<p>I currently go to a public high school in Manhattan, NY. To be honest, the school is pretty bad and is about to be closed in 2 years from now. As a result, many of the school's opportunities are fading away. For instance, in my sophomore year i was supposed to take a language class ( 3 Years of Foreign Language is required ) but i never got it. Now in my junior year, I'm supposed to take Physics but the school had to remove the class because so many students failed the classes/regents so no Physics for me this year or even next year. The other day, i went to my guidance counselor and asked her i wanted to take some AP classes in my senior year. She said that because of the terrible situation the school is in, there are no Honors/AP classes available.</p>
<p>Why not transfer?</p>
<p>Ooh, i have tried so many times to transfer out of that school but it never worked.</p>
<p>So the question is how will this affect my acceptance to good colleges?
Will colleges take into consideration of the situation of high schools that the students go? </p>
<p>This year, i have taken:</p>
<p>*Forensics (Half science/ Half elective)
*Pre-Calculas
*French I
*US History
*English</p>
<p>When your guidance counselor sends the information describing your high school to the colleges and universities that you apply to, it will be obvious that your school has severely limited offerings, and the admission officers will take that into account.</p>
<p>If you truly are interested in taking some classes that your school doesn’t offer, ask your guidance counselor to help you find ways to take those classes online. You may be able to arrange to do that during one or two class periods within your regular school day.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Another solution would be to ask for dual enrollment with a nearby community college so that you can take part of your workload that the community college level. Bonus: it’s free and it “counts” toward college credits. For example, you could take French 101 (covers French I and II) and another class.</p>
<p>Dual enrollment sounds interesting. How does this work and where do i sign up?</p>
<p>Ask your guidance counselor. In NYC, many schools are open in the summer for required summer session so there must be someone from administration there. Ask for the forms for dual enrollment with the local community college.
You can also type “dual enrollment NYC” for studies about this program.</p>
<p>I’m here to give you hope. I know a kid who went to a public HS in NYC. It was a pretty good one but very few AP classes and he didn’t take any. Also didn’t take any college courses. Also didn’t do so great on SATs. B-plus avg. He was accepted to Syracuse, Temple, UMass, and Fairleigh Dickinson. He did have a lot of work experience, though only one or two extracurricular club type things from school and no sports. Will you get into Harvard with no AP classes? Probably not, unless your parents went there. But there are lots of midrange schools that are fantastic that will accept you. The SUNYs in particular will understand the situation, and there are so many great SUNYs to choose from - cheap, too, for in-staters.</p>
<p>by the way it’s pretty easy for NYC HS students to take courses at CUNYs in summer or during school year - so if you DO want to challenge yourself, find out how to do that at a CUNY inyour boro. JOhn Jay has a lot of classes for HS kids that are college level. you can even send in a note with your college apps or have your counselor note it on her rec for you that there were no AP classes at your school so you challenged yourself with college classes.</p>
<p>That sucks! Well try to do the best you can.</p>