<p>Does brown offer credit for AP classes? Or just placement into higher-level courses?</p>
<p>A more general question: if I fail to place out of introductory courses, will that look “bad” for grad school/medical school? </p>
<p>Any information would be great!
Thanks!</p>
<p>It depends on the class and department. For example, I received 5s on BC Calc, Bio, and English Lit. My 5 in Calc gave me credit for Math 0090 and 0100. My bio score placed me out of Bio 200, and English did absolutely nothing. Not placing out of intro courses will do absolutely nothing for you in medical school. Won’t help or hurt.</p>
<p>The credit that you get for AP classes doesn’t really do much, other than get you out of concentration requirements. It does not count toward the number of credits required for graduation. Most people never take the AP credits to which they are entitled.</p>
<p>At most schools, placement is all you will achieve with AP scores. </p>
<p>As for medical and/or graduate schools, they won’t care one way or another as long as you show strong capability and an upward trend in grades as your courses progress. I would worry less about initial placement and more about the trend you want to set for your four years. A downward trend (note the word trend and not a couple of low grades) signifies a plateau in ability or effort, neither of which are appealing.</p>
<p>^Actually, when I applied to college (seven years ago), schools like Brown were in the minority; most schools offered real credit for AP results if a student chose to accept advanced standing. Maybe things have changed.</p>
<p>Brown (rightly, IMO) distinguishes between the half-assed AP testing scheme --for which it doesn’t give real credit – and the international certification regimes (like the IB) that reflect real high-level work in a smaller number of fields – for which it does give real credit.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your responses!
So I received 5s on Bio, calc BC, chem, U.S., english language, government and politics, and a 4 in spanish lit. I’m taking 5 more aps this year. I’m worried that if I place out of intro courses for things like bio and calc and chem, I will have forgotten too much information and will struggle in the more advanced classes. Is this a rational fear?</p>
<p>And suppose I do badly on the 5 this year…it won’t matter for anything? Most people don’t place out? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>^ that is a totally rational fear. I advised incoming freshman, and I always told them to go have conversations with the chairs of the biology, chemistry and math departments BEFORE registering for classes. They will be able to quickly assess if you know what you need to know to be successful in upper level classes. It may be annoying to have to take Bio101, etc. But it may also be a good strategy that pays off in the end.</p>
<p>Chem places you into a course that’s very similar to AP Chem, so no worries there - it should mostly be a review (and you’re not permitted to place higher). Although Brown would say a 5 on BC calc is sufficient to place into Math 18 (Multivar), some students take 10 instead (Integrals, Series) and some even struggle; a 5 on the BC exam is no guarantee of future success in mathematics.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, AP credit does not count towards premed requirements - if you place out of Math 9 and 10, some med schools will likely still want to see at least 1 further term of calculus…so blindly accepting credit/placement is not necessarily the best option. (This is, at least, the impression I’ve gotten from my premed friends.)</p>
<p>Doing poorly on AP exams counts for nothing - many departments offer neither placement nor credit for AP work anyway - the CS department rightly says that the new AP CS exam is in no way comparable to any intro course in the department and grants no credit for it. Getting AP credit/placement is pointless unless you’re planning to do further work in the field, too. AP Credit doesn’t even necessarily count towards concentration requirements - it varies by department.</p>
<p>So I would not be at a disadvantage in any way should I not place out of any courses? Course difficulty/acceleration is not important for medical schools?</p>
<p>Correct. There is no harm in taking intro-level courses your first year, and it honestly can be a good review. I have friends who took AP Bio who decided to take Bio 200 even though they placed out of it; the Brown course may be easier for them, but it still covers slightly different material and the professor, Ken Miller, is awesome.</p>
<p>Thank you!
So, and I’m sorry if I seem neurotic, it would make no difference how I perform on my AP exams for Brown? It wouldn’t have any impact on med school? What about senior year grades (not about being rescinded, but about grad school?)
Okay, I’ll try to stop asking questions now! Sorry!</p>
<p>Grad schools won’t see your high school grades.</p>
<p>AP exams aren’t very important for admissions to college, and they’ll be essentially irrelevant for grad school and med school. (Med schools and grad schools care about grades - they won’t see your AP scores)</p>
<p>^Thanks! I know they won’t see AP scores, but will they care that I took all the intro courses and didn’t or fail to place out of them into more advanced courses/that I’m taking a “beginner” or “easy” course load?</p>
<p>They won’t care where you started, only where you ended up. It is up to you and you confidence level in the course to decide to skip the intro course or not. It doesn’t matter for anything to anyone. My daughter got a 5 on the AP Calc exam (but she struggled with this one in class), and went into multivariable and failed it or withdrew. Luckily that isn’t on your transcript at Brown. Then she repeated it and did fine. In this case it seems she ought to have taken the intro. However in the long run it didn’t matter. She ended up a math/cs major and in in a phD track program in grad school. She always skipped the intro’s in everything else with no problem. She even took classes when she didn’t have the prereq’s (with permission from the professor) knowing that it was on her to fill in the gaps, and that went okay too.</p>
<p>I think you need to quit worrying. As soon as you have a first semester at Brown you will have a good idea of what you need to do. If you need to take all the intro’s again, you can do it as a 5th class and not have too hard of a schedule.</p>
<p>My daughter never took any credits for AP’s and I didn’t even know Brown gave them. She had plenty of credits to graduate, between 5 class semesters and a couple summers with classes.</p>
<p>My daughter took all of the AP courses that her high school offered and did very well on the exams. However, she did not report the scores to Brown. Remember, scores of tests taken senior year arrive long after the decisions of which college to attend have been made. She took placement exams when she got to Brown that fall and placed lower than she would have, had she used her AP credits. That was fine with her; the beginning of college is stressful enough without doing extra hard work right at first.</p>