Hi, sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I’m extremely concerned about my course rigor in comparison to other applicants. I’m a junior in a very rigorous private catholic school that doesn’t offer any AP/IB courses. The highest level of classes that you can take are honors classes (I’ve been in all honors since sophomore year) and there are three advanced classes (science, math, and language) that you can test into before freshman year. I’m in the advanced science and spanish class, and there are no opportunities for me to join the math advanced class at all. I’m just concerned because most students who were accepted into higher ranked colleges all have AP/IB/Dual Enrollment courses on their transcripts. Will this hurt me when I apply next year, or will the colleges understand that my high school doesn’t offer many advanced courses? Thank you in advance!
No. Colleges will evaluate your transcript in the context of what is offered by your HS. Having said that, and part of this will depend upon the type of colleges you are targeting, if your current math progression will not get you to calculus by senior year, you should have a conversation with the math department and GC on how you can reach that level.
It will not hurt. As noted above your schedule rigor is reviewed in the context of what is offered at your HS. FWIW a number of very well regarded high schools do not offer AP/IB/Dual Enrollment courses.
Highly ranked schools know what is available at certain schools. If you are taking the most rigorous classes you can that is fine.
I think the most important thing is making sure you have four years each of English, math, science, soc sci, and foreign language. If you can, taking a sixth academic class in what you’re focused on, or possibly taking something like a community college course that might help. If your Catholic school is like the one I went to long ago, you might have a Religious Studies class requirement that limits what else you can take, but colleges will understand this too.
Yes I do have a religious studies requirement and some required health/music/computers classes so we actually don’t have any electives at my school. But I will graduate with four years of English, four years of math (but I will be skipping pre calc and taking calc senior year), four years of history, five years of science, and five years of Spanish.
Do you have any opportunity to take a class/classes at a local college?
Skipping precalc is not a good idea. Unless you have a solid foundation, you may find yourself struggling in calc, or putting too much time in on calc to the detriment of other classes. Doubling up or taking over the summer are better options.
Thank you everyone for the great advice! I will look into taking classes at a local community college, and I definitely want to take calc senior year so I’ll look into opportunities regarding learning precalc
Catholic high schools, including those that are part of a system rather than a private school often provide a rigorous curriculum without designation as AP or Honor classes. Rigor may be associated with rigor of admissions criteria as well the practice of dismissing students who don’t meet academic requirements. A personal means of checking your academic strength is looking at the pattern of your test scores on standardised tests. Finally the academic reputation of your school in your area provide evidence of the quality of your high school. Attendance at a Catholic high school introduces you to the adult Catholic community is an added benefit.
Many of the most “prestigious” private high schools, religious or independent, do not offer many AP courses, but those same schools usually prepare their students and have them take AP tests in many subjects. When it comes to standard state school admissions, the lack of designated “AP courses” will not matter, only whether you ended up doing well on the AP tests, and AO’s at selective/highly selective school will be aware of the high school profile and not hold it against you. The most “prestigious” independent high school in my metro area does not have honors or AP courses, yet they have about 1/2 of each class going to Ivy/NESCAC schools (or the close equivalent) and numerous AP scholars as well.
I should amend my response to point out one problem with schools that do not offer AP or even honors courses—the lack of a weighted GPA. While many college admissions convert high school GPAs to an unweighted number, some do not, which can actually be a problem with state school admissions and scholarships in some situations. My own kids’ high school recently added weighting after decades of not doing so because students were at a disadvantage for certain scholarships that were not bothering to convert to an unweighted GPA.