How many college level courses should I take to increase my chances of getting accepted in university?

Answered

The "acid test" for course rigor at all competitive colleges regardless of weather the are Ivy League, Elites, Top Liberal Arts colleges or T100 schools is the same which is the following:

"Did you take advantage of all the available curriculum that was made available to you in your high school and community? Did you challenge yourself with the most rigorous yet practical coursework given your ability and academic narrative?"

If you ask yourself these 2 questions, you can determine without a doubt the correct way to plan your high school coursework.

If you attend a large public school that offers 25 APs, then you will be judged against your peers at your school. The best students at such a school might be taking 1/2 of the available APs and getting 3s,4,s and 5s on the AP exam.

However if you live in India, where no APs or IBs are available at your HS or school district, you may find it useful and beneficial to take online APs, online college courses or other self study coursework to fortify your academic record.

So it entirely possible that someone with 12 APs will be flat out rejected from Duke, Dartmouth and UVA but someone with only 2 APs will get in. It depends on your personal circumstances and whether or not you have leveraged everything in your power to control your academic and EC narrative that exemplifies you potential to be successful at that school.

Keep in mind that regardless of where you live and what high school you attend, somethings are completely out of your control. If you attend a poorly resource public school in a developing nation, it might be nearly impossible to get into a top American college because there are a limited amount of spaces made available for Int'l students. You are competing not only with other students in your town, city, state, country but also with other applicants in another 50-100 countries that might be applying to the same school.

Therefore the 2nd bit of advice I would give you is to curate a reasonable list of colleges that give you a good chance of getting accepted. You can do this by using College Vines college search tools and creating a CV profile that puts in your data into a chancing engine for the list of schools you've selected. Some of the questions will include course rigor like how many APs, IBs and college courses you intend to take prior to graduating and what your forecast scores are as well.

Good Luck.

This depends on what schools you are aspiring for. Assuming that you're aspiring for the T20's a number of 6-10 is good. However, this varies greatly school by school. Also, rigor of coursework is not all that colleges judge you by. EC's and essays are arguably just as important if not more important considering that most who apply to T20's already excel in coursework.

Hi there @nat.deets,

I agree with other users here - the short answer is that you should take as rigorous of a courseload that your school allows while also being conscious of your capacity - take as many courses as you can while still getting good grades.

Hope this helps!

Hello! There is no exact number for how many college level courses you should take. Also, remember that this is not the most important factor in the college admissions process. Realistically, you should take courses that are interesting to you, and those that will most help you in getting your major. For the most selective colleges in the United States, the number will be from around 7-12 AP/IB courses. For less selective, around 4-8, and so on. I hope this helps! :)