Hello everyone, I am a rising 11th grader who is homeschooled and takes most of my classes through dual enrollment at a community college. I live in Florida and am thinking of applying to out of state schools like Williams College, Amherst College, Swarthmore, MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. My question is would it be better if I took AP Exams in the subjects of the classes that I took in dual enrollment? Would that make my application look better/help transfer the credit?
Hello fellow homeschooler in Florida - my son just graduated!
Though he did lots of dual enrollment, DS did not take any AP exams - mainly because we couldn’t figure out (in time) where he could take them. The College Board doesn’t make it easy. Unless you are in FLVS (who will help you coordinate AP exams) you or your parent/guardian will have to find a school willing to administer the exam. Get started on that later this fall.
IMHO the benefit of AP exams are worth it, especially if you are applying to elite privates. Sometimes they will take AP credit where they won’t take DE credits. I’m not sure MIT accepts much AP credit though, especially in the math and science courses (double-check me on this). It might help you to look at homeschool admission requirements for the target schools.
If you’re taking the AP exam for material covered in a DE course, I would make sure to get reliable AP study materials to continue with self-study.
Our son did not end up needing AP credits - he is attending UF where his DE credits helped ‘validate’ his homeschooling.
And speaking of UF - apply! Make sure you look at the homeschooling requirements; UF has some extra ‘hoops’ to jump through if you homeschooled. But they have been wonderful to DS! Sandy Hayden is the point person in admissions for homeschool students.
Best wishes to you in your final two years. Junior year is THE year to work on all this. Great job getting focused.
If you’re taking courses at a college for credit, why would you pay to take AP exams too? Homeschoolers in our area generally just take the college courses and transfer the credits to whatever college they enroll in after high school.
@austinmshauri - I’m thinking mainly for credits once admitted?
Let me caveat - I would not put too much time into AP exams, but if you feel solid on the material and fairly sure you will do well, is there any downside other than the time/expense? It could save you some tuition $$$ down the road at a private school that might not take your DE credits (?).
ETA: my thoughts mainly pertain to a student who is thinking he/she wants an elite private school. If you go to a state school in Florida it’s overkill probably.
@SouthFloridaMom9, If a student has a college transcript, why would they also need an AP exam to get college credit? @ucbalumnus will probably know for sure, but in my opinion a college will give more weight to a college grade than the results of an AP test.
None of the schools you listed will give you college credit for AP exams. At most, they will affect whether you are placed out of some intro classes.
However, good AP scores will help demonstrate that you are academically prepared for those colleges. I think that probably is pretty important for a homeschooler.
DE credits are tricky if you want to go to school OOS. It’s up to the school which if any credits they will accept. With AP you usually can find the information about what they accept right on the schools website. I personally wouldn’t recommend taking the AP exam. But I do understand OP question about it.
@austinmshauri - ha ha, it was ucbalumnus who got me thinking about this question.
For instance, this came up for us when we were looking at Vanderbilt.
According to Vandy,
http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/faq/freshman
But they do give credit for AP (at least for Calculus): http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/academics/ap-ib.php
So . . . it’s conceivable a student could take a DE class or self-study a subject and sit for the AP exam. Now we were not this motivated, and for us it would have been overkill. But I could see a student doing it. I remember a couple of privates where APs would have been advantageous.
Again, I wouldn’t put too much time into it unless we were really aiming at a certain school and we had closely reviewed their admissions requirements and credit transfer policy. In our family we weren’t that forward thinking. And I don’t think most homeschoolers need to be.
I see. I have heard that some colleges won’t take credits that were used for high school graduation credits. I’d assumed that meant that they wouldn’t take AP tests either. Do you think CLEP credits would be taken if the AP wasn’t, @SouthFloridaMom9? I think they’re placement tests that give credit for knowledge, so they wouldn’t be tied to high school credits.
I don’t know the answer about CLEP @austinmshauri - that’s a good question. DS has only taken one CLEP. At UF he had to have that done by December of first year. But otherwise you get the credit if you exceed the minimum score. Not sure how privates feel about CLEP.
I know of other homeschoolers who were aiming for highly selective schools who took the corresponding AP exam for the classes they took at the local community college. That approach worked really well for them. The reason for taking the AP exam was that admission officers may not know much about the rigor of the community college class, but they do understand what a 5 on the AP exam represents.
I don’t know about the AP policies at the other schools on the OP’s list, but MIT does award credit for some AP’s. You can also take placement tests during freshman orientation to test out of other introductory classes.
