<p>I was wondering what your students' experiences have been in terms of the value of their AP courses when they got to college. For example, if they placed out of calc and went to the next math course, were they prepared? How about in bio, chem, physics? I am also interested in other courses, but I am particularly interested in the aforementioned. Also, if you don't mind, what type of college was the actual college (e.g. community, state, flagship state, ivy, ivy plus, engineering, top 20. 40, 50, 100...)?</p>
<p>In case you were wondering as to my interest, way back when, as a student, my own BC calc was not adequate preparation for the next math course at the school that I went to. I got a whole years credit for calc, and dropped math after 2 weeks in the next class. </p>
<p>Some schools around here have AP sciences for 9th grade, and have for years. Instead of for example having bio and then AP bio, they skip the "HS" level class and take just AP bio. I never sat in the class, so I really don't know what they covered, and whether it was really college level, just taught for the AP exam or whatever. Anecdotally, a few students that I have known over the years who went to college as pre med with these AP science backgrounds did not continue on in science because it was too hard. Some others that were science majors retook the intro science courses.</p>
<p>Our S took AP Cal AB & also AP Physic B & C (three full year courses in HS). He also took two semesters of AP Computer Science. He said that he didn’t learn anything new until his 4th semester of college at USC in engineering. He received credit but was forced to repeat everything by the college because they felt their courses were more rigorous. It was a nice easy transition for him from HS to college, since he didn’t have to worry about academics. His friends have had similar experiences, even those who went to ivies & others at USC engineering & other fields. Many were not allowed to start at the higher levels in college due to school policies–some received credit anyway while others didn’t.</p>
<p>Friends kids who went to competing uber competitive HS and had APs in Calc & other subjects have varying results. One nearly lost his scholarship & switched to psychology while another insisted on taking the more advanced courses, which lowered his GPA. </p>
<p>Our D took German language–two six week summer courses at home flagship U & then took 3rd semester German at her private college. She struggled with pronunciation & got a “C+” but was excellent at reading & understanding. She was happy to have finished her language requirement.</p>
<p>My son is at Carnegie Mellon. He took AP Physic C both parts and is getting straight A’s in advanced physics courses. (His minor.) He took AP Calc BC - and then the next level up course at the high school. He’s actually been doing mostly discrete math since, though I think he said something about 3D calculus this semester. He’s doing fine. He got out of a history distribution requirement and hasn’t taken advanced courses in the other sciences. He got 5s on all his APs and he would have been upset and bored if he had had to repeat material.</p>
<p>I do know that one of his friends struggled with a calculus class at Princeton. One thing CMU does is give you a math placement exam in addition to the AP - they figure if you can’t remember the material in August you’re better off repeating the course. It sounded to me like Princeton doesn’t do this double check. (Only hearing about it through the Mom.) He didn’t drop it and he didn’t flunk - he’s just not getting the grades his Mom thinks he should.</p>
<p>My daughter is a bioengineering major at Rice University. She did AP Calc BC, AP Physics, Bio, Chem, plus several AP humanities courses in high school. The AP Calc BC allowed her to start with second year calculus at Rice, and she seemed perfectly well prepared for that. She was advised to re-take physics, the course aimed at engineering students. Quite a bit of it felt like review to her, but I think she ended up feeling it had been good advice. I’m not certain whether the AP Bio and Chem classes actually got her out of any prerequisites (though Rice did grant her college credit for them). In general, she felt well served by the AP classes she took. That may be partly due to the fact that I think every one of her AP math/science teachers tacked on additional things in their courses, that weren’t required for the test, but that they felt would have been covered in a college-level class. Often, that’s what the teachers focused on in the last month of school, after the tests have been taken.</p>
<p>Our kids’ HS ended the AP courses after the exams. I guess it was a reward and incentive for taking APs that they didn’t have several weeks of courses. S ended his senior year weeks ahead of most since he took only APs & marching band. They COULD have taught the kids something in those weeks, but oh well!</p>
<p>The score is good evidence of the AP course rigor. 3&4 may be iffy, but a score of 5 is a pretty good indication that the student learned the necessary material.
My kids took AP courses at a “large suburban public HS” and did well on the AP tests. Son is at a Tier I school (engineering major) and they happily accepted his 5s.</p>
<p>My son took CalcBC, then several more math classes at the public flagship in our town while still in high school. They went just fine. When he got to college (a highly ranked private school), as a computer science and math major, he did not repeat any of the math, and has done extremely well.</p>
<p>However, I think it is school (hs) and instructor-dependent. His hs Calc teacher had a PhD and is both very competent and very devoted to teaching. The same cannot be said of my daughter’s AP calc teacher, in a different school in the same public school system. I am advising her to retake calc in college; her teacher is lazy and incompetent. (He is not a new teacher, but is a new hire in the district; I suspect he came from a district with rather different expectations.)</p>
<p>Son also had AP Bio, AP chem and AP physics C. He did well and got 5’s on all of the exams. Whether or not they prepared him for further college work I cannot say, because his cs program took those credits and he has not had to take more advanced work in those fields.</p>
<p>BC calc was fine. D had a lowish B in second semester BC calc but got a 5 on the AP test - it is one of the toughest classes at our h.s. (We think everyone in the class scored a 5). In college, she was able to take multivariate calc. No problem.</p>
<p>Econ was fine. D did well in macro and macro, a 4 and a 5 on the AP tests, I think, so after taking multivariate calc in college she could take the econ department’s microeconomic theory class, and then after microeconomic theory, she could take the developmental economics class she’s in now. That class is going fine. She is at a college with a very good econ program so I think her h.s. AP econ was great prep and a good start on her econ minor. A disadvantage was that she would have liked to have been in the honors section of microeconomic theory and that required that you had good grades in macro and micro from the college itself.</p>
<p>Those are the only AP classes my D took in h.s. that she has used to go further in during college. (I recall she was able to use AP credits in gov, history, English, and physics for college credit.)</p>