I’m heading into my senior year and I think I have found myself in a very weird and unique predicament.
First, let me give you a bit of an introduction; I am a US citizen who is from India. I studied my first 2 years of high school in an American school in China, my junior year was in Denver, and my senior year is about to be in Hong Kong. Also, all of my elementary and middle school schooling was in Dubai.
The problem is, I have a total of 0 AP classes heading into senior year. This is because my first school in China where I spent my freshmen and sophomore year was an IB school and didn’t offer any higher level classes till 11th grade, and in Denver, I got enrolled into the school a week before and all the AP classes I wanted to take were full. I plan to take as many AP classes as possible in Hong Kong, but will those AP classes be enough? and will they be considered?
I want to go to a top 100 school either in the UK or US (preferablly the UK), most unis there have a minimum requirement of at least 3 AP classes.
My GPA is 3.5, my SAT score is 1310, and I have several extracirriculars; community service for domestic animals in freshmen year, media crew (listed as a community service in my school in China) in sophomore year, a community service for my local community in China for 2 years, MUN, FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), and I trained with a Denver cricket club every week in juniour year.
All of this considered, what are my chances of getting into a top 100 school?
For the UK it doesn’t matter that your AP classes are all concentrated at the end. One issue is going to be that your teachers may not know you very well by the time you need to get their recommendation.
What subject would you be applying for there, and what AP clases are you planning on?
Your travels & study abroad and the maturity that is required to acclimate to so many different environments & cultures are your strengths. You have a lot to offer regarding alternative perspectives on matters.
For most places in the UK, 3 AP are all you need (Cambridge, LSE, and a couple of others want 5, but your other stats suggest that they are not likely options for you anyway). The three should be as close to the subject that you are applying to study as possible.
For the US, there is no magic number, and they will take context into consideration. Take APs that you can excel in, not just ‘how many can I cram in’.
Depending on your financial resources and what kind of colleges you consider “top 100”, there are plenty of very good colleges that will welcome you. Miscellaneous examples: Fordham, Muhlenberg, Skidmore, Hobart, St Lawrence, Dickinson, American, UNC-Asheville,UNH, UV-M, UMass, Pace, Lewis & Clark, Boston U,
Quinnipiac, most of the “Colleges That Change Lives”, etc.