If your student’s first choice university is Baylor, I highly recommend they take Dual Credit (when available) rather than AP courses As you can see from the link below, Baylor doesn’t give much credit for high scores on AP exams (especially in foreign language, English composition/literature, & Music Theory). Example: one of my children scored 5 on BOTH English Language & English Literature AP exams, but only received credit for one semester of English composition (3 hours). My other child took Dual Credit English (which was MUCH easier) & was awarded 6 hours English composition credit at Baylor. Baylor only offered 6 hours Spanish credit for my child who scored 5 on BOTH Spanish language & Spanish Literature/Culture exams. She earned 19 hours Spanish credit at a public university. Same child was offered an additional 4 hours credit for scores on 5 on both Aural & Non-Aural sections of Music Theory AP exam. She decided against Baylor, mostly because of the additional 20 AP credits she received at a public university. 20 credit hours is a LOT of work to repeat at Baylor after working so hard to score 5 on every AP exam! At first I wasn’t as cynical. But after both my husband & a friend said Baylor’s AP credit policy helps them get more tuition & fees, I agreed with them. There is absolutely no other reason a student who has earned scores of 5 on both English AP exams wouldn’t be offered 6 hours credit for English Composition. Baylor’s costs are rising even faster than costs at other universities. From $53,000+ for students who entered in Fall 2014 to $59,000 for students who entered in Fall 2016. Both my children applied at Baylor & I was thrilled about the option of them going to a Christian university. However, they both decided on public universities and have been able to connect with great churches and on-campus Christian ministries. http://www.baylor.edu/irt/index.php?id=74592
Cautions about Baylor: don't offer much credit for AP courses;costs rising faster than other schools
I’m not an expert on Baylor, or other subjects, but many AP classes are NOT equivalent to college. I teach college composition, and I see students all the time who did well in AP English, but do not know how to write at college level. Not sure what that curriculum expects, but it’s not what we do. (My kids got credit for their high AP scores in comp, but they still had to take the intro course at their colleges. And rightly so.)
This isn’t unique to Baylor. Public universities tend to give more credit for AP/IB/AICE and DE scores/classes, than private universities, due to direction from the state legislatures. The state wants to reduce the cost and time it takes to earn a degree. It’s part of their “public” mission.
Also as schools become more selective, they tend to accept fewer AP/IB/AICE credits.
It doesn’t hurt to look at tuition cost trends at each school. Especially at public universities. For example, it clear that several public will be sharply increasing OOS rates, in an effort to limit in-state rates in-state tuition increases. 
Specifically, most public university students are in-state students whose tuition is subsidized, so getting them graduated as quickly as possible is in the state’s interest. Private universities, on the other hand, probably don’t mind some students staying an extra tuition-paying semester or few.
However, subject credit and advanced placement for AP/IB/AICE and college courses taken while in high school may be treated differently from credit units toward the number needed for graduation. For example, a college may grant few or no credit units for a foreign language AP score, but recommend placement in a higher level foreign language course if the student wants to continue in that language. Baylor appears to consider foreign language AP scores of 3 or higher as equivalent to completion the third semester foreign language course for placement purposes (5 = completion of fourth semester).
Personally, if costs are a concern, I’d be looking at private colleges with good merit aid and/or need-based aid, and not ways to shorten the experience. (yeah, I get that DE is big in certain states.)
Also, if I was a top college Provost, I too would be reluctant to offer English credit for course work taken in HS. Learning how to write well early in Frosh year is critical for success in the next three years, IMO. (Well, perhaps with the exception perhaps for certain majors like Engineering, which have little room for any Lit/hume electives. But even future Engineers need to know how to write if they ever aspire to becoming a manager.)
I’ve heard several students in our city - who have graduated from a variety of both high-performing public and private high schools - say that their AP English classes didn’t adequately prepare them for college work. This may demonstrate a flaw in the AP curriculum/standards rather than with Baylor’s policies.
Research and writing skills suitable for college level work may not be the easiest to assess via placement tests (including such things as SAT/ACT essays and AP English tests) done over an hour or few. Placement tests can detect poor grammar and the like, but that only indicates whether the student will need additional remedial level instruction. So it is not like math or foreign language where advanced placement is relatively easy to determine via placement tests; any method of placement in research and writing skills courses is likely to result in misplacement in either direction.
This isn’t a Baylor issue. Almost all good private schools are more selective about giving AP credit.
The English Department at our school has pretty much told kids that if they get a 5 on AP Lang their junior year to not bother taking AP lit test their senior year because most colleges won’t give credit for both.
