My son has 5’s on 5 AP exams (Calculus BC, Chemistry, Physics C (both mechanics and electricity and magnetism), Computer Science A, and U.S. history) and may be taking 3 more exams (French, Statistics, and Economics macro and micro). At which schools can year earn both a BS & MS degree in 4 years if you come in with a lot of AP credit? My son will likely major in computer engineering or computer science. He is young for his grade, so we don’t want to push him to use the AP credits to graduate in 3 years. That is rare anyway – I think AP exams have morphed from a way to get college credit to a way to impress admissions officers.
Apart from the BS/MS question, which schools are good letting students place out of lower-level classes when they show through AP exam scores or other means that they have mastered the material?
You really have to check each college’s AP subject credit and placement listings and compare with the degree requirements for the major and general education.
You need to careful check course requirements and sequencing. My D is at a public flagship that accepted all her AP/DE credits but she can’t graduate any earlier because of course sequencing for her major. It can allow her to add a minor, a concentration, have a reduced course load a few semesters, and take courses she really wants instead of gen eds.
S19 entered Ga Tech from OOS with 50+ credits. This was a mix of AP and dual enrollment. He attended a regional Governor’s STEM school for his math and science classes (half day) his 11th and 12th grade years. All of the classes he took there were dual enrolled at the local CC. The dual enrollment provided more credits than AP in his case. Ga Tech will also use some SAT II test scores to place out of some classes.
He is planning to do the BS/MS program for MSE in 4 academic years. I say academic as he is not sure on how many semester he plans to intern or Co-op. After his first semester this fall he will technically be classified as a JR. Now some of the credits he transferred in will end up being empty credits as he wont be able to apply them to his major.
My DD did that…she had IB credits, plus a summer and a winter course and was done at SUNY Binghamton with a major in Math in 2.5 years. She went to Columbia and got her Masters in Secondary Math Education in 1.5 years.
I would look at 3/2 Master’s programs as another idea.
My D did it in four years in a summer at Illinois Institute of Technology (BS Archictectural engineering and ME structural engineering). Her academic scholarship covered up to five years in the co-terminal degree program if it had happened to take her longer. She could have done it in 8 semesters but she changed the ME to structural a little late in the game and it added a couple of courses. If I recall, she went in with over 50 AP credits and it took care of all her general education courses as well as the calculus (she took BC) and chemistry prerequisites . She did not have AP credit for physics.
Co-terminal BS+MS degrees are very common at Stanford, probably more so that at any other HYPSM… type college. As summarized at https://engineering.stanford.edu/admission-aid/coterminal-study-engineering , 40% of engineering students at Stanford pursue a co-terminal masters. Of that co-terminal masters group, 18% complete both degrees in 4 years or less.
I was in this group. I completed my bachelor’s + first master’s in under 4 years. When I was there, Stanford did not have an official advanced standing type designation. Instead you could receive up to 45 credits (1 year) for college/AP/IB/… classes taken while in HS, and the vast majority of students did receive some kind of college credits for HS work. This up to 45 credits can be applied to the 180 credits required for a bachelor’s or 225 for a BS+MS. Only 135 of the 180 credits for a bachelor’s must be taken at Stanford, or 180 credits of the 225 credits for a co-terminal BS+MS.
It’s also possible to finish in less than 4 years, if you had the full 45 HS credits combined with taking more than 15 credits some quarters and/or some summer quarter classes. Stanford permits 20-21 credits per quarter. If a student came in with 45 credits and took 20 credits per quarter, then they could complete a BS+MS in 3 years, without summer classes. I often took more than the default 15 credit course loads, so I finished the work required for my BS + first MS in winter quarter of my senior year, which is slightly under 4 years. I had also started a 2nd master’s during my first 4 years, which I continued during spring quarter. I finished the 2nd master’s remotely while living and working in a different section of the country.
That said, there are also numerous advantages to going slower. For example, you might use the extra credits freed up from the HS work to take some lighter course loads and spend more time on non-academic activities, such as work or a sport. Or the extra credits might give you flexibility to try some new academic fields you hadn’t considered, or switch majors. Or if you find a particular type of class challenging, it can be helpful to take lighter schedules during the quarters where you take such classes. It’s nice to have the option to pursue a BS+MS, but deciding on that option while in HS seems early.
Those AP credits represent mediocre college classes. Your son should aim for a top tier college where the intro classes offer much more than is tested for at the AP level. Our son was young and while he could have accelerated finishing his degree he would not have been able to take as many enriching electives or advanced classes. Look at the quality of the college education, not just getting the degree. State flagships offer an excellent education with peers through honors et al.
