kid from a neighboring town … not a chance. They may use their ‘off-season’ to revise an individual school’s merit, but during the crunch time of dealing with 30,000 applications, they just don’t have the time for that kind of scrutiny.</p>
<p>S1 took 3 and S2 took 2 AP classes but our school only offers 5 at this point. S3 is planning on taking any AP at this point (freshman). We’ll see if he changes his mind as time goes on. Our district runs a trimester system and APs are year long classes so limit the variety of classes the kids can take. S3 wants to take Mythology, Astronomy, and a few others that his brothers had to “give up” to take the AP classes. I don’t think CC represents a bubble but I do think it can feed insecurity in students and in some parents.</p>
<p>D took eight, but five of them were senior year (so no grades at application time). She was admitted to Georgetown and Chicago.</p>
<p>3:</p>
<p>AP Chem
AP Gov
AP Psych</p>
<p>my son was oh-so-stressed out with only 3; HS offers at least 20. But he had taken some nifty electives, and I’m sure that’s what got him into Northwestern.</p>
<p>thanks for insightful replies. I very much appreciate it.</p>
<p>by the way, what is candidate strength score, and who/which schools use them?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>S1 took 7AP’s- Env. Sci, Calc.AB, Eng. Comp,U,S, History,Psych, Bio, Statistics
S2 took 2 AP’s junior yr. (Psyc. and Human Geography) and 2 dual enrollment classes at the CC senior yr.</p>
<p>Wow! This is good to hear! I’m pretty amazed at the numbers I’m seeing on here. I know that top colleges expect extreme rigor. And my D’s school offers nearly ALL tests (over 30). So I don’t think their counselors will check that their students took the “most rigorous” courses unless they take…8+ (because that’s what the top kids in this school do). My D was set for 9 but dropped two for a couple of reasons. </p>
<p>9th grade = 1
10th grade = 1
11th grade = 2
12th grade = 3 (had 5 scheduled but there were conflicts and had to drop 1, then had to drop the other due to … ummm…lack of interest - BORING!).</p>
<p>D was accepted at GWU and BU. She had taken 6 APs.</p>
<p>I really think the number is irrelevant unless in the context of a particular school. I would guess that a student aiming for those colleges should take the same types of classes as the students in the top ten percent of his graduating class, and do very well in them.</p>
<p>DS went to a university ranked about 60. He took two AP courses.</p>
<p>DD goes to a number 2 masters ranked university in her region…and she took three AP course.</p>
<p>Oh I forgot…DS, who went to the school ranked #60…took both of his AP courses his senior year. He didn’t take ANY before that. SO when his application was sent to #60 school, he hadn’t completed ANY AP courses.</p>
<p>Update from post #18:</p>
<p>S was not admitted SCEA to Stanford. So we wait on other results for the spring time. Stanford admit rate last year was a measly 7%. I’m just sad none of the achievers I know here in CA so much as even got a deferral from Stanford.</p>
<p>Time to move along those little doggies.</p>
<p>I took 8, but my school only offers 10 . and we can only take 4 junior year and 5 senior year.
so, that looks super rigorous</p>
<p>My son who just got into U of Chicago took
1 AP sophomore year (World)
2 APs junior year (US History, Bio)
3 APs senior year (Physics C, AP Calc BC, AP Euro) - wanted to take AP Stats but there were schedule conflicts</p>
<p>The school offers about 2 dozen APs.</p>
<p>His brother got into Harvard and Carnegie Mellon having taken
1 Freshman year (Comp Sci)
1 Sophomore year (Bio)
2 Junior Year (Physics C and Calc BC)
3 Senior Year (Latin, Econ-Macro, Chem, and not AP but he did take Linear Equations)</p>
<p>My son got into to a number of highly ranked schools with 2 APs (Chemistry and Math).</p>