<p>If I had great ecs, took online ap courses, and got a near-perfect average in a run of the mill public school...could I go to an elite university? Thanks!</p>
<p>…bump???</p>
<p>BumpItybump</p>
<p>If you’re asking if it is possible for an excellent and dedicated student from an average public school to get into Harvard, the answer is yes.</p>
<p>So they wouldn’t punish me for not taking ap courses (which are not
offered at my school)?</p>
<p>Didn’t your post say you’d be taking online AP courses? Anyway, from what they say, I gather two things:</p>
<p>1.) It is always better to have a more challenging curriculum.
2.) If you have advanced courses available to you, and do not take them, you are penalized more than if you did not take them because they were not available to you. However, #1 still holds true, for both instances.</p>