<p>Just curious, since I've had a strange high school experience: </p>
<p>How competitive is your high school? How many APs/IBs are offered? How many people apply to top schools; is this encouraged?</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread. I live in Eastern Washington and go to one of the big public schools in my area.
True AP classes offered are English Lit and English Language, Biology, Environmental Science, US History, Euro History, World History, Calculus, and Statistics. Chemistry and Spanish are offered as AP option, which basically means they're advanced but you have to do outside study of core AP material to be able to pass the test. Physics second year is also offered, which is extremely difficult but not "branded" an AP class.</p>
<p>Most kids go to regional colleges/universities, especially Western Washington, Eastern Washington, University of Washington, Washington State, and Gonzaga University + other small Washington LAC's. About 40% of the graduating class goes to community college, and another 10% join the military or get jobs. In all, probably about 30-40 kids leave the state (senior class is usually around 600), mainly to go to UIdaho or UOregon or Montana State, and some go to UC-Boulder and Arizona State. About 3-4 per year go to selective schools- last year I think it was three, one to Tufts, one to the Air Force academy, and one to Columbia.
Applying to top schools is neither encouraged nor dicouraged. We have an excellent college counselor, but you need to be proactive to get to see her. She is very realistic about schools, and for most people from my area the reach is University of Washington. She does get very excited (and very helpful) when someone (like me) comes in and wants to do something else.</p>
<p>I live in Indianapolis and my high school offers 21 AP classes. There are students who aren't competitive at all and who have no aspirations to go to college but if you take a few AP classes, you'll probably never know them. Then there are the extremely competitive kids who take all AP courses and care mostly about rank and GPA. Difficulty of the AP classes depends on the subject and the teacher although I'd say most are quite rigorous. The school does have an International Baccalaureate Program and about 15 people sign up for it in the beginning but only about 8 people will actually go through with it. The difficult and time-consuming process will make kids reconsider it pretty quick but most quit during senior year. IB doesn't really help much here anyway and most kids who actually are in the program aren't as competitive or "intelligent" as the others. There are a few kids who aspire to go to top schools such as Yale, Georgetown, even Wake Forrest, and such but the majority will go to either Purdue University or Indiana University. A couple of kids will go to Ball State, IUPUI, Depauw, Taylor, Wabash, and other Indiana schools. This year I know that 6 students for sure will apply to at least one top school. There are probably more. Last year, about 5 actually attended one of the top schools. Of course, a few kids decide to go to out-of-state schools such as University of Maine or something. Counselors here are pretty supportive if you say you want to apply to one of those hard-to-get-into schools and do apply. My counselor was pretty nice and supportive of it all but he was my friend's dad. I don't hear any of them saying that someone should definately apply to a particular school but I'm oblivious to alot of things.</p>
<p>I live near chicago and my high school offers about 5-7 AP's. It's a small religious school and is NOT competitive. No students go off to ivy. 65% of the senior class (around 100 students) goes to two small religious colleges. The others go to other small local colleges/community college/ work at their parents' business. Occasionally people go to U of IL or U of Iowa, but only 2 or 3 from a class. I believe this is partly due to the religious domination of the school.</p>
<p>I think UC encourages the pursuit of knowledge of the student in whatever situation they are in. It does not matter if your school offers APs or not- it is if you chose to learn.</p>
<p>I live in NYC and I go to school in the Bronx. My school is really competitive and pretty difficult. It offers about 15 AP classes and students are only allowed to take a maximum of 3 per year because the AP curriculums the departments construct are really tough. Almost everyone in my school goes to college (sometimes one or two kids take gap years). Many kids go to top schools - I think last year something like 8 kids went to Cornell, 5 to Harvard, 7 to Yale...something nuts like that.</p>
<p>However, usually either 1 or no kids go to UChicago from my school. A lot of kids said they didn't want to apply because of the Uncommon essays! I entirely disagree with their choice - Chicago rocks and so do the Uncommon essays & application!</p>
<p>Upstate New York. We got decent AP's. It is my experience that as long as your body is warm, AP classes are willing to take you. You don't even need to do the summer projects, (half of my 11 AP English handed it in the last day of school) Last year one kid went to Yale, another to Cornell;most of the kids went to Community College. This year I might see a couple go to Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Cornell. (Hopefully UC for me)</p>
<p>Pretty competitive public in NJ. 24 AP classes, about 95% pass rate. You need to pass a qualifying test to get into the AP classes. 95% to four year colleges, and many of those are top schools. We have a bunch of kids going to Ivies. Four kids applied to Chicago early, and three got in, including me. (The last one applied because of the city. You could not possibly find a worse match for UChicago. She would've hated it.)</p>
<p>It's interesting to see how different everyone's background is, and it's great that most schools will understand those differences.</p>
