Hi, I’m going into my senior year of high school and had some questions about school schedules and credits involving AP credit. For example I scored a 3 on the AP Physics 1 test this year and when I looked at Madison’s credits offered it said, “3 credits, physics electives.” I was wondering what class or classes these credits would go towards. Would it help with physics 103. Again, physics is just an example. How does the credit and class scheduling work At Madison?
Your score of 3 only gives you 3 elective credits and you did not test out of any UW-Madison physics classes. Elective credits help you in that they count toward the 120 needed for graduation and count toward class standing for assigned online registration times in future semesters.
I know part of the answer to your question.
No this will not help you with physics 103. If you are in a major that requires this or an equivalent course, you will need to take the course at UW. Any AP courses that give you only elective credit do not fulfill any specific course requirements.
What I do not know, and my son ‘forgot’ to ask at SOAR this month, is whether the AP elective credits might satisfy some breadth requirements in gen eds. Eg, either AP English satisfies Comm A requirement with a 4/5, but do the composition and lit elective credits that one receives for AP English count towards the humanities breadth requirement? Or do juju928’s physics electives count toward the physical sciences requirement? This is not a relevent question for him if he is majoring in some science, as in that case he would naturally take many more science classes than he needs for breadth, but anyway, it is a good question and you cannot see from looking at the UW course schedule as there are no classes labelled ‘electives’ listed, so you can’t check to to see if they have the required P designation for physical science, or H/L/X/Z for humanities, etc.
I suspect the answer is no, but I was not able to get the answer by phoning 2 years ago, though admittedly I gave up after only 2 phone calls. I got the feeling they were not interested in answering my question since I was not a student caller. Now if my son cares to know the answer, he can ask his advisor himself. But since he is starting with an eye to a major that has an exemption from much of the L&S gen eds (AMEP) he doesn’t care, yet.
One way the elective credit will for sure help is in speeding your progress up the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior ladder, so that you get better scheduling priority sooner, very useful. And you get credits towards the required number to graduate, 125 or whatever your major specifies, if you need that in the end.
Many Wisconsin community college classes transfer automatically as credit for specific UW-Madison classes, and are no harder, possibly easier, than similar AP classes. You can enroll in MATC classes during the summer or school year for about $500 per 3 credit class and many classes have online sections. In case you are looking at UMN-TC, they also have an extensive list of WI community college classes that transfer automatically. At both schools credits transfer, but not grades. It is more beneficial, from a credit-counting perspective, to take a study hall in your HS schedule and enroll in an MATC history class, than it is to take APUSH or Euro which only get elective credit at UW even with a 5. This is admittedly a narrow perspective, but it is something to consider. As the college bill payer, it is of interest to me to see a 4-year graduation date. A community college class buffer is a cheap easy way to ensure that.
You can also continue this on the side once you are enrolled in college. If you are a science/math type who finds history essays no less daunting than the labors of Hercules, you can ease the burden by taking these classes cheaply during the summer when you can devote more time to them, and when the grade won’t hurt your GPA. Vice versa for humanities types for science/math requirements.
It is a wonderful thing to come to college and sample the interesting courses that are offered, but is is also very nice to have a cushion so that you needn’t be worrying eg about how to fit an ethnic studies requirement into your schedule so you can graduate on time. This has become more important in recent years as course offferings have shrunk and class sizes have risen with the lean budgets, making scheduling ever more difficult.
The community college class advice fails if you are also looking at better private schools. They tend to value AP classes more highly than CC classes in admissions decisions. Though they usually offer very limited credit for the AP classes.
Ok, I just noticed from scanning your other posts that you are not a WI resident. Nevermind the CC advice.