<p>super competitive public high school</p>
<p>88-92 overall average –> get to take at most 2 APs
93-95 —> get to take at most 4 APs
96+ —> get to take at most 6 APs</p>
<p>then…every AP course has it’s own requirement. Like…Calculus would need maybe total 92 average in math. etc.</p>
<p>At our public HS AP’s are definitely subject to gatekeeping. Only 2 courses are available to juniors and since both are part of the social studies department (AP US and AP Psych) they are only allowed by school policy to take 1. And admission to either course is by placement exam and recommendation. Seniors have more available choices, but it is uncommon for most seniors to take more than 3 or 4. By graduation the most any senior could have would be 6. You can’t take any AP science unless you have completed all basic science lab courses…bio, chem and physics and even then, you need to have achieved a certain grade in those courses and have teacher recommendation. To take AP physics you pretty much have to be in AP BC calc. Now, regardless of the above, our kids regularly get into the Ivies and the top 25 universities and LAC’s. It is, actually, a subject of debate in our district. There are some who advocate eliminating AP courses all together (which I personally favor) in favor of developing rigorous, challenging, interesting courses taught by teachers passionate about their subjects and free to develop their curriculum as they see fit and others who would prefer that we offer more AP’s (our AP course offering is pretty limited, both in depth and breadth)available to more students, with less prerequisites and placement requirements. It will be an interesting discussion I am sure.</p>
<p>bluebayou, d is going to take APush in 10th grade. To do this she must get an A in World Global(or something similar) before she is allowed to take the dbq test and if she passes the dbq test then she can sign on to Apush. I believe we’re in the same district but not in the same school. So it is possible to take AP before jr year.</p>
<p>A former adcom for Princeton and Cornell(he’s now retired) were at d hs for mock simulation of college admission. He said d hs is well known to top college, they sent adcom here to scout for kids.
As far as top heavy, I think d would have 6 APs in her 12th grade schedule if she wants to take AP Physics, most likely not, because she is not planning to become an engineer. But in total she’ll problably have 8-9 APs, a few UC honors classes but I don’t think she is in the most advance track either. There are many kids that take a higher level math class than she is because she’s transferred.
However, the retired adcom said not to have anything count against you, if you take AP class, make sure you get good grade, otherwise just take the regular class.</p>