Kid one had a boatload of credits. They allowed him to take more advanced math, science and comp sci courses and to get out of nearly all of his gen ed requirements. Because of the way courses were sequenced he said it was still impossible to graduate early. (And I think he was having a good time and learning new stuff, so felt in no hurry to leave.)
Kid two had not quite as many credits, but his school would only give him gen ed credits for five APs so that’s what he took. It allowed him to take a full year abroad in Jordan, not just one semester and still have time for fun courses like creative writing when he got back. Also the solid history background he had from courses like AP World, AP Euro and APUSH meant that he could put the history courses he took in context. He dove deep into the history of the middle east, South Asian and nuclear disarmament while he was in college.
Way back when taking AP courses allowed me room for graduate level courses in college. I didn’t bother to graduate early, but when I got to graduate school, they allowed me to get credit for the graduate level courses I took which were beyond what I had needed for my degree. It saved me almost a semester’s worth of tuition.
My daughter came into Rice with lots of AP credit. Because of the AP credits, she was able to double major and only take 12 hours per semester to graduate on time. If she wants to graduate early she can ramp up her hours a bit. The AP credits knocked out her math and science requirements allowing her to take classes in areas she enjoys.
Son was able to use credits (no idea how many- just knew how many AP exams with some 4’s, the rest 5’s that translated into college credits) to take care of some breadth requirements. Since he did honors calculus and physics while those AP credits went through they did not advance him, rightfully so as his school’s courses covered so much more (and calc based physics). The AP credits did not go through until the end of the semester so they did not help with registration his first year since second semester was done before the end of the first semester. It did improve his class standing for the future. Understandable that his U would not give college credits before he did even one semester.
No housing advantages- those came with staying in the dorms (few students did) his second year.
The best part of AP classes (and proving knowledge with exams) was being better prepared for his classes.
He could have graduated in three years but not with honors (needed those grad classes or thesis), nor would he have been prepared for grad schools with minimal credits. It did allow him to take classes of greater interest to him.
My daughter entered college with roughly a semester’s worth of AP credits. This gave her some flexibility in course choice and paid off mostly for her final semester. She would have been able to graduate a semester early but for her school’s senior thesis requirement— however, with the credit, she was able to drop down to part-time enrollment her final semester, devoting her full attention to her thesis, to working to save money for post-college living expenses, and toward focusing on her job search.
I don’t remember how many AP credits my son had, but he enrolled in a LAC that would not have given him credit for most in any case. However, he did not finish at that school – after his 2nd year he left the school, and took a 3-year gap before transferring to a public u. in order to complete his degree. The public u. had a large number of general ed requirements that had not been met because of the first LAC had a more flexible curriculum and did not require them. Fortunately, most of those requirements could be filled with the AP credits — leaving my son with the ability to complete his education in 4 years overall (only 2 years needed at the second school to finish up). Without those credits, he probably would have either had to spend more time taking lower-level work at his 2nd U, or completed those requirements at a CC before enrolling. So one lesson learned is simply that even if the target college does not provide much benefit for the AP’s, live sometimes throws curveballs – and so there was a value in having those credits banked for future use.
The Top-20 schools are extremely stingy with AP credits. Usually the most useful credits are for Calculus. Son’s school limits AP credits to 15 units and most sciences except for Physics C get general education credits only.
I read about this student, so no first hand knowledge. He had a bunch of AP’s which he got credit for. He did a lot of CLEP exams too. He graduated with a BA after just 2.5 years of college. He wanted to work though, and have minimum debt, so graduating asap was a priority.
For my D, her college accepted some AP’s for credit and some for placement. She didn’t use the placement option, but did take the credits. The credits count as electives, I think. That has allowed her to take some fun classes she wouldn’t have otherwise had room for. It also helped that she knew from the outset what she wanted to major in. My son intends to use whatever AP credits he can at the college he chooses.
I believe that even HYPSM and the like will let students use some AP exams for placement, even if they don’t get credit for them. That can be very useful for a student who wants to skip the 101 class.
My alma mater doesn’t give credit for AP scores, but they can be used to enroll in more advanced classes under some circumstances. I did so for Spanish (which was a bad idea) and didn’t for any other subjects (I’m especially glad I took English 101).
For my son at Caltech, there was no credit for his 14 APs and 8+ college courses. But, I suspect they helped get him accepted. From what he says, the baseline for starting the freshman core classes without being completely overwhelmed is at least AP Calc BC, Physics C, and Chem (and probably CS, maybe Bio).
