Translated: the author treated college as a time of have fun and chose the bare minimum level of rigor to graduate. AP credits let him take fewer credits (102) than otherwise needed (126), but even without AP credits, he would still have been one of those gut-course-seeking party student slackers.
My son had many credits going in. He never planned on graduating early, but I expected he would pick up a dual degree and/or get a master’s degree in four years, which were both doable. He wound up completely slacking off, and will graduate with only a degree and a minor. Frustrating for me…
It depends on the school and major requirement for graduation. Most AP credits may be counted for General Study, electives, or humanity whichever way they call it. A few may be useful for advanced placement. Only the latter may accelerate your graduation. My D took 6 AP exams with all 5 and received 33 credits (including 4 from placement exam). She basically fulfilled 15 of the 16 humanity credits. She also got advance placement to skip General Chem, Physic 140, Calc 1 & 2. Basically, she got around 1 year of college credits but she needs to really pack her schedule if she wants to graduate in 3 year with engineering. Realistically, she may graduate in 7 semester but she is not interested in it either. For her having more credit is a mixed blessing. She needs to play upperclassmen tuition from sophomore year which is $4000 more per year.
D went in with a lot of AP credits and expects to graduate in four years. She was set back by one bad semester in which she floundered for a variety of reasons. However she’s picking up the pieces and will graduate with dual degrees. She also studied abroad. Thus the elbow room afforded by the advance credits has been used in several ways. A friend of hers with a similar start simply powered straight through her major in three years and is heading to grad school. As others have said, there are many paths.
D was able to graduate in 3.5 years due to AP credits. Her school also did class registration by # of credits, so every semester she was able to get the best selection of classes.
A couple of points:
- Some of the most prestigious schools do not give much AP credit, but that's no reason not to take AP courses. You want to be as well prepared academically as you can be, and at most high schools, APs are the among the most rigorous courses available.
- Graduating one semester early is a mixed blessing. You save a semester's tuition, but you're off schedule for on-campus recruiting or admission to graduate programs, so your opportunities may be limited.
My ds entered with a lot of credits. He is attending on full scholarship and had originally decided that he wasn’t going to graduate early Bc there was no incentive to. But when he was home over spring break he said that he will have completed a double and a minor in 3 yrs, so he is seriously considering graduating a yr early.
I just listen. He goes back and forth. It is completely his choice. I don’t know what he will ultimately choose. He just has to have all his ducks in a row for applying to grad school.
However, someone may choose to take a semester off in a co-op job (or something else other than school), but still graduate in a spring semester with the rest of his/her entrance cohort. I.e. graduate in 4 years, but with 7 instead of 8 semesters of school.
Depends on the graduate program…my DD entered Columbia for a Masters in theTeachers College for the spring semester.
But like the OP has noted…there is no typical path…but extra credits can give you much flexibility even if you don’t end up graduating early.
My S had around 25 hours worth of AP credit. It really helped him. He was on a NROTC scholarship which required extra classes each semester beyond the classes for his major. I don’t think he would have been able to graduate in 4 years w/out the AP credits.
AP Credits and test scores (including SAT) are sometimes counted as satisfying certain college requirements. I didn’t know it at the time, but my SAT “achievement test” in Spanish would have allowed me to satisfy my college’s language requirement, for example. But I went on to study Russian and German as electives. Some universities have their own placement tests in language or math, for example, even if students have high AP scores. UChicago is one such school. My son had 800’s across the board in math tests, but took placement exams during orientation because the college had different series of courses depending on the student’s intended concentration (major). Also, he could have graduated a quarter earlier based on the exams given by the college, but instead stuck around (and also took a year abroad) and graduated in June of his 4th year.
I know one kid that graduated a semester early and got a job so he could continue to live at college. One of mine got earlier registration, since he had more credits. The other was able to double-major more easily and spend a semester abroad without worrying about total credits.
This year the AP registration for our school was so early my son hadn’t decided on which school. Oldest did not take AP Lang since it would not have been accepted for English credit at this college.
This makes a lot of sense because it would give him easy access to the college’s on-campus job recruiting program, which is available to alumni as well as current students. That job he got in the college community was probably a casual, non-career-oriented one, but he would be in the right place to interview for career-oriented jobs.
It might even make sense for the parents to subsidize a student in this situation if the student’s temporary job will not fully meet his expenses.
One of my kids target school cites that the IB diploma is basically a year (as does his safety), as an engineering undergrad, his APs and IB passes should give him several classes including calcs, physics, chem, I don't know how the non eng stuff works though, like History and English HL, spanish SL, other APs, hopefully that takes out most non eng reqs, I would encourage him very strongly to get done and dusted in 3 yrs or aggressively pursue the option to combine a masters in a shorter time period. Soon enough there will be 3 in college and to hope he would benefit from working so hard in school is a big incentive. I feel that internships should be summers, not school time.
My D is also considering a dual major in Engineering instead of graduating early. Scholarships do play a role in the decision there.
My daughter could have graduated early but decided to double major. She is now working on a PhD.
My oldest son entered school with 65 credits from AP/dual enrollment. Never had the desire to graduate early, as he had a National Merit scholarship that gave him full tuition and other goodies. He finished with two majors and two minors. He is now in law school. The younger son started college with 56 credits from AP/DE. He is planning on a double major in econ/finance and a math minor. He does not want to graduate early, as he is an athlete. Instead, he wants to start his MBA. In their cases, most of their gen ed requirements were done. The older son completed six hours between his freshman and sophomore years to finish out a fine arts and a lit requirement. He did a study abroad one summer and an internship with NOAA another summer. The younger son wants to take his fine arts class and a psychology class this summer to complete his gen ed slate. He also will be working and training.
If tuition is affordable, many students get a double major. AP credits can also make it easier to do a 5 year bachelors/masters program, if your college offers it.
Just watch out - AP policies vary greatly from college to college. At some colleges it is easy to earn, and at others it is very hard. At some colleges there is a maximum amount of credits that can be used, or limits on using AP credit towards requirements in your major.
Also, if a college does not offer required courses in a major every semester, or if they have strict requirements for the order of classes, it may be hard to graduate early.
My kids all brought in college credits and chose to graduate early. It in no way was a problem for grad school. And we saved severall thousand dollars so everyone ended up happy. My daughter (in May) will complete her MBA - she spent 4 years getting her undergrad and grad degrees and she is so happy to be done with school. She now has the job offer she wants and she is so ready to be done with school work.
Ours is a similar situation to an earlier poster; a generous merit scholarship and 50+ AP hours. The lost earrings would be the biggest financial consideration for shortening the college time. We are blessed that there are options. I have encouraged him hanging for a minimum of 4 years and S is looking at double major. I think the extra year will help with maturity and will just simply add to the college thing before commencing a career. If he cuts it short he would never be able to replicate the experience.