International Student - Did not take AP CoursesAnswered
As an international student, I did not take any AP courses or exams. Not because of laziness, our school did not offer one. Will it affect my admissions chance?
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3 answers
The short answer is possible, it depends on which schools you apply to.
The long answer is that top college admissions officers that read applications from students in your country will compare you to them, not to Americans. So if there are other students in your country or city that have taken APs or IBs or are on the Cambridge system, they will be considered to have more course rigor than you. So this is indeed problematic in a large country like China, India, or South Korea because affluent wealthy families always can send their kids to American or UK boarding schools or afford to send them to private after-school programs to improve their course rigor or enroll in private academies in their homeland.
If you come from a wealthy background and apply to colleges that have say lower admissions standards than Ivy or Elite colleges, then this will affect you less because there is less competition. But if you are hoping to get a large financial aid package and apply to top colleges, the competition might be 10X as much and you have little control of changing your narrative now.
I do not know your personal circumstances. One thing I recommend Intl students to do is to take a Gap year at a boarding school to improve their course rigor. One such place to do that has great scholarships. They are the United World College which is like 18 world campuses that are for high school students to improve their course rigor. www.UWC.org
Good luck.
No, it won't.
Here's my understanding from an American's perspective. When you apply to colleges, they get access to your school report- this says what classes are offered at your school. If the college sees that your school doesn't offer any AP's, they won't care that you couldn't take any. They will compare your academic difficulty by checking what classes your school offered and which you actually took.
Example- my school offers AP Chemistry, my friend who goes to a much smaller school doesn't have AP Chemistry offered. I'm taking AP Chem this year, she's taking "advanced chemistry"- the hardest Chemistry class they offer at her school. They will look at these classes similarly because they are both the hardest Chemistry classes at our respective schools.
Hope that makes some sense, and good luck with everything!!
This won't negatively impact your admissions chances!
When you submit your application, your highschool counselor usually provides a School Report. This will detail the amount and type of courses offered by your school (APs, Honors, IB, Dual Enrollment, etc.). If your school doesn't offer something, you can't be punished for not taking it (but bonus points if you've gone above and beyond to take one of these). The most important thing is that you are taking (and doing well in!) the most challenging courses offered by your school.
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