<p>Over the course of my high school career I will have taken 6 AP Credits. Alabama has a very generous placement policy, so if I choose to utilize them, I will come into college with 24 credit hours, just shy of being a sophomore. These courses are in the humanities, my best area of study, so I feel fairly comfortable with them. Would those here recommend using the credits in college and skipping certain courses or not placing out of classes? </p>
<p>I ask this partly for myself and partly because I know a lot of other students have the same question.</p>
<p>My older son used every one of his 65 credits that he got from his AP exams. If you are confident in what you know, then use them. Those credits become very important during the spring semester of your freshman year, as you can have an early registration time (even with honors college priority registration) and an earlier time to begin to select your housing. My youngest son, who is a rising HS senior, already has 34 credits if he attends Alabama. He plans to use them and anything else he earns as a senior.</p>
<p>The only one my daughter didn’t use was chemistry, because we both knew she didn’t grasp it well enough to move into the next level of chemistry with any comfort level. Looking back, I’m not even sure why she took the course in high school – science is not an area of comfort for her and she would have been better served taking AP Psychology and using those credits to move further along into her major courses. Lesson learned. If your AP credits are in areas where you feel confident, use them all and enjoy the chance to get into some of your upper level courses a bit earlier (not to mention the benefits of early registration already mentioned!)</p>
<p>What if you probably didn’t get a full grasp on the concept (I mean who really ever understands physics…) but you’re just using it to satisfy a gen ed requirement for a totally unrelated major ?</p>
<p>Satisfying gen ed requirements is a very good reason to take credit for an AP pass. If you never want to see X subject again take the credit and move on.</p>
<p>My kids used their AP credits, and had some extras (history). They had very good AP teachers and scored highly on all the exams so they felt comfortable skipping. Their AP science classes were “double periods” ( the last 2 periods of the day).</p>