And heaven forbid a student take an AP class just because it is the best class offered for that subject.
They don’t advise kids to niot ttake the class. They advise them to not pay for a test that will not do anything for them. At our school your choices are
Lan arts 1, 2, 3, 4
Lan arts 1h, 2h, AP lang, AP lit
Lan arts 1h, 2h, ib yr1, ib yr2
It is unlikely someone on the AP track would switch to the regular just because they only get credit for one class out of the two
Kids (at least at D’s school) will still take the AP classes even if they don’t get college credit for taking a test. They get the weighted grades and, in a class of more than 650 students, that one AP class could make a difference in class standing. Plus, I really do think that there is something in the personality of high-achieving kids that makes them thrive in the face of the challenge.
It’s totally normal to not get credit for both AP Lit and AP Lang. It’s basically redundant.
Im not sure why your D should get more than 6 hours for two AP Spanish exams. I don’t see the issue there, and there should be a way for your daughter to prove proficiency and test into an appropriate course.
I’m not sure how common it is to offer credit for Music Theory but there are a lot of exams (like Human Geography) that some schools don’t recognize.
I don’t think any of this is unique to Baylor, but I understand the frustration.
However, some colleges may give more or different subject credit for AP English literature compared to AP English language.
My thought was always to have my son repeat an AP subject in college so it can ease the transition and help boost his college GPA. I encourage him taking calc 101 in college for the easy A and calm it will give him. I am fine with him taking four full years and never shot to try to have him finish a semester early because of of AP credit from HS. I say take advantage of the low hanging fruit to boost the GPA. Employers want a high GPA.
Don’t count that Calc A just yet. My daughter didn’t take it in high school but about half of her college class had already taken it. Many of those who had taken it before struggled with it, in part because they thought it would be an easy A. My daughter worked as hard as she could, spending about 2 hours a night on just Calc (she had mandatory study hours in the library, so just did Calc). It was an A, but not an easy one.
@VickiSoCal, sorry, didn’t see that you were referring only to the AP test, not the class. My kids had no choice but to take the tests. The tests are free in Florida, but if you take the AP class, you have to take the test.
A student who knows the material well may find it better to use the schedule space to continue on in the sequence or take interesting electives, rather than repeating what s/he knows. Also, lots of people do repeat their AP credit but do not pay enough attention to the work and then do not get A grades.
It would be a good idea for him to try the college’s old final exam for the course to be skipped before deciding whether to skip the course or retake it.
Obviously my opinions are in the minority here. My daughter accepted 2 semesters of AP English Composition credit at a public university and 19 credits of Spanish there. One of her professors said after reading my daughter’s research paper that she writes extremely well. She’s scoring 100% on Honors Psych essays exams & has a high A in her upper division Spanish course. Perhaps AP credit isn’t always indicative of academic skills. But in my daughter’s case it is. Because she’s a Music major and also because MusicTheory is offered as Honors, she chose not to accept AP Theory credit and is taking two semesters of Theory that she already has credit for.
I am closing this College Confidential account & will no longer see replies. I appreciate the opinions & input from everyone! Excellent points about many students not being prepared adequately by AP English composition or Dual Credit in high school. My son earned 2 semesters of Dual Credit that he accepted for college. He has done well on college writing assignments. I’m very blessed because the AP & dual credit courses at our local high school were rigorous & taught by excellent teachers. Because I knew the importance of writing, I hired private English tutors for my son when he was in grades 9-11. I realize many high schools might not have great teachers like my children did. I want to add that not all universities & community colleges have great professors either. Taking English composition at Baylor or other universities does NOT guarantee that students will be good writers. I know that because I was not a good writer when in college. In spite of that, I earned one semester of English Comp by CLEP exam. The other semester was an absolute joke & I learned nothing. I was an engineering major & only wrote very long, technical reports for my courses. I was naturally a good enough writer to do well on the few research papers I had to do for non-technical courses. I learned to write well “on the job” after graduating from college. I’m thankful that some universities (like Texas A&M) now require one writing-intensive course to be taken by each student in his or her major.
For my daughter, it was absolutely the right decision not to attend Baylor. She was very confident about what she had learned in her high school courses, & didn’t want to spend an extra semester taking Baylor courses on material she had already mastered. She was also told by a high-school teacher who attended Baylor that their Honors program wasn’t worth doing. The public university she now attends offers a MUCH more interesting Honors curriculum, which includes some classes that Baylor would never offer (because some topics are political &/or controversial). My daughter is a rock-solid conservative Christian & won’t waver on that. She enjoys civil discussions with people of varying opinions in her current Honors course.