Hi! I’m currently a junior attending high school and I’ve had some questions regarding how exactly AP credits work. So throughout high school, I’ve been taking a lot of AP classes. Like A LOT. Sophmore year I took AP Statistics and AP U.S History. This year, I am taking AP Government, AP Psychology, AP Spanish, AP Environmental Science, and AP Chemistry. Senior year, I plan on taking AP European History, AP Physics, AP Biology, AP Calculus BC, AP English Lit, AP Microeconomics, and AP Macroeconomics. So, assuming I pass all my tests, I should graduate with a total of 14 AP credits. What I need to know is how many credit hours can I get in college. I know each college has different hours rewarded for certain scores but is there a limit to how many hours I can get? I am thinking about going to Case Western Reserve University and looking through the credit hours given for AP classes, I came up with a total of 53 hours I could be rewarded. So will I get 53 hours cut off from my required credit hours or what? Thanks before hand.
CWRU appears to require 120 credits to graduate. However, 53 credits of AP credit probably won’t let you graduate after taking 67 credits, due to various other requirements, including subject requirements for your major and general education that may require course work not covered by your AP credit. Since AP credit is generally considered to be equivalent to frosh-level introductory courses at schools that give you advanced placement for it, you may find that much of your AP credit is not useful for subject requirements or advanced placement in subjects that you are not interested in taking in college.
Some colleges have a limit of how many credits you can transfer in. CWRU does not if I remember correctly (almost went there myself), at least not from AP; the college I attend does. CWRU does have a 38 credit transfer cap after you matriculate but it is unclear whether credits earned in high school from exams apply to that; you would have to ask the school. You will still need to meet all graduation requirements, but the AP credits will apply towards them.
You need to not only check with the particular college but also the department. Thankful we investigated this early for D16. The school she plans to attend states that they allow unlimited number of AP credits but for her major, her department states that she can only apply 32 AP/CLEP/Advance Standing credit toward her degree. The depart will accept up to 64 credits from a CC. She is well over 32 credits so she is taking as many DE classes as possible this year.
It might help you graduate sooner but having xx number of credits does not mean you can start as sophomore or junior. Many courses are sequential and your AP credits will likely apply more to your gen ed courses than your core courses in you major. What it may do is allow you take fewer hours freeing up time for minors, other interests, research, study abroad etc.
Try asking your admissions counselor about this…they can get the info:
My child went to Georgia Tech. Took 14 AP exams, all scores were 5. Got credit for all but one class (statistics) and came in as a junior with 62 hours already done! Congrats! You hard work will pay off!
Other major advantages…while all courses will not necessarily translate to a particular degree, the total credit is most often used for ‘class’ standing. At most schools, registration goes Senior down to Freshman. So your class can make a difference on when you register…which means that you are more likely to get the classes you want/need when you want/need them. I know many people who have had to take extra semesters of school because the right class was not open when they registered.
You could also apply some of those credits toward a minor.
S1 brought 55 credits in from AP tests. It saved in real terms about 40 credits worth of coursework…and the tuition.
It depends, look at the school’s AP policy and see how many credits are awarded. Some subjects like physics, chem, calcAB you might be able to skip intro classes for a particular major. Econ, history, psychology might count for elective classes. Lit should count for a freshman comp class.
My D can get 6 credits for AP lit, 3 for AP US, 4 for AP Calc and 6 for AP micro and macro at her school as a prepharmacy major, it just depends on school and major.
My children took a lot of AP classes. The credit hours received allowed my daughter to travel abroad and not have to worry about taking a light load that semester. It also allowed her to get incredibly involved in her ECs. She has a great resume.
My son may be interested in sitting for the CPA exam and 150 hrs are needed. With his AP credits he can still graduate in 4 years and also do a study abroad semester.
The real question is how many USEFUL AP credits you can get. Obviously, that depends on the college you are going to matriculate. Nevertheless, having too many useless AP credits may cost you more instead of saving money and may not get you graduate any faster. My D only took 6 AP classes and got 5 from all of them. She only got a total of 33 AP credits from them but has a small surplus in the GS/Humanity/elective credits already. I am glad that she did not take AP Gov and AP Econ as that would be a total waste of time and money. She did get many useful credits from Calc BC, Chem, and Phys though and skipped 4 required courses. The only additional useful AP is Biology that she should have taken it. At her school, upperclassmen tuition rate starts once the student has 55 credits including AP/IB/DE/transfer. So it is better to drop those useless AP credits, which has to be done by the end of first semester in freshman year. She is now paying upperclassmen tuition as a sophomore but she has 70 credits already and there are only 2 useless credits. We strategically kept her credits below 55 before the last semester. That saved us >$2000.
