Best Choice for College Credit?

What’s preferred- passing AP test scores, SAT subject test, or credit through a community college/otherwise online university? I don’t know exactly where I’m going yet, but I’m open to public or private. What looks best in admission’s eyes, and which will have the highest chance for me to get out of some expensive college classes?

AP has the highest chance. Community college credit works very often though also. AP and CC credit are both very good. Very few use subject tests for placement

Subject tests may be used to place out of remedial math or English, or possibly beginner level foreign language.

AP scores are more widely recognized than transfer credit from any given community college, but state universities in the same state as a community college may have better transfer credit recognition for the community college courses than AP scores (the community colleges may have designed their courses to be better matches to the state universities’ courses than the AP courses are). Obviously, material more advanced than AP level can only be earned in college courses.

So a lot of the answer depends on which universities and which courses.

@ucbalumnus Just a quick question. So do many universities consider community college classes to be equivalent in to AP Classes. I am taking Calclulus at a community college. IS this basically seen that I am taking AP calc?

The usual approximation for calculus is that:

AP calculus AB approximates college calculus 1
AP calculus BC approximates college calculus 1 and 2

This assumes that you are not taking a lesser version of college calculus, like “calculus for business majors”, or a harder honors version of college calculus.

However, look at the AP and transfer credit web pages of the universities you are aiming to attend.