<p>I'm currently attending a "crap" HS. Next year I may have the opportunity to change to another school. It may be better since my dream is to attend one of the Ivies. The issues are that:
1) My current school offers less AP classes than my future school. I know colleges will interest more in students who have made use of their AP classes than who do not. My future school is able to give 24 AP classes while there are only 8 in my current school
2) The rank of my current highschool is therefore perhaps lower than my future school. However my future school is of a smaller district area so it may not be comparable. But I'm really interested in my new highschool 'cause I'm fed up with the system of my current high school : not-so-good service, not-so-good counselors and teachers ( we have one teacher from Harvard here though) and not so many interesting clubs I can find and join. However it's near to my house and the community surrounding it is good. We have a church, a grade schools, a nursing home nearby ( Best for volunteer services). Moreover, I;m not so sure about my new surrounding: More wealthy but a bit detached. But we'll have my uncle there who is willing to drive me farther than my grandparent could here. My new school with its schedule and clubs enthralls me though.
3) Who knows where to learn Latin in Pearland TX? (lol but serious)</p>
<p>While colleges like APs, from what I've read, they will also take into consideration, perhaps moreso than GPA and SAT, what you've done with your resources. So if you push your crap school to the limit, take most if not all of those APs, get a very high GPA and good standardized test scores, and you would be set for most schools.</p>
<p>However, it sounds like you will learn more at this private school, and if you can do well at this school, you may also have a good chance at an Ivy.</p>
<p>I went to a public high school with about 1000 kids in my class. It was a great high school and really prepared me well for college, but it definitely wasn't recognized as a good public school externally and had none of the clout of a prestigious private high school. I took every AP offered and did as well as I could have done with my grades and had a fair amount of extracurricular stuff, but ended up getting rejected from Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Duke. It ended up working out fine as I did get into Northwestern and Notre Dame, but I think that had I gone to a high school with more recognition amongst admission committees my results would have been more favorable. There are so many kids here at NU that were good students, but not great, that went to places like Harvard-Westlake and Andover. Just my experience though.</p>