<p>My daughter is headed to Vandy's School of Engineering in the fall--SO exciting! I've been a long-time reader & fan of the CC forums but have a question I don't see answered anywhere. I'm wondering if any students or parents can share their experience with AP credit for engineers. The LAC requirements are a done deal but would you recommend taking the AP credit and skipping the introductory science classes? Does high school AP give you a strong enough foundation for the upper level classes or would it be better to repeat some/all sciences at Vandy (Bio, Chem & Physics)? She has all 4's & 5's on her AP tests (so far). She is planning on Biomedical Engineering and is strongly considering the accelerated 5 yr Masters program since she has so many AP credit available. But...we're nervous to skip the sciences without hearing from those who may have done it themselves. Thanks for any advice!</p>
<p>@DoremomCT - Definitely take credit for 1st year math if your daughter has the AP Calculus BC. Vandy lets you start in 2nd year math with the ability to drop down if you are not comfortable with material. As far as the other sciences, talk to the advisor for engineering. You can send him an email. The material that will be sent home in May to register for classes will also provide recommendations. S didn’t have any science APs that were accepted, he took credit for the math and completed most of his liberal arts requirement with AP credit. It has allowed him to keep a lower class load.</p>
<p>Hi, S2 just finished 2nd year as Computer Engineering/Math student. He took all his AP credit except Stat that Engineering would not take. He had Math BC credit and started with 175 and 196 Freshman Year. He took the AP Chem credit and started with Physics. The only advice he was given was if he was considering Medical School (he is not) that he should take Chem again at Vandy. Also took Spanish AP and gave him 5 credits for Liberal Arts. She should take all the credit she can. The only issue for the Masters in 4 years is that she probably will not be able to study a semester abroad. </p>
<p>Four years ago when Vandy son was touring spring of senior year, a freshman young woman told him that there was a fall term blocked class for Vandy freshman who all got 5s on their Chem AP exams. She was a premed with a Spanish major. Her comments were that this class was at 8am…not ideal time for new students who may not be going to sleep on time like they did at home…but that this class was going to make getting into Organic faster. She felt that the professor was very accessible and that it felt good to be in a room of all AP-5ers. Perhaps she was saying they did two semesters of college chem in one semester and started Organic spring term freshman year. She was interested in an immersion foreign study in Spanish, so was earnestly knocking off her premed courses. Perhaps Pancaked or a current/recent student could comment on this option-- if still offered.</p>
<p>Thanks for the early feedback–still interested in any other experiences so keep 'em coming! To clarify, she is not pre-med. She’s currently taking Calc BC and Physics (among other APs) so we’ll have to wait to be sure her scores qualify for credit but she definitely has Bio (4) & Chemistry (5). So far, it’s sounding like it’s fairly common for students to take the credit vs. repeating the classes at Vandy? I appreciate the fact that they’re so willing to allow the students to do that. She is so anxious to be done with HS and move on to college that she is already looking at the online material to choose classes and emailed a program director who told her she could take all the AP credit she wanted to but didn’t really give the more nuanced answer as to whether that was a good idea or not. I was looking for some advice from those who have “been there, done that.” </p>
<p>Sorry to butt into the thread with a premed comment. Some Biomed Engineering and other students will go to med school and take the prerequisites in undergrad for the MCAT.</p>
<p>Skip Bio, Calc, Chem, and Physics.</p>
<p>General Bio is pretty miserable, and the absurd things they force you to memorize are not important for the rest of the engineering coursework. The basics from AP Bio are fine. VUSE, realizing that General Bio was a waste of time for engineers, finally just added a streamlined biology course just for Chemical Engineers. It was pretty simple. Not sure if they plan to extend that to BME.</p>
<p>Calc 150/155 is just painful. The next calculus class, 175, requires you to be pretty quick with derivatives and integrals but rarely requires any unnecessarily difficult integration like 155 does.</p>
<p>Physics is… alright. No reason to retake it if you have the credit. Basic physics is important for BMEs but it’ll essentially all be retaught in engineering courses.</p>
<p>Gen Chem really isn’t that bad, but again, the basics from AP Chem will cover all the important stuff, so it should be skipped. Gen chem is reviewed at the beginning of Orgo anyway. Orgo is a beast in and of itself. As other posters have mentioned, there is a freshman-only Organic Chem course. See: Chem 218. It’s taught by Johnston this coming semester and is at 9am. The other option is to delay for a year and take Organic sophomore year. Then D can maybe take Sulikowski, the highly sought after organic teacher-- this way, she would also be taking organic with all of her engineering and pre-med peers, who tend to take organic in their sophomore year.</p>
<p>Personally, I took freshman orgo and did pretty poorly in the class. Even after taking 15-ish APs in high school, I was not prepared for the rigor of Organic Chemistry during my first semester at Vanderbilt, when so much else is going on socially. A few others suffered the same fate, but others did fine. The course has an unusually late drop deadline (at least there was when I took it)-- you’re allowed to drop even after you get your first test back, so if it is too much to handle and the first test doesn’t go well, you can still remove the class from your schedule without consequence. I repeated the class during my Sophomore year and did much better.</p>
<p>Feel free to message me or comment back with any questions.</p>
<p>@Faline2, I didn’t think you were “butting in.” I hope you didn’t take my comment the wrong way. I just wanted to clarify our particular situation since her interests would not take her down that track. I appreciate that others might be interested in pre-med requirements.</p>
<p>@Pancaked, great info. I’ll let her read through and see if she has any more specific comments. </p>