u/Imaginary_Beyond_196

I’m currently a junior and I’ve taken 9 AP-level classes so far.
Last year I took 3 AP exams and got:
AP Human Geo: 3

AP Seminar: 3

AP Comparative Gov: 2

Honestly, last year I really didn’t care much about school and wasn’t putting in effort. This year I’ve completely changed my attitude and started taking school seriously.
At my school, a lot of AP classes are also offered through a dual enrollment program where you can earn actual college credit that transfers to many of the same places AP credit does. The classes are AP classes but you can choose whether to do the AP exam, the dual enrollment credit, or both.
Because of cost reasons (my mom lost her job recently), I decided to do the ECE/dual enrollment credit instead of paying for a bunch of AP exams. Taking both would’ve been really expensive.
The only AP exam I took this year was AP Lang because it doesn’t have the same dual enrollment option at my school. I took the exam today and honestly I feel like I did badly — probably a 3 at best.
Would it look bad to colleges if I don’t submit any AP scores at all even though I’ve taken a lot of AP/de classes? Will they assume I failed everything? Or is dual enrollment considered enough to show rigor?
I’m mainly worried because I feel like my transcript/course rigor looks much stronger than my AP scores would.

Demographics

State: New York

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Indian

Income Bracket: upper middle class

Type of School: Public

Intended Major: Business / Entrepreneurship/econ

GPA & Testing

UW GPA: ~3.4 (upward trend: 3.25 freshman → 3.3 sophomore → 3.6+ junior)

SAT: 1560

APs: 9 total ( 3 sophomore, 6 junior)

Context: Was in special education classes from elementary through middle school, pulled out up to 7x per day. Significant academic growth trajectory.

Extracurriculars

Founder & CEO — digital marketing business , $70K revenue

Create an app that allowed farmers to track compost.

Nonprofit Founder — teaches local small businesses web development and digital marketing

DECA VP — qualified and competed at ICDC, 2nd place in state

Colambia Research — co-authored/contributed to research paper on fast fashion

Sustainability Audit Internship — 1 of 20 competitively selected, $300 scholarship

Blue Ocean Entrepreneurship Competition — Top 500 nationally

Boy Scouts — nearly Eagle Scout, involved since 2nd grade

Track & Field — 3 years varsity

Essays

Common App: Writing about growing up in special education and my academic journey

Supplements: Strong "Why Northwestern" focused on entrepreneurship programs and sustainability

LORs

Two letters, both very strong (10/10 from teachers + counselor aware of full context)

Schools

ED: Northwestern

Additional Context Struggled academically my entire childhood due to learning differences and SPED placement. Taught myself to grind — studied a full year for the SAT to get 1560. Built two organizations from scratch. Looking for honest assessment — is Northwestern ED realistic or should I redirect my ED elsewhere?

And if you have any top schools that you think I have a chance to can you please tell me