I’m more familiar with de than ap but in some ways they are the same. First even if you get credit it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. For instance if you take and get credit for both AP lit and AP language you may only need one English class on the college level so the second one may just be a free elective that has no use. AP Calculus AB may allow you to start at a higher level vs exempt you from taking math etc. You need to look at each school individually. Also general ed type classes are not standardized so you need to see what each school wants.
Here’s more. First and foremost look at your child’s education as gaining knowledge and skills, not as accumulating credits. Sure, one can fast track using HS AP credits but taking advantage of the full four year college experience with courses at a well above average school will likely result in a better education than making use of mediocre college level AP credits. Having those pieces of paper with degrees on them does not mean as much as letting your child learn as much as appropriate for their ability. Taking time to get an education, not just a degree is time well spent. All of those “irrelevent” electives are worthwhile.
btw- an MS may not be needed in the computer science software developer/engineer world. Gifted kid states he doesn’t need one (added CS major to an honors math major-BS at a good school in those fields). He has self taught so much over the years and I tend to believe him. He has reminded me he is in development, not research (his choice) and gets promoted.
A student with a 5 on AP calculus BC which the college accepts as placement into calculus 3 and linear algebra would get more out of his/her college academic experience by using the schedule space to take additional free electives (in or out of major, which may include potentially interesting advanced level courses later), rather than repeating regular calculus 1 and calculus 2.
Not necessarily. Some colleges offer more than one calculus sequence and so much material is missed in AP classes compared to some colleges’ offerings. AP is a great way for students tyo get better HS content but I believe they miss out on so much by not taking top tier college level courses in many subjects. It is not always a “repeat” to do classes. Agree with using time to explore beyond the major and requirements with electives. College is for an education, not just job training.
Repeating one’s AP credit instead of using the schedule space to learn something new results in getting less education (even if the repeat course adds a little bit more frosh-level material, that is much less than a full course of possibly more advanced material), regardless of whether you view education as desirable in and of itself, or also valuable as job training.
The idea that AP credit is automatically inferior to the college course does not hold up when many colleges (including state flagships and highly selective private colleges) allow advanced placement for high enough AP scores in some subjects.
“The idea that AP credit is automatically inferior to the college course does not hold up when many colleges (including state flagships and highly selective private colleges) allow advanced placement for high enough AP scores in some subjects.”
This^^
I haven’t seen any lack in my daughter’s education for having taken the AP credit. She took more advanced classes in college and no, she didn’t struggle from lack of a strong foundation, no indication of that at all. Maybe some kids do, but it’s not a rule. She thrived on the more advanced material, with the foundation of AP courses. She took more challenging classes, not fewer.
For one class, Physics, she took the AP class and got an A, but did not take the exam. She did repeat the class in college, as an engineering major. She later said she should have taken the AP exam.
@wis75 I disagree as well. If a student can afford 4 years in college, then I think it’s worth it to spend 4 years. But it makes no sense to retake lower level courses when the student did well on the AP exam. Taking higher level courses, electives, or getting
certificate, minor, another major, or a masters is much more worthwhile. My D would have been bored to tears repeating any of the 15+ AP courses she took. Instead, she jumped right into her major courses, took 300 and 400 level courses, and will take all 600 level courses senior year to get a masters.
I wouldn’t say they’re automatically inferior, but they’re not necessarily equivalent either - regardless of whether the college grants credit for certain AP scores.
It’s not uncommon for students who used their AP/IB credit to jump into more advanced classes to flounder and regret it. I lost track of the number of students at UCLA (usually pre-meds) who came to my office in tears after underestimating their freshman classes. My SO, who primarily teaches lower-level math classes, has had similar experiences with students coming in with AP Calc credit.
There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to retaking courses. It depends on several factors, including the rigor of your college and your career plans. It is crucial to maintain a high GPA for law school admissions, for example, whereas PhD programs tend to be more lenient with regard to GPA. My undergraduate department offered a “refresher” course each fall specifically for students with AP credit to help them transition to college courses, which is a good compromise, but not every department offers such a course.
One of mine went to Brown with 5’s on math and physics AP’s but took the intro courses anyway once at college. Each college has its own curriculum, sequence and content and many students choose to start at the beginning regardless of AP credit acceptance.
I also think the full undergrad years are helpful in terms of building a resume, interning and so on. And maturing since you say your son is youngish for his grade.
I understand the money angle but often grad school is funded, so having a solid experience in undergrad is important.