Not only there may be a cap in transferred credits, many schools also has a minimal in school credit requirement (i.e. must be taken in that college), plus the program/major/minor credit requirements. In addition, you may need to fulfill some electives at 300 level or above that cannot be covered by AP credits. So at the end, you may still need to take a minimum of 70-80+ credits in college disregarding the number of AP credits you get.
Some schools are a bit more sophisticated in terms of registration priority. For example, they may have a distinction between class standing (based on credits earned) and class level (based on semesters completed). They may also reserve or prioritize space in introductory level courses for frosh/soph students, on the assumption that they are more likely to be taking prerequisites for their majors, rather than junior/senior students looking for out-of-major electives. Junior/senior students would, of course, be given priority for junior/senior level courses in their declared majors (but not necessarily for other courses).
Higher class standing (based on credits earned) may be disadvantageous in some ways at some schools. For example, some schools charge higher tuition to junior/senior students, so bringing in extra AP credit that does not help the student in terms of subject credit, advanced placement, or early graduation could merely cost the student the higher tuition in an earlier semester than s/he would otherwise have to pay it.
@billcsho, like I said it depends on school and major. My D knew she wanted to be prepharmacy and what prerequisites she was going to have to take so senior year she took AP calc and AP Econ. She paid for only one exam fee for both micro and macro and now has the prerequisite economics class covered plus elective credit, and she does not have to take Calc 1.
Since she has to take Chem 1 and Bio 1 plus labs and is also taking a 5 credit foreign language it kept her schedule from being too overwhelming.
But she also took some AP classes that she won’t use for college credit, AP Euro for example, because she was interested in it.
Premeds also have to see if medical schools will accept AP credit for Bio, Chem, Physics, etc or require them to take the class in college. But even if they do, having taken the AP class in high school should make it easier to get a good GPA in these classes in college.
we made a spreadsheet for each college DD is interested in; we listed which AP classes would be accepted and what scores are needed, and if the credits come over as grades or just credit. ALL 6 Colleges were different.
in her intended major, classes are built upon each other, so she really cant graduate early even coming in with 20-30 credit hours. The AP credits will fill in some of the elective slots, leaving her room to not have as full of a schedule, to take personal electives, develop ECs and perhaps pay a little less tuition. but they wont help her graduate early.
shes taking some AP classes at high school that she is truly interested in; so its OK that some of the colleges (private) might not count some of them for credit. (eg: AP studio art; AP Art History & AP Music theory)
My youngest has 46 hours, but only 16 which he can actually use. Here are some of the issues he has come across, in case this info is helpful to you:
Many credits don’t fit in the degree plan. Many others fit, but the university “strongly discourages” accepting them because, for example, accepting AP calculus hours means STEM students are placed in the 3rd calculus course, and the passing rate is very low in that scenario. Same with physics, chem, etc. Spanish is also discouraged until later - they told him to not accept his hours of Spanish because if he later wants to take Spanish, he would have to start off in Spanish 3 and would not have the option of taking a lower level Spanish for review. So most of the 16 hours are in required English, History and Government, and elective humanities courses. Unfortunately, at his university and in his major, those would likely be GPA boosters. But he is going to accept them anyway. He can always choose to take a fun extra course he is interested in if he needs a GPA booster. His university has plenty of those.
Note that even the college offer AP credits for certain subject, it may not be useful for the student for a particular major In that case, it means nothing more than a higher number in total credits and potentially higher tuition rate. That is what you need to watch out for.
Depends depends depends. Some high scholarships come with certain requirements, so you may get college credit for your AP English or AP lab sciences but still be required to take related (higher level) classes at the college level. Honors colleges have some requirements that may not allow AP classes to fulfill.
There are also AP credits that require the completion of the next level class with a certain grade before it would be fully granted retroactively. So it is indeed very complicated.
Some schools do not require the student to decide placement based on AP scores until s/he takes the relevant course, and allow the student to take the course the repeats or overlaps the AP credit (but then the AP credit will be deleted).
In terms of whether to use AP credit to place into a more advanced course, the way to make a more informed placement decision is to try the college’s old final exams for the course(s) to be skipped. For example, a student with AP calculus AB credit can try the college’s old final exams for calculus 1 to see if s/he is ready to take calculus 2. A student with AP calculus BC credit can try the college’s old final exams for calculus 1 and 2 to see if s/he is ready to take calculus 3 and differential equations. Foreign language departments may have their own placement procedures that do not necessarily depend on AP credit.
I’m starting to look at some Texas schools for S18 and they have some very unusual rules about too much credit!
A rebate for graduating with no more than 3 credits over your required credits:
https://www.utdallas.edu/registrar/legislative-policies/texas-tuition-rebate/
Charging out of state tuition to in state students that have too much credit:
https://catalog.utdallas.edu/2014/undergraduate/tuition-and-financial-aid/excessive-hours