Colleges Won't Accept AP Credits? Find Out Whether You Should Take the Tests Anyway

@mjinnc my daughter was accepted to Cornell for next year. She didn’t even choose to take AP Lit this year because our high school had a number of more interesting English courses and no colleges on her list would have given credit for both AP Lang and AP Lit anyway.

I give that context because it kind of shows she already had a lack of motivation to just take a class with a test just for fun, lol.

Anyway, she is currently taking AP Physics C and AP Gov. She will take the AP exam for Physics because she will use the credit if she gets a 5. AP Gov gets her no credit, regardless of score. Her opinion is that it’s a waste of time and money to take the exam. She is enjoying the class and learning plenty, but feels no need to pointlessly take an exam to prove it. For what? One way to look at it is that as a future engineer, this shows she already is the kind of person who doesn’t tend to be in favor of wasting time and money!

I had left the decision up to my daughter, since she would be the one taking (or not) the exam and if she is old enough to go to college, she’s old enough to make this choice too.

Re: #18

Referencing Princeton’s AP placement chart at http://www.princeton.edu/pub/ap/table/

Looks like Princeton calculus-based physics courses start with 103 and 104, but there are also 105 and 106 which are advanced or honors versions. The AP credit chart suggests that students with 5 on both physics C exams should start with 105 instead of 103, although the catalog at https://ua.princeton.edu/academic-units/department-physics# says that 103 and 105 start combined and students are split into 103 and 105 after three weeks.

@skieurope He used online materials for E/M from a certified AP teacher who offers the class online through PA Homeschoolers (Jack Kernion). It’s half the price as his online course to just purchase access to the materials and to have him available for consult by email via his own web site, with no online meetings, 100% self-paced, video teachings, self-graded problem sets and tests. He finished the E/M material in mid-February and is using AP test prep resources now, after a 6 week break to do other things. He used the same format for physics C mech last year and got a 5. The course material is definitely geared toward the AP test.

@ucbalumnus Thx. He and I reviewed that chart before. He says he’s almost certainly done with physics either way, so placing into a higher course isn’t appealing to him. He likes physics fine, but will probably fulfill his science requirement with another class.

Personally, I think magnetism has humbled him for the first time in his academic “career”, and he’s ticked about it. And he dislikes Java (“Python is so much more intuitive.”). So it’s more about attitude and him learning you can’t just stop doing your best because you don’t like the task. He has plenty of time available to study.

@mom2twogirls That’s funny! I know DS is transitioning to more autonomy. But for reasons I won’t share here, the full baton-passing to autonomous decision-making will be a little slower for DS than for most others. He’s ready for college, but he’ll need a little more decision-making help than most, for a little longer.

He now has a focused study plan for the next 3 weeks based on what he thinks he’s weakest in, in E/M and CS, 2 weeks for E/M and 1 week for CS (he also has 3 more days after E/M test 5/13 to study more for CS 5/17 if he wants). The E/M 5 will get him placement he doesn’t plan to use; the CS won’t get him anything but is probably more useful to him in the long run. But I think he needs to give it a try. Otherwise, he’d just go back to reading his graduate texts in mathematics.

But, looking back over this thread and my own post, I realize it’s ridiculous to worry about. I really don’t care if he gets a 4 or 5 on all of them (I doubt he’ll get a 3 but even that would be OK). I saw this thread and thought I’d ask for some free therapy LOL. Thanks, all!

In college, calculus-based physics courses typically have the E&M physics listing multivariable calculus as a corequisite. Obviously AP physics C E&M does not. It may actually be harder to learn the physics without enough math background.

A lot of computing does use computer languages more similar to Java than Python; someone who wants to work in computing should get used to dealing with various computer languages that s/he may encounter.

Wow I disagree with so much about that article.

In terms of the awards (like the AP Scholar Awards program) given for performance on the AP exams by the company whose profits swell by encouraging as many test takers to compete for the awards as possible (and who now control too much of the public school curriculum): The awards are bogus/worthless/ money-grubbing College Board ploys. They are shameful/meaningless.

In terms of whether to take the AP tests. Well of course the College Board Inc has its grubby hands out and has promoted the courses and tests. They’ve made schools believe that it’s best for schools to offer as many AP courses as possible, and for students to take as many AP courses as possible and for students to take as many tests as possible. Pure unadulterated corporate greed. Happily better schools are putting a stop to the madness. (thank you Scarsdale, among others). Good. The courses are not at all the equivalent to college classes. They are a farce and a nice illustration of corporate greed.

But many schools bought College Board propaganda hook line and sinker. So now what? If your school offers the courses as the only more rigorous “honor” level of course, you are stuck with taking them if you intend to apply to selective colleges. It’s a shame. But given you are stuck with them, the question is whether to also fork over the fees to take the corresponding tests.

Students who take AP courses before senior year and intend to apply to selective schools are stuck. They really need to take the exams. It doesn’t really matter if the colleges they intend to attend will award credit or not. Why? Because it they don’t take them and don’t send the scores to the colleges with their application material the colleges will likely think the student did too poorly on them to send. And especially for students who didn’t take SAT2s, not showing scores might lead the adcons to second guess the meaning of the GPA. Maybe the GPA is inflated if the student can’t do well enough on the APS to send the scores. SAT2s or AP tests…it’s all about the pockets of the College Board , a company that has a choke hold on the country’s educational system. It’s outrageous.