<p>title... kind of a bummer... still, is it easy to test out of intro courses (say calculus or physics). is the school good w/ transfer credits from state colleges?</p>
<p>Because the AP tests don't exactly ask a lot of you.
You can get a good score just by knowing the right tricks and doing enough practice tests, they don't test your true understanding of the math and theories, your intuitive feel about the calculus.
With a school like Caltech, even its intro classes will be much harder than your typical high school AP course, and you'd be screwed if you tried to skip to something even harder.</p>
<p>Caltech offers their own placement exams (in math, physics, chemistry, and biology), which are a much better way of assessing knowledge and ability than AP tests. It takes a bit of effort to do these, but really, only the students that can do these with little preparation should skip these classes.</p>
<p>That being said, the humanities and social science department could do a much better job of finding a way to provide credit for those who really don't need to go through freshman humanities.</p>
<p>And in English too.</p>
<p>The reason is that the Caltech intro courses are, with high probability, quite a bit more advanced than the courses you would like to substitute for them.</p>
<p>Indeed, most Caltech core science courses assume that you already have the corresponding AP course under your belt (or an equivalent college intro course); most students do. Acing the AP chem, physics or calculus exams does not correspond to knowing the content of Chem 1, Phys 1, or Math 1 (and in the last case doesn't even come close). Most state school courses don't provide really good substitutes for these either.</p>
<p>You can take the Caltech placement exams, and that's really the only way to determine if you know the equivalent stuff. The main exception is that for physics, if you do well on the mechanics placement (Phys 1a) exam, sometimes the professors will accept a transcript from a (good) course at a university on the Phys 1bc material in lieu of the exam.</p>
<p>I would just point out that it is a lot more work for Caltech to develop and administer its own placement exams. They have their own standards, and as Ben notes, assume that most students enter having the equivalent of an AP course anyway. If you really want to take courses that are widely available in high school, you may be missing the point of Caltech. The few people I know who got 5's on calculus are very glad they did not try to skip Math 1. It was much deeper and more theoretical than their high school courses.</p>
<p>I thought the physics department preferred to have people take the placement tests for ph1bc rather than use transcripts (another frosh with more rigorous university background in physics had to go through the placement method too).</p>
<p>Yeah. It's hit and miss. They made me take the Phys 1a exam but then accepted a transcript that showed I took a pretty exact Phys 1bc equivalent at a good university, but this did not happen for everyone. I think it may depend on which prof you talk to, and things may have changed in the past 4+ years.</p>
<p>The worst mistake you can do is assume your high school preparation will be enough for college, no matter where you go.</p>
<p>I took IB Chem HL, and did alright on it, but I still got an "incomplete" on my intro Chem class last term. I could definitely have worked harder, and ironically, if I'd never taken advanced chem in high school I might have done better in chem1a, since it forces you to pay attention and work harder.</p>
<p>I passed CS1 when I'd never programmed before in my life (except for on my TI-83, but that doesn't count) when some of my friends who programmed before dropped it. </p>
<p>My friend at Princeton in an integrated science curriculum is also having plenty of problem, despite supposed advanced classes in college. </p>
<p>Bottom line: don't assume college work is similar to high school work.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The worst mistake you can do is assume your high school preparation will be enough for college, no matter where you go.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>These are words of wisdom.</p>
<p>What happens is you get the math and CS placement tests to finish before early July, as well as a general chem "survey" which I believe gives you the option of taking a placement test if you know enough chem. For math and physics there's also a required general placement test that decides whether you get placed in a "remedial" or "super section" of the class. When you arrive for orientation the week before school starts, you get the physics placement test.</p>
<p>Math 1abc is the first year of math, which covers general calculus with proofs! (1a), linear algebra (1b), and multi var(1c). I think the rule is you must place out of any two of these, or else you must take all 3. For Physics, a good number of people place out of 1a (mechanics), but only a few place out of 1b(EM). For CS, CS1 involves basic programming and abstraction, and CS2 involves data structures and OOP, although there isn't any real point in testing out of these courses because they aren't required (I think only for CS majors). CS1 is taken fall term, and CS2 is taken winter term.</p>
<p>It's never a bad idea to retake a course because you can always learn something new, especially with the rigor of Caltech's classes.</p>
<p>If you want to get a good idea of how hard the courses are, you might want to look at the course webpages for freshman courses (which have problems from this year):
Ma1a: [Ma1a</a> - Fall 06-07] - Calculus of One and Several Variables<a href="homework%20set%207%20will%20give%20you%20a%20good%20idea%20of%20the%20difficulty%20of%20the%20class%20:p">/url</a>
Ph1a: [url=<a href="http://www.its.caltech.edu/%7Etmu/ph1a%5DPhysics">http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tmu/ph1a]Physics</a> 1A: October 2007 Course Calendar
The chem1 stuff has been removed, but I don't think they want you looking at previous year's stuff for that class anyway.
