ACL Megapost - Info On All Pathways, Courses and Programs

Hello all,

AOS Alumni here. I just graduated from AOS recently, I am heading to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and I had friends in basically all the pathways at ACL and they told me and gave me info about everything (I met them in clubs and at lunch, etc.). I see there's a lot of info on TJHSST in their sub, so why don't we add some here? This is a really detailed megapost I'm about to make about every pathway

1. AOS (the one I'm in)
2. AOS is a pretty good pathway, though it's really hard and involves a lot of hard work, but I did marching band and aos and had mostly all A's in my aos courses (except when I took multivariable calc and ap chem in senior year, that was pretty hard) and think of freshman year as an adjustment year, it's pretty hard but not as hard as junior/senior year. You do AOS IS9 in freshman year, which is a mix of physics, chemistry and earth science covering topics such as free fall, laws of chemistry and physics, astronomy/astrophysics, and rocks 💀. You have 2 blocks in science and you can't afford to not pay attention in class - well, in the time they're teaching, because a lot of the stuff is learnt through labs and activities. You do more of that physical/earth integrated stuff in 10th, and the biology starts in junior year. You can do bio for your research project and you're forced to do AP biology in junior year. This is where it gets hard, and you choose between AP CALC AB and AP CALC BC. If you take AP CALC BC in junior year, you're in for the long run, but this is the path better for colleges, especially if you wanna do physics/math/engineering. If you take AP Calculus BC you can take multivariable calculus in senior year. Well, if you get a 1 or 2 on the AP Calc BC test I don't think you can do multivariable in senior year, but I don't know what happens then because no one in AOS got a 1 or 2 that I know so far. Taking multivariable calculus is one of the many perks of AOS/AET and you can't do it at base school (well, you can, but it's a weird process, and almost NOBODY does that) Then in senior year, you can choose between 3 AP Sciences: Physics C: Mech (engineering kids), Chemistry (bio/premed kids, this is what I did, pretty hard, almost as hard as Physics C) and Environmental Science (almost no one chooses this, environmental policy or something i guess)
3. NOTE: some kids drop out of aos because they don't work hard enough, that's fine if you drop out, you're still fine for colleges, I know one such kid, he turned out fine, went to VT. If you work hard at AOS, you'll enjoy it and won't have to drop out.

Perks of AOS:
- the research, not just the big project, but you have many others such as the new Toshiba one in 9th grade, and you can enter many competitions

- utilizing the rigor of AOS for your college applications, colleges love to see rigor - however, the rigor may also decrease your gpa

- personalized letters of recommendations

- the fact that you got into aos is somewhat useful (4-5% acceptance rate) but it's a reflection of who you were then

- the clubs there are pretty nice, and the people you meet there. you're surrounded by smart and nice people

Cons

- the rigor. you'll have to learn how to study and manage time FAST, but it's not as hard as TJ and you're compared against the kids at your base school, so it'll be easier than TJ, where you're compared with geniuses and you're "cooked" if you're not in the top 30-50%. well that's OBVIOUSLY true for AOS/AET and even if you go to base school but it'll be much easier cause you're not comparing with geniuses, and not many people decline offers from aos/aet/tj to stay at base school soooooooo....

By the way, many people say "aos/aet is not ranked like TJ". Well guess what? That doesn't matter - AOS is explained in your school profile, and all AOS courses are marked with a "AOS" in front of them (ex. AOS Integrated Science I, AOS AP Calculus BC, AOS Senior Research) and they all have at least a +0.5 gpa bump (well so do most courses AOS kids take at base school). So for a Loudoun kid, arguably AOS/AET is better than TJHSST.

Tldr: aos is pretty nice and one of, if not the best, pathways at academies. if you get in, work really hard and you can go to a great college - you have all the tools there. if not, it's fine, you can match the rigor of an aos kid by taking courses like Research DE and 2 AP's in an year, AOS does help with college admissions but the high school you go to does not decide the college you go to. work hard at either academies or base school and you can go to a great college. AOS kids turn out at great colleges like the ivies, Johns Hopkins, UMich, UPenn, VCU's BS/MD program, UVA, VT, W&M and sometimes go to GMU/JMU because they get full rides.

2. AET
   I'll talk about all the pathways
   AET Engineering - this pathway is nice, and the AET IT pathway is pretty good as well (not entrepreneurship.) You do a lot of designing stuff and physics, as the name suggests, but after sophomore year, you can do pretty much whatever you want. You also have a research project at AET engineering, but you can do yours mostly about biology or chemistry or something, and have some engineering concepts, but most people just do it about aerospace or something. I had a lot of friends here and they turned out at really good colleges, like aos kids. Keep in mind, aet engineering is pretty hard - almost as hard as AOS, i'd say 80-90% as hard as aos - there's a lot of physics and math involved in the engineering. One of my friends was really bad at math and physics and went to this pathway, and later had to drop out cause he thought engineering was literally just building stuff (how naive we were in middle school) This is also the most competitive pathway with the lowest acceptance rate I'd estimate, followed by either IT or Entrepreneurship (nowadays it might be Entrepreneurship because people think IT is "getting taken over by AI" but that's not completely true.)

AET IT - This pathway is also pretty good, as good as AET Engineering. You also get to take either AP CSA or AP CS Principles, I forgot which one, but you can find out by searching up the curriculum. I didn't know many people in this pathway so don't know much about it.

AET Entrepreneurship - This pathway not so good cause you dont get a research project, one of the main stuff of acl, and it does not come close to the intellectual rigor of AOS and the other AET pathways. And you have to take 2 years of another pathway without the research project. But on the plus side, you can take a DE, you have more time to make your own extracurriculars, and have a pitch, but still, its not as good as the other pathways unless you actually want to go into the entrepreneurship/economics field, but a LOT of people in this pathway wanted to be doctors or engineers or something, and their curriculums just didn't align.

AET colleges: UVA, Vtech, W&M, UMD, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, GMU and MIT

If you have more questions, ask them here! I'll add more about Advanced AET and MATA later. Didn't know what flair to add, so just added "Building."