<p>Criteria:
-MUST allow to skip a year (do undergrad in 3 years)
-MUST give credit AND placement out of more than 3 classes
-Top 25 (USNWR)
-Most number of AP classes taken
-Lower scores (i.e. not 5) on certain exams taken</p>
<p>The last criteria is not too important as I'm aiming for a 5 on all my exams. Thank you. Please no BS about how USNWR sucks. I'm not making my decision based off of the AP credit policy.</p>
<p>I don't know about other colleges in the Top 25, but UCs generally accept a lot of credit, and Cal is in that Top 25</p>
<p>yeah it would probably have to be one of the public schools ie berkeley uva or michigan, as most private schools are likely going to have stringent requirements for AP credit, and many are currently modifying their rules to be even stricter (you now have to have a 5 in many subjects to get credit)</p>
<p>also, i believe, though i could be mistaken, that any religious school (notre dame, georgetown, duke in this case) is going to make you take religious classes every year, so graduating in three years becomes more difficult because it's a progression.</p>
<p>yeah UCLA and UC Berkley are great for these requirements. I know that Berkley is the top 25, and I'm pretty sure UCLA is as well but if not it is pretty dang close. Two of my cousins went there (one went to UCLA and the other is attending Berkley) and they both had taken enough AP courses to have a "sophmore" standing their first year and to be able to graduate in three years</p>
<p>EDIT: just checked and UCLA happens to be #26 on US news</p>
<p>Michigan gives some credits to students scoring 4s and 5s in APs. In the case of Chemistry (for LSA only as the CoE requires at least a 4)) and Biology, some students even get partial credit for scoring a 3 on the AP.</p>
<p>If you do well on multiple APs (at least 5 different subject tests), Michigan can grant you 20+ credits and it is definitely possible to graduate in 3 years.</p>
<p>UCLA and berkeley, they give out credit for 3s</p>
<p>
[quote]
also, i believe, though i could be mistaken, that any religious school (notre dame, georgetown, duke in this case) is going to make you take religious classes every year, so graduating in three years becomes more difficult because it's a progression.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't speak for the Catholic schools, but most of the major protestant schools don't require that much religion these days. A quick glance at Duke shows a requirement for 2 courses in "Civilization", a category which includes history, philosophy and selected courses from different departments as well as religion.</p>
<p>By comparison, even at my more restrictive religious undergraduate school we only had to take 6 hours of religion - comparative religion as it turned out. I certainly know schools that require as much as 24 hours of Bible and have mandatory daily chapel (you have assigned seating and they take photographs to check attendance), but it's not hard to tell which schools have those sorts of requirements. Look.</p>
<p>On the main question, graduating in 3 years, in my experience, even if you get all the AP credit you want, you still have the issue related to class scheduling and availability in the rotation, particularly in regard to prereqs. It's not uncommon for a critical class to simply not be available when you need it (you need to take a class in the spring that's only offered in the fall or one only offered every other year) or for there to be other conflicts. The problem varies by school and major, so it's not a bad idea to look at the prereq and old schedules and plot out some scenarios for schools you're serious about. Don't forget to work out a worse case scenario.</p>
<p>BTW, it is possible. I graduated in 3 years and, at least technically, so will my son. I don't know that I advise it for everyone, but if it's something that's important to you, do a little planning to make sure there are no surprises in the system before you commit to a school.</p>
<p>Oh, and if you suddenly decide to change majors, all bets are off. ;)</p>
<p>By the way, check out course catalogs for all the colleges you're thinking about. I was actually really surprised when I was looking through Princeton's, for example, and I saw that it actually is possible to graduate in three.</p>