Are my AP classes enough?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

I attend an international school in Korea, which offers 19 APs total throughout my 3 years there (Korean high schools have 3 grades).

According to plan, I have/will take 8 AP classes out of them. Of course, I would like to take some more, given that I am aiming for some highly selective schools. However, our school made it impossible to take many AP classes–even though they do “offer” a lot–by scheduling many AP classes in the same period. For example, AP WH, AP Macro, and AP CP were all held at the same time, so I could only take 1 of them.

I have 8 classes, but I also have 4 other (different from those 8) APs that I have taken only as exams, and not classes. I got a 5 on all 4.

Also, among those 19, 4 were “extra” classes–the school hired an AP instructor & the classes were held after regular class time & you had to pay extra. I didn’t take any of them, since I had taken the AP exams for most of them anyway.

I know that 8 out of 19 certainly doesn’t look good, but it sure wasn’t because I was too lazy or afraid to take the other classes–I was just done with the exams & why would I go through the curriculum again?

Anyway, how would this situation look like in the eyes of colleges? They probably won’t understand all that complication, but would they be fine with the 8/19 APs? Or would it be a negative factor in my application?

2

6-8 AP classes over the course of a HS career are generally considered “enough.” After that, the laws of diminishing returns kick in. While there may be valid reasons for taking more, additional APs will not significantly boost the application package.

Most schools will have issues with schedule conflicts or school policy limiting APs; your GC can explain that in the Secondary School Report. No college expects applicants to take AP courses/exams not offered in the regular curriculum and while the AP exams that you took without a course may give you credit, they will not weigh in the admissions decision.

3

What are the 8 AP’s? (ie;, do they “make sense”?)
Other than that, 8 is perfectly fine.
What will matter is what you achieve outside of school (assuming decent grades and scores).