<p>I'm sort of confused in regards to Caltech's acceptance of credit from high school. So, I'll start with APs, does caltech give credit for taking those exams, or is it conditional on some other factor? Second is credit given at another university. I'm sure other university math credits are common to many caltech prefrosh, so does can you place out of classes at caltech with them, or is this too conditional on something else? Thanks for any help.</p>
<p>Caltech does not accept any credits of any sort from outside Caltech. You can, however, place out of certain classes by performing well on some placement tests for a lot of the core courses.</p>
<p>when are these placement tests administered?</p>
<p>You'll get them over the summer, and you take them before you get here.</p>
<p>Some tests you take as soon as you get on campus. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily get "credit" for classes that you pass out of so much as you get to take harder ones instead. For example, if you pass out of Ch 1 you have to take Ch 41 or Ch 21 instead for your core chemistry requirement. I'd imagine it's fairly rare for non-chemistry majors to pass out of Ch 1, so it's not normally an issue. Ph 1a is the only exception that I know about in terms of getting credit for passing out of a core class (or even getting to pass out of just one term of a class.)</p>
<p>Ph 1a is the only class most people have a shot of passing out of. I know plenty of people who had taken many years of math past calculus in high school, and still had to take math starting with Ma 1a because the math classes they had taken weren't as rigorous as the analytic Ma 1 classes at Tech. Keep in mind that if you haven't done calculus recently, you may be rusty enough to not do well on the Ma 1a diagnostic exam and get placed in the remedial section.</p>
<p>You get credit for passing out of ANY math or physics core class.</p>
<p>I just got an email today about the calc placement exam. I took calc last year (my junior year) and my math class my senior year has not been very stimulating. Exactly how difficult is the exam? Is it harder than the AP exam?</p>
<p>So I'm old and thus this is a bit out of date (I took the exams back in 2001), but I had gotten 5's on both Calc AB and BC, and had taken a year or so of math at the local state university, and I placed into "semi-remedial" math (Math 8 - you take the normal math 1 class, but first term you also have an additional booster course). </p>
<p>So you could say the tests are a bit harder than the AP tests... they also focus on totally different things (i.e. the math tests are pretty much entirely proof based)</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, you can get credit for placing out of any of the core (Math/Phys/Chem), but that is done exclusively based on the Caltech tests, with no regard for credit from other universities. I think the only way you can get your credit from another school to count is if you do a study abroad program, or if you transfer... though I suspect if you had taken some classes at a "peer institution" (HYPSM) you could beg and plead them into giving you credit, if it wasn't something you could test out of...</p>
<p>I m not really quite sure what you mean by "proof-based". Last time i remember doing proofs was in high school geometry. I figure that my calc class was geared for the AP test, not for proofs. i got 5s on both parts of the AP test. I think im decent at math, but not crazy great (as i imagine some caltech students may be). would i be in a remedial class? would that put me at a disadvantage compared to other caltech students? I would appreciate any advice from any techers.</p>