Hello! Last year I transferred school districts (junior year), and now I am a senior. I recently learned that some juniors were in my AP Calculus BC class. Apparently, the district I go to allows 8th graders to take honors algebra I and honors geometry, while the district I came from allowed students to only take honors algebra I. On top of that, the school district I came from only let people take regular biology in 8th and not honors biology. Finally, the English teacher I had in 8th was fired for not teaching well. Therefore, I was placed in regular English in 9th. Only in 10th was I placed in honors, then AP Lang in 11th and AP Lit now. How badly will all these circumstances affect my admissions chances to T20s, given I’ve gotten As in all my classes.
Zero.
As @skieurope says zero impact. The questions will be - how strong are the other parts of your overall portfolio.
You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself. And many top 20 worthy students don’t go to top 20s and end up just as well.
You can only put forth the best you.
If you do that and apply to a range of colleges…reach, match and safety, you’ll be fine.
As you are thinking about this…please open your mind to schools beyond the top 20 as well. I agree that what you are describing in your school history won’t impact admissions. But frankly, no one really knows why some students get accepted over others. These schools deny admission to roughly 90% of applicants, most of whom are well qualified.
So…cast a broader net in addition to top 20’s.
Some of these posted issues are really common throughout the country. I know that in our school district, (in California) it was very common to have juniors in AP Calculus BC. They did have Honors Geometry and Algebra in middle school. If you had the skills, they didn’t limit classes by grade.
How will it affect your chances at the top 20’s? It won’t.
Did you know that there are almost 30,000 high schools in the US?
Did you know that that means about 30,000 valedictorians will probably be applying to the top 20 schools?
Did you know that there are limited seats at the top 20 schools? The schools are relatively small for seats for entering freshmen. Once they fill the seats with their recruited athletes, artists, celebrities, activists, and world renowned students (think Malalas, Greta’s, Obama, Gates’, Jobs’ children) then the classes are full.
Our son attended a top 10. The school cared about his GPA, his SAT score, his essay, his letters of recommendation and his community involvement.
Also the top tens/20’s are typically need based for financial aid; we paid full price. I assume you’ve had the discussion with your parents about how much they can afford to pay for your college ($80k year) because, unless you are very, very needy, you’re not getting a penny of financial aid. Scholarships are competitive because every single student does really well on their GPA and activities.
Your focus right now should be on your own studies and not whether someone from another grade is in your class, and not what the current district does but your past district didn’t do; every single district is different.