Hello! I’m hoping to transfer to UCLA in Fall 2019 as a psych major, and one of the major requirements is a biology class. However, the assist page for psych (currently effective for 16-17) says that an AP score of 3 or higher can take the place of this requirement, but the UCLA ap credit page on their website says that this score would be given unassigned units. I’ve been reading other posts that say unassigned credits don’t let you skip any classes, which worries me because that means I won’t have completed my major reqs if I don’t somehow squeeze biology into my spring semester schedule! I guess what I’m asking is, would UCLA admissions honor the information available to students on assist or would they count not taking a bio class as not fulfilling this major requirement?
Unassigned AP credit is not considered equivalent to a specific UCLA course, though (at least in theory) a department can accept it in place of a requirement for the major.
However, it seems difficult to find any mention of AP credit on UCLA psychology pages like https://www.psych.ucla.edu/undergraduate/undergraduate-student-services/majors-minors/psychology-major-for-transfer-students .
Contact the department directly to see if the notations about AP credit in the ASSIST pages are still valid.
At Berkeley, Psych will let you skip the first Biology course with a 4 or 5 from what I understand. I would imagine that UCLA has somewhat similar policies, but hard to say.
Yes, getting null credits is totally different than being able to get credit for a course in a specific department, as all departments have their own rules regarding AP credits fulfilling a class requirement. For example, my kid had a 4 on his AP Bio, which he got credits for, but Data Science would not allow that credit for his lower division domain emphasis class for Computational Biology (needs to take the first class, or take it at CCC). So it becomes pretty much a useless credit, though the credits do go towards your number to graduate if you wind up never taking the class again. If you do take the class again, then the AP credits gets overridden I would think, but if it is unassigned, not sure if it will get overridden.
And re: unassigned AP credits going towards the 180 (or 120 at semester schools) towards graduation, I’m not sure about that 100% either.
Look here: https://www.psych.ucla.edu/undergraduate/undergraduate-student-services/admissions-transfer-credit
3-5 on the Biology AP will count as LS 15 for Psychology and Cognitive Science
I suspect the unassigned designation means it varies by department or major. Some will give credit, some will not. You need to email the psych department, or more likely, general admissions to verify the 3 score.
AP credit does count toward graduation, unless it is canceled by taking a college course covering similar material or a superset of that material. http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/exam-credit/ap-credits/index.html