(Oh and don't look at the solutions of course :))</p>
<p>So, question: Why doesn't Caltech take AP credits for humanities classes? I saw that Caltech requires 108 credits of humanities, and while I understand why Caltech would want its students to retake the fundamental sciences, WHY HUMANITIES TOO?</p>
<p>Maybe because Caltech wants you to be a well educated person?</p>
<p>I think the question is, why can't Caltech students who got 5's in AP English place out of some intro frosh hums and take higher-level hums from the get-go?</p>
<p>I'm not sure if this is right, but I thought it was 36 units humanities, 36 social sciences, then 36 more of either, for 108 total?</p>
<p>One reason for not accepting AP credit for English could be pushing us to take other hum classes like philosophy.</p>
<p>@zoogies: Well, I'm talking more about classes like AP * History, AP Music Theory, AP Psychology, etc. than AP English (because I read that Caltech does have a placement test for English). I don't quite understand because the humanities don't build up towards your major, so why is it important that if a student wants to take a more advanced Psych class then he must retake what he already learned? Are AP humanities exams also incomparably easy in relation to the humanities at Caltech? </p>
<p>and</p>
<p>@thechc: I'm sorry. You're probably right.</p>
<p>These are the "frosh hums" you can take at Caltech:</p>
<p>Hum/H 1 ab. East Asian History
Hum/H 2. American History
Hum/H 3 abc. European Civilization
a. The Classical and Medieval Worlds
b. Early Modern Europe
c. Modern Europe
Hum/H 4 abc. Civilization, Science, and Archaeology
a. Before Greece
b. The Development of Science from Babylon through the Renaissance
c. The Origins of Polytheism and Monotheism in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel and the Nature of Religious Belief
Hum/En 5. Major British Authors
Hum/En 6. American Literature and Culture
Hum/En 7. Modern European Literature
Hum/Pl 8. Right and Wrong
Hum/Pl 9. Knowledge and Reality
Hum/H/HPS 10. Introduction to the History of Science
F/Hum 32. Humanities on Film</p>
<p>These classes aren't exactly the hardest things in the world to pass, but there's not that much overlap between them and AP tests. No one's going to stop you from taking an advanced English course even if you haven't done an introductory English course, regardless of background. Basically, it's pretty easy to get your frosh hums done without repeating stuff in high school. The two philosophy classes "Right and Wrong" and "Knowledge and Reality" are pretty popular.</p>
<p>Aurona: The English placement test is used to determine which students (usually ESL students) need remedial work in the English language. You do not get any credit for a perfect score on the English placement test. Just a warm feeling.</p>
<p>The purpose of not accepting AP credit is to encourage breadth of exploration in the humanities and social sciences. If you've already taken AP English, AP History, AP Music Theory, and AP Psychology, then during freshman year, you could expand your horizons by taking "Humanities on Film," "Knowledge and Reality," and "Nature of Religious Belief."</p>
<p>The advanced HSS requirements work the same way. Let's say you are interested in taking advanced psych courses but you have already taken AP Psychology. In order to count the course for advanced SS credit, you will need to take one of three different introductory psych courses: Social Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, and Cognitive Psychology. It does not matter at all which intro class you take. You can take the advanced course and the introductory course in any order, and you can take the advanced class first term frosh year if you feel like it. Another option would be to take the advanced psychology course and count it towards your "pick four" HSS requirement, in which case you need never take an intro psych class.</p>
<p>Have you tried accessing our online course catalog? ( Caltech</a> 2007-2008 Course Catalog ) You will find that advanced HSS courses rarely require any prerequisites. Take whatever you want, in whatever order you want. I promise you that you will never have to retake an equivalent HSS class.</p>