I guess I’m naive, but never heard of a “lab” for Psych 1. Which college?
^^^^@bluebayou I think that it is pretty typical now for psych 1 classes to have a lab component. That was the case at both of my kid’s colleges (Fordham and Lafayette). As I noted in a prior post my D was a psych major and at least 5 of her psych classes had a lab component. Psych seems to be viewed more and more as a science. Way back when I was in college my psych 1 class had no lab.
And to the OP…I don’t think the college was misleading at all – it gave credit for exactly what the AP class was – a psychology class with no lab component.
I have never heard of a college not giving AP credit based on what they found out about the H.S. class later. Credit is generally given based on the exam score and the schools are very specific about whether you get credit for a specific class or just general credit and if it satisfies a GE requirement. For example my daughter is looking at Cal Poly SLO and got a 4 on AP Art History and it says:
Art History (score 3, 4, 5) ART 112 (4) and elective units (5). ART Majors only: ART 112 (4), art elective units (2) and general elective units (3) CPSU GE AREA C3
That’s pretty specific.
@VickiSoCal The college DID give the OPs son credit for a class, it just didn’t give him credit for a lab class since the AP class had no lab component.
It would help if the OP named the college so that everyone here could go to the college’s web site and see for himself/herself whether the college’s web site is consistent and not misleading.
@happy1 the OP says they gave the kid credit for a different class than is listed on its website because they found out later his high school didn’t do a lab. I am skeptical that they list a specific class on their website and then don’t give credit for that specific class.
Don’t most schools list exactly what college class you’re getting credit for through the AP test? If so, wouldn’t the student be able to use that information and cross-reference it with the list of required/elective subjects to be taken and know whether or not (s)he needed the lab?
Must still be a college-specific thing. I randomly looked up 3 Unis who are generally considered top 10 in Psych and none of the three had a Lab component for the equivalent of Psych 1.
Again pardon my being a new parent and student to college. Our expectation was for the college to follow their statements just as Vicki above says. It is specific. You pass the AP testing you get credit for this distributive. They do not because ap psych testing has no lab. He can’t just take the lab.I I didn’t say they denied him due to anything related to high school. And no I am not going to name the college for my apparent “misinterpretation” of their guidelines. I can read them and I’ve stated what they say and it is misleading. You pass the AP class you get credit for the distributive. The distributive is AP psych class and lab. Yes the psych class number is stated, but it’s no longer the same number anymore and site isn’t updated. I just wondered if people were denied credit before for this reason. He will discuss with them that the statements are not clear and unclear multiple times. I understand colleges can make their own rules. But I also expect them to follow theirs.
You do not get credit for AP classes. Your get credit for a specific score on the AP test. Some students do not even take the class.
They changed the class number to include the lab (and it sounds like they no longer offer psych without the lab, so the old course number is no longer used for credit).
He’s getting credit for the work he did. He’s not getting credit for a class with a required lab, so he has to take a class with a lab as that is a different requirement.
OP- why not look at this as an opportunity- there are a lot of skills a student learns in any type of lab class. On the one hand- your son’s schedule is already crowded and he’s going to have to skip an elective. On the other hand- he will learn a lot if he approaches the class he needs to take with the right attitude. He can either walk in thinking 'what a waste of time" or “Now I get to learn new things”. His choice.
The school is not punishing him. The school is merely making sure that once they give him a degree, they are signaling a minimum level of competency across a number of different domains-- whether it’s to grad schools, future employers, etc. Otherwise- you could just walk in to any college, take what you want, and after a certain number of credits, decide that you have earned a degree.
Of what value would that be?
Every college (in conjunction with the accrediting bodies it works with) decides what represents “college level work”. Do you want your mom getting her chemo from a nurse who doesn’t know the difference between a kilo and a miligram? Do you want to drive over a bridge designed by engineers who took a HS level Calc class and they decided they were “done” with calculus?
Labs don’t represent content in the way that a lecture class does- they teach skills, approach, structuring a research study or problem and getting valid and replicable results by someone else, understanding what outliers can do to your hypothesis and when you can ignore them or when they represent a big problem in your methodology or a sign that your premise is incorrect.
Why do you not want your son to learn this stuff in college???
Recently on CC, someone posted that her son took two AP history classes will receive credit for them, and only needs 2 more classes in to get a minor in history. My first thought was that if an employer or grad school knew that, that minor wouldn’t be worth much or very impressive. I took 4 history classes in college. I wasn’t a history major or minor.
The hardest class my daughter will take will be her basic, low level math class. I don’t have an issue with the university requiring the core classes as when it issues a diploma it is telling the world the ‘this student has a broad education.’ I think an employer has a right to know that a U of XXX grad know a minimum amount of math, science, humanities, thought processes, how to write a report, how to speak in public even if she is an art major, or theater major, or astronomy major. Still should know how to add and subtract, how to use a library, how to speak in front of peers.
My niece had to take calculus to get an honors diploma. Almost killed her.
In practice, colleges’ general education requirements vary so much that, unless someone is familiar with those of a particular college, one cannot assume that a college graduate has any particular amount or type of general education.
For example, would the typical person hiring college graduates know what college requires more general education than others? E.g. among Brown, MIT, Evergreen State, Humboldt State?
I’ve hired hundreds of MIT students during my recruiting career and can tell you three things about these students:
1- Even if they majored in poli sci or urban planning, they’ve taken the same classes in materials science, physics, bio and math as their fellow students majoring in one of the physical sciences.
2- Even if they get to MIT and all they want to do is computer science, they’ve taken history and/or literature and/or a writing intensive program and have been pushed out of their comfort level intellectually.
3- Nobody gets through MIT relying on a bunch of HS AP classes to get them through faster, gets an MIT degree with only 2 years worth of actual college classes but a bunch of AP’s/dual enrollment/online/etc.
I don’t recruit at Humboldt or Evergreen so cannot compare.
Re #34
You know about MIT general education. But it seems that some on these forums do not, such as those assuming that MIT students will take fewer HASS courses than Yale students in an MIT versus Yale thread.
What if he doesn’t use the course credit from AP Psych, then couldn’t he take another elective?
And what is the major, doesn’t he have to take any science class with lab?
When my son certainly didn’t make decisions about which APs to take based on what colleges might or might not give credit for, but once he was making decisions he did look to see what the AP policies were at each college and tried to get an idea of what his schedule might look like based on his prospective major and their policies. It can be pretty confusing. I looked to see what the two colleges my kids applied to had on their websites.
Carnegie Mellon says a 4 or 5 will give you credit for Psychology 85-011 which as far as I can tell is a course that doesn’t exist. The Intro to Psych course is 85-102. The department of Computer Science additionally says that it conts as a Category 1 elective (Category 1: Cognition, Choice and Behavior). CMU has Psychology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Tufts says this on their Psychology major page “Students who score 4 or 5 on the Psychology AP test place into two-digit psychology courses and may skip Psychology 1. Please note that the Psychology AP does not translate into a University credit (that is, it does not count toward the 34 credits needed to graduate). A score of 5 completely substitutes for Psychology 1 within the major, meaning that students need only 10 courses to complete the major. Students with an AP score of 4 need 11 courses for the major, and must take an additional psychology course in lieu of Psychology 1. Successful completion of Child Development 1 is treated the same way as an AP score of 4.”
If you go to the AP credit page at Tufts - they make it clear they simple don’t grant credits at all for AP Psychology.
I’d say take home lesson here for other readers of this page - AP Psych is often not a science credit, and it may not be a credit at all. If you are looking to avoid science in college you may need to take a more rigorous science AP.