<p>My son will start at PS-UP in the fall. He has taken 6 credits at PS-Abington via high school, and will have 9 credits from advanced placement courses as well. So he'll start Smeal with 15 credits in hand.</p>
<p>Can any current students give us some advice on how best to exploit this situation (aside from only taking 12 credits, for example) ? One suggestion a student provided was to take a slate of elective courses in the fall to get the lay of the land before starting into harder stuff, for example.</p>
<p>We'll be up there for the academic advisor session in a few weeks and I'm looking for any feedback anyone might have on how best to approach the process. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Scroll down and you will see where the business school expects you to take minimum 16 credits a semester. The college has general education requirements too and he will need to fulfill language requirement. If you go to majors/minors and click on one you will get an idea of courses required in each major. (Maybe you already know all this?)</p>
<p>It's hard without knowing what ap credits he has but in general I'd say have him sign up for 16 credits first semester that his ap's don't take the place of. Save the free 15 credits for junior/senior yr. when he may need a lesser courseload or want to do study abroad.</p>
<p>The credits will have show him to be a junior a semester early and will bill you as such (warning :) )</p>
<p>My son went in with a lot of credit. Will use it to double major.</p>
<p>My son had 26 credits to start and is at Smeal as well. The one good thing I can say is that they got him out of some intro classes (Math for example and Psych 101 which is huge). Lots of the credits meet general education requirements so he feels less pressure on that front - and basically takes what appeals to him for electives. But he's taken a full load (15 or more credits) each semester. We've talked to him about graduating early but, he likes it so much, he wants to stay the full four years. One thing I know is that quite a few take more than 4 years to graduate - so we at least we don't have to worry about that! Also, the credits may come in handy when and if he takes a semester abroad (something we are strongly encouraging!)
Lastly, I had AP credits myself when I went to college many years ago. It gave me the flexibility to drop a couple of courses when I needed to without risking graduating in four years. They're great to have!<br>
Good luck to your son - sounds like he has a solid start going in.<br>
BTW - Accounting is really tough per my son's reports (he's in honors which makes it even tougher be he hears reports from his friends in the general class too). I would avoid it in the first semester.
One last idea: My son has made use of ratemyprofessors.com to find good teachers. Loves his history teacher this semester - and he got excellent ratings from the students.</p>
<p>I agree with all the posters. My d went in with college credits. Her first semester she took english, theater, freshman seminar, math and psychology. Try not to enroll in general humanities classes or general arts classes in the beginning. We have since found out that some of my daughters credits from high school will count towards the general humanities class. Also we probably should have saved all of her arts credits for when she studies abroad. So in hindsight she probably should not have taken the theater class. She was undecided her first two semensters so it was hard.</p>
<p>I would suggest definitely taking an english class, math and a science requirement. As long as you use rateyourprofessor.com you child will be fine. If your child does not want to study abroad, a language class is great. If you take a third level language (I beleive its third level) it counts as a wild card. So you can use it towards any of the gen ed requirements. I know it all sounds foreign to you, but will all make sense once you go to your advising day. After two years I feel I am my daughters personal secretary regarding PSU classes and getting her in the good ones.</p>
<p>PSU sent me an "Evaluation of Transferable Credits."</p>
<p>"...The second column lists course numbers and titles reflecting Penn State equivalencies. If no number is listed, the course has been assigned to the general area of study at Penn State and is listed as general credits (GEN). General credit is assigned when a course from another school carries a different number of credits, is a 400-level course, or the course content appears to be substantially different from a Penn State course."</p>
<p>The thing is, I took MATH 16000, STAT 11300, and CHEM 103LB at a college during my HS years. All of these transfer to PSU as "general credits" (I think because the course content is SUBSTANTIALLY different from that of PSU). I am an aerospace engineering major; what will these "general credits" do for me? I dont think MATRIX ALGEBRA, ELEM PROB & STAT, GEN CHEM LAB I (PSU equivalency) will help me opt out of some general requirements for my major. Did I waste my time taking these classes?</p>
<p>killer. That's a tough one. I think you will get credit but you definitly need to ask what general credit they will count for. I do not think they are telling you that you wasted your time.</p>