<p>I’m an international student and applying for top-tier schools, but I’m not sure if my application will look bad because I have no APs. I could do the test for calculus or something if I wanted to, but I’m not sure if its offered to me, as the maths I did/am doing in high school goes far beyond the Calculus BC course (finished those topics in year 10/11), but its not really considered an accelerated course or anything. </p>
<p>Also, general info on APs would be appreciated, since I’m not 100% sure how they work.</p>
<p>You will not be penalized for not taking APs as they are not available to you. This is a universal policy.</p>
<p>To answer your question, they are subject tests that purport to cover college-level material. Ideally, you take AP courses in high school with the intention of taking AP exams and getting credit for them in college. At many universities, a 4 or 5 on an AP exam would exempt you from taking a course in the same subject–which would allow you to take less courses/more electives.</p>
<p>In practice, in the US, AP courses are universally thought of as the gold standard of academic excellence in high school. Because they all cover the same material, universities can safely assume that a student who’s taken an AP class in, say, Biology, has some solid grounding in the subject.</p>
<p>The American tracking system ensures that there is a wide educational gap between honors students and ‘regular’ students; US schools like to see APs on your transcript because APs are supposed to be the hardest courses you can take in high school.</p>
<p>[Tracking</a> (education) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education)]Tracking”>Tracking (education) - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>If your country’s school system is structured differently, and your counselor can provide evidence of that, there is absolutely no reason for you to worry that not having taken APs may hurt you.</p>
<p>It may be possible to take AP exams at an international school/test center nearby–and that *will *probably be a nice addition to your application–but again, not taking them would not jeopardize your chances in any way.</p>
<p>Personally, I didn’t take any APs even though my school offers them as electives and administers AP exams. Because I am an international and my school demonstrates academic rigor in other ways, that didn’t affect my application negatively.</p>
<p>Okay sweet, thanks for the info. So how did you show the admissions officers that your school was academically rigorous? I think I might be facing a similar problem, as by looking at my marks alone I seem like a pretty average student, but our school is quite selective and the median percentile for students at our school is in the 98th percentile.</p>
<p>Also, another quick question, the Calculus BC course mentioned graphing calculators, are we expected to know how to use them for college? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one, I’ve always been taught to sketch functions by hand…</p>