<p>Just about everyone at elite colleges these days has a substantial amount of AP credit. It just seems logical that a good majority of students would be graduating in 3 years (if a student had 8 or 9 credits). I know some schools really negate AP credit, like harvard. Can some students give me a perspective of what it is really like with all those AP credits.</p>
<p>Your question solely regards AP......I had none. I did take SAT2 and placement exams. There are ways other than AP to move ahead in the level of course selection.</p>
<p>Many people who come into MIT with a lot of AP credit just use the empty course slots to take a lot of extra advanced classes. People who could technically graduate in three or three and a half years usually take extra classes, complete a double-major, or complete a co-terminal master's in four years -- they don't want to leave school and leave all of their friends.</p>
<p>You'll find that at the elite schools, a very large percentage (if not the majority) of students have enough AP credits to graduate early. Yet almost everybody chooses not to. The undergraduate experience is good enough that no one wants to leave (and their Financial Aid policies help to make spending 4 years possible).</p>
<p>My brother entered Berkeley with credits in 8 different AP classes. However, not all counted toward his major, so instead of being a whole year ahead, he was only 1 semester up. I would assume that happens to a lot of people?</p>
<p>You will find that most AP credit is useless at elite schools. Columbia for instance gives AP credit for some 4s, but mostly only for 5s. And even then it is often retroactive credit (ie you aren't awarded the credit for your 5 on the AP Calc exam until you take and pass a higher level of Calc). Furthermore they just don't give credit for some APs, like US History or AP Human Geo.</p>
<p>And in order to graduate early one would need upwards of 24 credits (but probably more like 30) and, let's face it, there aren't enough AP classes for a chunk of that to be useful to most majors.</p>
<p>Top schools also cap the amount of credit they award. At CU it's about 15, which would only ever put you a semester ahead.</p>
<p>Like molliebatmit said, many don't want to leave early. The do allow you options if you want to semester abroad and not take a full courseload (if you're in Rome, do you want to be taking ALL those credits?).</p>
<p>I know that at Williams College, you can only make use of a high AP score (5) or SAT II (800) to take a higher level course. This doesn't count towards class credit or early graduation, although it may help towards meeting requirements for your major. All students must take 4 classes each term, minimum. If you want to take 5 for a semester, thats allowed, but you can't "compensate" the next semester with 3--you still need 4 each and every semester.</p>
<p>Wow. This is very interesting. Bump.</p>
<p>yea at Northwestern, you get credit for AP's (only 5's except for some foreign language ones with 4's) but for gen ed requirements (called distribution areas) you can only use 2 credits. There are 6 areas and you need to take two credits in each. So atleast 12 credits required, atleast 10 with max AP credit. I'm econ so I will be a little ahead since I got 5's in both Micro and Macro but nonetheless, there's no way I wouldnt stay in four years. Also, since NU is on a quarter system, which means a regular courseload of 4 classes a term. If you try to "accelerate" graduation with 5 classes a term, you get charged extra tuition. You can take 5 though w/o the hike if just have that kind of courseload and ambitions. You need 45 credits (1 credit=1 class) to graduate from the Arts and Sciences college.</p>
<p>I'm getting about a year and a half's worth of AP credit at UChicago, and I think I'm going to stay for 5 years (1 year will be studying abroad at Waseda, though, so it's more like 4). It's the college experience. Don't waste it.</p>
<p>While many people can most don't. A number of students at Stanford do Co-term in 4 years thus getting both a bachelors and a masters degree for the price of a bachelors (financial aid covers all 4 years too). Of course it only works well in certain majors (I know a guy who cotermed Chemical Engineering in 4 years and told me never to do what he did).</p>