Do AP credits count towards distribution requirements?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Rochester
1

<p>I'm a newbie so forgive what is probably a dumb question.</p>

<p>My son, like many kids, will be arriving having taken many AP courses in high school. How exactly does that work? Does he actually get credit for a college course? What good does that do? It seems that unless he has enough AP credits to chop off a year from his degree, he'll just end of graduating with extra credits, which doesn't seem to accomplish anything.</p>

<p>If he does get credit, do these credits count toward the distribution requirements (so many courses need to be taken across various disciplines)?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>See [this</a> list](<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/College/CCAS/AdviserHandbook/AP.html]this”>Advanced Placement : Advising Handbook : College Center for Advising Services : University of Rochester).</p>

3

<p>UR does not have distribution requirements per se. Instead, they have "clusters’.</p>

<p>See: [Clusters</a> : Center for Academic Support](<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/college/ccas/clusters/]Clusters”>http://www.rochester.edu/college/ccas/clusters/)</p>

<p>For example, my D is a neuroscience major (natural science/engineering). Since her minor/second major is also in the natural sciences/engineering (mathematics), she needs to choose a cluster in a social science (in D’s case–anthropology) and a humanity (philosophy).</p>

<p>I found in my D’s case–that many of her AP credits just never got used: English, chem, physics, Spanish. Her bio and math were used mostly for placement.</p>

4

<p>I had heard about clusters and that’s actually what I meant when I referred to distribution requirements. So let’s say there is a requirement for 3 courses in a certain cluster. Could you use AP credits to count as one or more of those 3 courses, and then say only have to take 2 courses in that cluster (or even one or none)?</p>

5

<p>It depends on the test score, the test subject and the policies of the department the cluster is located in. No straight-forward answer to this. Sorry.</p>

<p>And I’m sure you cannot use AP credit to cover more than 1 course in a cluster.</p>

6

<p>Update: just found this at CCAS in the Adviser’s Handbook:</p>

<p>Course credit granted through the Advanced Placement program, unless specified as acceptable in the Cluster description, may not be used toward any Cluster. Departmental cluster exceptions that include an AP course will not be approved.</p>

<p>[Clusters</a> : Center for Academic Support](<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/AdviserHandbook/Clusters.html]Clusters”>Clusters : Advising Handbook : College Center for Advising Services : University of Rochester)</p>

<p>So my guess would be no–your son won’t be able to use his AP credit to “place out” on his clusters.</p>

7

<p>No, you cannot “legally” use AP credit for clusters. If you go talk to your adviser and they approve it, you’ll be ok. For example, I used my AP world history credit to opt out of one of the history courses that was required for my cluster.</p>

<p>Pincha, you are absolutely right. Most people will graduate with more credits than they need. Most AP credit simply ends up just kind of being lumped in there with the rest of your college credits on the transcript since you can’t always use all of it.</p>

<p>For example, I had AP credit for history, for bio, for psych, for latin, for english, etc.</p>

<p>The only ones I really “made use” of were the psych (replaced psych 101 for my pscyh minor) and the bio (allowed me to take a higher lever intro bio instead of the regular intro course for my neuroscience major).</p>

<p>The other courses simply gave me extra credits, but were of no other use - eg, since I never clustered/majored in english, the AP english credit is just there, but does nothing for me.</p>