Advanced Placement

I know that the minimum offer for International Relations at LSE with AP's is 55544 at Group A subjects, but what kind of AP grades would someone need to have to actually be competitive and have a chance of getting in?

But wouldn't AP's be equivalent to AS exams?

No. And even if they did - you expect to get in with AS-levels?

How is a 4 on the AP worse than a B on the A-Level? Given that more people take APs every year, and that the competition in the US to get into top universities is extremely fierce, I'd think you're competing against a tougher cohort. In addition to the fact that anyone applying to LSE surely has a great GPA and top SAT scores as well. The UK needs to realize it will never attract American students (i.e. full fees £££) if it's harder to get into LSE than it is to get into HPYS. Which it currently is!

Well, to be honest, I disagree with you here Shady. I got into Yale(the only US uni I applied to), and was advised to go to LSE over it because of much better career prospects, although I am not sure whether I made the right choice now... APs are pretty easy, if you actually understand what you are doing in A-levels, which I must admit many people in the UK do not.

The thing is that when you do A-levels, those are basically all the subjects you do, and everyone has to do them. APs are originally designed to give college credit, and therefore optional. You take as many as you want, and besides AP courses (if any) you usually have a lot of other classes as well. If you just compare AP material to A-level material then A-level goes more in depth yeah, but they are exams designed for different purposes. The thing is that it's the closes thing to A-levels (not counting IB) that there is in the USA, so that's what they use for admission.