I am going to be a senior this year and I am going to be applying to schools like Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT. I would like to major in either physics or mechanical engineering. However, the school I go to, as well as the schools around the area, only offer limited AP courses, especially in physics (only AP Physics 1). During my junior year, I completed most of the AP courses our school has to offer so I am kind of out of classes to take senior year. I’ve been looking online, and I realized that it may be a good idea to take some AP classes online. However, I have noticed that many are very expensive to take. I was curious if it would be worth the money to take some online AP classes, in other words, would taking a few extra AP courses improve my chances of getting into one of my dream schools?
Your course rigor is evaluated against what your school had to offer. If the school doesn’t offer many APs, that won’t be held against you. That said, you are expected to challenge yourself even if the school doesn’t offer advanced classes. You don’t need to demonstrate that by taking additional AP courses on-line, although you can if you want to. You could also demonstrate the rigor through research, self-study, an internship, tutoring students in subjects you excel at, doing independent study with a teacher, etc…Or by doing something different entirely and demonstrating that you can excel in more than one area - whatever ECs you care about.