Will taking a lot senior year be able to make up for the other years?
Senior APs do count. Colleges look at your senior courses to see that youre still taking challenging courses and your grades in your midyear report. If you take a lot, it won't necessarily make up for previous years. Don't take too many and overwhelm yourself but find a balance that works for you. Generally having 7+ AP courses makes you competitive for top universities.
So if the school doesn’t offer a lot of AP in junior and below it will not be held against you at all. If you slacked junior and sophomore year it will help compensate but will likely not nullify it. (I can’t garuntee that but it seems likely)
Also everything is evaluated in context @Shaqoatmeal (employee of collegevine) said in another post schools typically send a “flyer” about your school which will list classes offered so if you took all 4 AP classes that were offered senior year that’s great but if you take 4 APs senior year when there were 20 offered you will be frowned upon. Also there is no magic number of AP classes to take but crsgo said something I agree with excluding APs that are in no way relevant ie AP Music and Art as a STEM major you should likely take 2-3rd to 3/4ths of all APs.
TLDR: It will compensate but will likely not nullify it.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
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That’s 7 AP classes for the entire High school career and that’s for mid tier public schools that have around a60% admit rate.