<p>As I am sure many of you have seen, UW has an obscenely lax policy on accepting AP credits. 3s get you credit on any test, so my question is this: how much will these credits help me? I can easily rack up 35+ before I graduate highschool via AP Exams, but is this worth it to spend the money on tests? How will it help me at madison? If I matriculate I will be a Biomedical Engineering major headed to medical school. Is early graduation possible if I enter with huge ammounts of credit before freshman year? Thanks a lot everyone, any advice is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>AP credits can help you meet breadth requirements, especially in L&S- freeing up time for other courses. They can also satisfy prerequisites in some cases- eg calculus. Even with 5s and specific course credit you may end up repeating a course such as physics or calculus to get the best introductory courses for your major. Whether or not you can graduate early will depend on the coursework required to meet your goals and major requirements. It can be nice for a science major to not have to take social science courses or a humanities major the sciences and to be able to take more advanced literature courses earlier. Since many people change their major it may help and won't hurt to take the AP tests even if you don't think they'll help now. The other advantage for freshmen is the possibility of having sophomore status for second semester registration and being eligible for more courses and an earlier registration time.</p>
<p>I matriculated with 31 credits, hoping to graduate a year early. Although that didn't work out, I am still glad I took the tests.</p>
<p>1) It does knock off the breadth requirements. I have all my social science and humanity credits fulfilled. It has really allowed me to take classes I enjoyed.</p>
<p>2) I agree with the poster above that you may end up repeating some classes to get a foundation for your major-related classes. APs are good, but sometimes you can score well on the tests without feeling confident about the material. Or if you took the class junior year, you may need to refresh. I took AP biology my junior year and got a 5. Although I felt confident about the material at the time, today I doubt I remember much. Now I'm taking an introductory zoology class-- something my advisor said I could skip b/c of my AP score-- to better prepare for a harder physiology class. So, maybe for subjects like that, just take the class but don't spend money on the test.</p>
<p>3) On the other hand, if you do feel confident in the material, AP credits are an excellent way to get into more advanced classes. That can help if you're applying for scholarship or even when/if you have to apply to your major. I'll be applying to nursing, a very competitive major, next year. I think/hope that the fact I'm taking more challenging psychology/sociology classes for my prereqs-- instead of the intro courses my peers are-- will boost my application. It could help you too.</p>
<p>4) Another benefit is, with more credits, you'll be able to register sooner than other freshman. You won't probably see that benefit the first semester (the admissions department didn't grant me credit until end of july... after I had registered for classes at SOAR), but it definitely comes in handy later. This semester I got into all the classes I wanted at all the times I needed. Some of my other friends who registered later weren't as lucky.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>