Yes, but that’s not “credit.” That’s just placement. OP seems to be asking about receiving actual credits so that he can graduate early. I know someone who is going to the University of Oregon who got so many credits from her AP classes, she is going to graduate in two years (plus one summer session).
Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford will not give that kind of credit. They expect students to take a full 4 year set of courses at their school to graduate, no matter how many AP exams they took in high school.
I don’t have any personal experience with any of the schools on the OP’s list besides MIT. It is possible to graduate early from MIT using AP credits and placing out via placement exams taken during freshman orientation. I have also known students who have enough credits through AP exams and placement tests going in that they could graduate from MIT in 4 years with a Masters.
My oldest son took corresponding AP exams to go along with the following college courses: Calc I-II (Took Calc B/C exam), college stats, Physics B, mechanics and E&M. He also took the AP lit exam, but no corresponding college course. He recently graduated from MIT.
Though it is apparently very rare, MIT allowed my son to transfer in Calc III, Linear Algebra Dif Equations and two semesters of Arabic from the local community college. This is because it was highly documented by us.
The only AP credit he got was for Calc B/C. You get no credit for physics AP exams. As the above poster pointed out, you just get to place out of mechanics if you get 5s on both the C physics exam. (My son got a 5 on mechanics, but a 4 on E&M, so had to retake mechanics…but the cool thing about MIT is that it has three levels of mechanics)
Back when he took the AP Lit, a 5 got you out of taking the freshman essay evaluation. Not sure if they give you credit.
I can say that having the transfer units was a huge blessing. My son didn’t want or need to graduate early, but it allowed him to take 3 courses a semester for a couple of semesters.
I actually do recommend taking the corresponding AP exam along with the college class since you don’t know where you’ll actually end up, and you don’t know what the school’s policy will be by that time.
My middle son got zero credit for his community college classes at Penn, and had no AP scores worth reporting. The only credit they have taken (with preapproval) is a 4 year university course.
D2 will be taking dual enrollment courses. Our primary reason for this is to show colleges that she is ready for challenging courses and help with admittance. If she is able to transfer these credits to her undergrad, that would be a bonus. We don’t plan on having her take APs or SAT IIs. (She will be taking the ACT.) This is the same plan we used for D1, who is a rising college sophomore; she was able to skip/replace a couple courses to her undergrad, but, again, that was not the reason she took them.
Are the undergrad courses generally enough proof that a student is college material? They were for the colleges on D2’s list. She almost put a college on her list that stated it needed at least 2 SAT II tests, but, when asked, they said the dual
enrollment courses would work. Is that typical in your experience and from what others you know have encountered?
Part of the reason we homeschooled was to de-emphasize testing, which was a philosophical decision, not one based on my children’s testing abilities. I’d like to avoid these tests if possible, but, if it can hurt D2’s chances of admittance, she can take them.
The key for my oldest son is that he relatively little studying for the AP exams (ok, no studying the first time around for four of the tests, but on the retake of two of them, he did watch some Thinkwell courses). My middle son tried the same strategy with bad results. 
CC courses sometimes line up with AP tests, but often don’t!
While we are self-directed homeschoolers, I’m not opposed to testing, particularly for my children that don’t mind it, and in fact enjoy it. My youngest son, almost 12, has done zero testing, and likely won’t do much, if any, testing. My middle son didn’t take his first standardized test until sophomore year (the SAT).
I agree that it’s a balance; if they are shooting for highly selective schools, then yes, they will probably need to have some strong test scores.
“Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford will not give that kind of credit. They expect students to take a full 4 year set of courses at their school to graduate, no matter how many AP exams they took in high school.” This is not universally true. eg. https://college.harvard.edu/academics/planning-your-degree/advanced-standing “Advanced Standing is an option that allows you to graduate in three years, or complete the AB/AM or AB/SM program in four years. To qualify, you must meet scoring requirements in one of three exam options: Score a 5 on a minimum of four College Board Advanced Placement tests…” Elite private schools tend not to accept credits from other colleges. For these reasons it may be well worth your while to take some AP exams.
OP, please check the AP policies of the schools you plan to apply to rather than listening to someone on the internet who doesn’t know the policies.
Well of course.
Amherst doesn’t take any AP credits though one can get into a more advanced course with them sometimes.
Same with Williams and I thought that it was true with most schools of that caliber. When I attended UChicago, it did not accept AP credits either.
However, I may have spoken too broadly. It appears that some very elite colleges do accept AP credits.