<p>My school is strange--we seem to pretend to nurture intellectual pursuit/growth, but don't really follow through. We have 12 AP classes and a handful of honors (which are a joke), and only about 4-5 of the APs are rigorous in any way. We're also given the opportunity to dual-enroll at the community college, but have to pay if our schedule is full.</p>
<p>From 4th-6th grade I was in a "Talented and Gifted" program, and I still take Calc with almost the exact same group; it's astounding to me to see that so many are going to community college or in-state schools (and most aren't even applying to UMich). I have seen one student in my years here go to a top school (Cornell), but apparently the numbers are on the rise this year--3 applied to Northwestern, 2 to Chicago, 2 to MIT (but 1 definitely will not get in)...</p>
<p>I'm in Wisconsin, town of 15,000 people and a high school with roughly 1200 kids. Very public, my school shoes people in to local community colleges and vocational schools rather than competitive universities. A student "going big" with college applications occurs biyearly, though this year about 5 kids applied to some big name schools.</p>
<p>Cary Academy in Raleigh is amazing. Kids get accepted at top colleges nationwide. only ten years old and already best school in NC</p>
<p>how come it's called Cary if it's in Raleigh</p>
<p>I hail from the best school in my state (public, anyway), even though it's a small state. As far as APs go, we've had only two people fail (ie, get 2s) on the AP BC exam in the last 5 or so years. The rest are mostly fives. Other AP classes are similar, with large percentages (90+) passing and most of those getting fives. 99% move on to four year colleges, 1% join the armed services. Roughly. The top 10% universally move on to ivy league/comparable caliber institutions (duke, chicago, etc).</p>
<p>They can't, however, spell.</p>
<p>My son was at a small new charter high school for the first three years. No AP courses, no EC's, no sports, etc. All students in each grade too exactly the same coursework: basically Humanities 9, 10, 11, 12 and Math/Science 9, 10, 11, 12, with Spanish at their level. He started out taking outside math classes to supplement that, but his junior year, they demanded he <em>only</em> do their coursework. For senior year classes, they were going to offer things like "Robotics" instead of any more Math classes. He began to get the feeling that staying was going to jeopardize his getting into colleges he wanted to attend, -- like UC -- because the school had begun thinking in terms of "as long as you're prepared to apply to a University of California school and a Cal State school, your classes are fine." </p>
<p>Because of this he transfered for his senior year to another nearby small new charter high school with a completely different philosophy and teaching strategy. ALL of his courses are AP this year, except Spanish. Again, all students take the same classes -- every senior is taking AP Statistics, AP English Lit, etc -- and the school aims higher for the students. He is sometimes a little upset that he left his social group to be at this new school where he's pretty much the outsider, but he basically decided to sacrifice his social life to his academic career. </p>
<p>Still no EC's, though, really -- he's had to grow his own, by starting a quiz team, things like that.</p>
<p>Small rural public, 0 APs, we do offer some courses through the local community college though</p>
<p>Private school in Tennessee. 17 AP's. Probably 30 kids apply to top-tier schools. We usually have around 8 National AP scholars per year. We do well at math and science competitions, and our teachers are in general very good. One thing that distinguishes my school from others is the math courses it offers. After BC Calculus, my shool offers Multivariable, Diff Eq, Linear Algebra, and Abstract Algebra. I would say it's one of the top 5 schools in the state. Oak Ridge and White Station are probably better.</p>
<p>Similar to Joseph.</p>
<p>Public academic in San Francisco (you need to apply to the school). Most people take about five AP classes over there last two years with the vast majority passing. Large majority first generation Asian immigrants (the difference in base levels for English and Math was pretty astounding). We are the biggest feeder for Berkeley and LA (though CA does not have that many 2500 person schools), but surprisingly lacking anywhere out of state. Maybe 20% UCLA, 20% Berkeley, plenty more CA state schools, but usually one to Harvard, one to Princeton, one to U Wash and a couple to state schools elsewhere.</p>
<p>Odd system - pick your classes, times and teachers with pretty much complete flexibility. There were tons of one or two session APs, I think we offered all but a couple of the tests in some form or another. People on the 'easy' track usually took at least AP EngLang and AP Calc AB, maybe AP US.</p>
<p>The workload was not very heavy in my opinion - the people who lost sleep over homework usually mixed it with six hours of TV, and that was not many. Typical SATs might have been 650-700.</p>
<p>You could even pick which teacher and time you wished to have?!?!</p>
<p>That's nuts. I want in.</p>
<p>It was pretty nice. That led to frantic scratching battles for the last seats in a 'good' teacher's class, and the flexible system made plenty of odd schedules. I once had class at 7:30, lunch from 8:30 to 10:15 and class until 3:30 after that with a fifteen minute break towards the end.</p>
<p>Sounds a little like college. I'm extremely jealous. Oh well, only four months left for me!</p>
<p>Oh man, that sounds sweeeeet!</p>
<p>^Coming from a kid taking soph. French in my junior year, not being able to take chorus, not having a lunch, and not being able to take college calc, all because of scheduling!</p>