AP Classes

Answered

Hi @Anna_A

I would not recommend that you do AP Courses as a 9th-grade homeschooled student in the Philippines.

If your ultimate goal is to get into a top American college as an international student you need to understand what are the biggest hurdles for International students and why it's nearly impossible to get into a T25 school, especially if you need full financial aid.

The biggest challenge for international students compared to other applicants is that they are disadvantaged across the board even before they start high school unless they are wealthy and attend a private boarding school outside of their country. Int'l students most often are missing leadership positions, impactful community service roles, athletic ability to compete at the collegiate level in sports, lack of Test Scores primarily the high SAT and ACT scores, a general lack of course rigor, lack of intellectual vitality like internships, self-published research papers, college courses, and access to high-level STEM competitions. One of the very most underestimated skills they lack is the ability to write the very best essays because they assume that their HS-level English is satisfactory for them to enter American colleges. As top colleges become harder and harder to get into even for the smartest kids in the world, you have to be aware of the hurdles awaiting you when you apply in 3 years' time.

Off the top of my head, I think Harvard had 61221 and accepted 1984 or 3.19%. About 1/3 of the class were ALDCs or (recruited "A"thletes, "L"egacies, "D"evelopment applicants (Donor children), and "C"hildren of faculty". That means that only 1300, normal applicants get in 2.1%.

Of the 98% that were rejected included approximately 4000 Valedictorians, 8000 with perfect 4.0/100.00 grades, 16000 with SAT ERBW scores over 700, and 20000 with SAT Math scores over 700.

So my takeaway from this is that if you want to go to a school like Harvard or an Ivy League school or an Elite college like Stanford or UChicago, you have to have a more compelling application than the other hundreds and thousands of kids applying from the Philippines.

If I had 3 years to work on my narrative from the Philippines, I would work on these things vs. trying to succeed at APs in 9th grade.

-Test prep for the SAT or ACT, you can never start too soon. With the goal of getting a 1500+ SAT, or 34+ ACT score.

-Improving my writing and reading ability so I can in 3 years write the very best essays possible because this is one of the few things that you can do to impress your application readers as an international student.

-Finding some extracurricular activities that are impressive for a Filipino high school student. Why? Because you will be judged not against Americans or Europeans BUT against your own countrypeople.

-If you are able, try to see if you can find a sport that you can do because that will make you 10X as attractive to a Top school since 99% of Intl students typically apply without any athletic ability. You have 3 full years to swim, run, fence, row, or do something else you are interested in. Don't assume it doesn't matter.

With regards to your own homeschooling program, do as much as you possibly can within the structure of your current curricula. If you need to be challenged, it would be more impressive to take online college courses and do well in those.

Good luck.

I am a homeschooled student in the Philippines class. Here, my homeschool program only offers AP classes for classes and above. I have a nice way to program the AP in a classroom. But they https://letsgradeit.com/review/freshessays/ can provide high-quality academic papers. You can check it out also. That is, those students are provided AP classes. who study well