The only class he tested out of was CS 1, and that was a higher-level test than AP CS. (He didn’t attempt testing out of core math and physics classes.) They now have a 4-year requirement, so no one graduates early anymore. If the goal is to go to grad school for a PhD, graduating early isn’t a good strategy, since you want to have time to do more undergrad research.
He’s currently taking Intro to Economics, so I asked how much help his prior experience in econ is. (5s on both AP Econ tests and his Economics Challenge team won at the state level.) He says it’s a bit of a leg up in that you know what the answer should be. But, the problem sets are all calculus that you still have to do. (BTW, this course is also being offered by EdX, which says “This is a real Caltech class.” As it turns out, that’s not true–the Caltech students have harder homework sets than the MOOC students. Still, it’s his easiest class this quarter.)
I can’t stress enough how helpful it is to start researching your likely colleges as soon as possible regarding their policies on grantting AP credits. The differences from college to college are enormous: the scores they will accept, the credits they grant for those scores, the maximum # of credits they will grant, & whether AP credits can be used to fulfill general education requirements. Elite private colleges tend to be stingy on all fronts. Big public schools tend to be much more generous.
The most bang for your buck is to take AP exams in which you are likely to do well enough to get maximum credit AND which fulfill a general ed requirement. One of my kids wanted to study accounting, so that eliminated a lot of colleges. Once the kid found a few colleges that were a good fit and were really generous with AP credit, kid was able to hand-pick AP classes for which the exam scores that were likely would get max credit AND would fulfill general ed requirements at at least some of the likely schools.
If you just take AP classes willy nilly, without gearing them towards a few likely schools, you run the risk of taking classes for which the likely exam score will give you few or no credits; or you might get credits, but they won’t fulfill gen ed requirements. Obviously, this strategy works best with colleges you are quite certain of getting into, which are generous with AP credits, & which allow APs to fulfill gen ed rqmts (again, big publics).
Also, be aware that you can take the AP exam without having taken the class. My kid got 16 credits for a foreign language learned from relatives. And I think kid could have done ok on the AP music exam based on years of musical training.
Bottom line is kid started with 52 credits, which allowed for taking 12 credits per semester, & graduating in 3 yrs at age 20.
My D got 17 credits from AP’s. The current plan is for her to lighten the load to 12 credits the semester that she needs to study for the MCAT. If she changes her mind/major, whatever she wants… a semester’s worth of interesting classes, double major, study abroad or internship, etc. I’m not a fan of graduating early, why rush things (at least for kids that love school/learning)
This is an interesting thread. D19 recently asked me if she can sign up and pay for the 7 AP tests she can take this spring, but then after she knows what school she will attend, not take the tests for the schools where she won’t get the credit so she can concentrate on getting 5’s on the ones that will matter. That sounded strange, so I looked up all the schools she applied to and made up a chart. It really does matter where they apply and what score she gets, and it really varies quite a bit on the school and major. At first it seemed like a waste of money, but actually in the long run might save money.
The advantages that my son experienced was not having to take the same class twice. He was able to start is an upper level math class and bypass the lower level classes. A hopeful benefit is to graduate early. So far he is on track to but who really knows. It will save him one semester. Not sure if he can get a jump on the labor market but he may finish early.
@moooop, my D21 is interested in Accounting and her HS offers several ACP IU courses. She’s taking ACP Calc I now and will be taking Calc II and ACP US History next year. IU is one of our state flagship U’s, so she will most likely try to get in to Kelley DA. I’m trying to find a couple other schools for her to apply to when the time comes so she has more than just our two state schools. I was also thinking of Miami Ohio as well. Do you mind sharing what schools your Accounting kid was looking at and what AP courses were of most benefit?
My freshman d was also capped at 45 credits at her school. She had almost all of the gen ed requirements from AP credit, including AP chem which allowed her to not have to take Chem 1 and 2 at her school which are big time weeding out courses. She doesn’t have to take any English either. She also has enough credits that she will be able to get three minors without having to stay longer than 8 semesters. The thought was never really that she would graduate early but on time. Without those minors though she could graduate early.
Presumably, Caltech can do that because it is one of the few colleges that requires entering frosh to have had calculus, and its academic standards for admission are extremely high, so that its introductory economics course can be more like intermediate economics courses at many other schools.
My son started at Alabama with 67 credits, I think 37 from dual enrollment and 30 from AP. Where one attends college makes a difference; Alabama is more generous than most. In fact, they treated his Intermediate Accounting class he took in high school as an elective under another course code since Accounting majors are required to take Intermediate on the Alabama campus. They also gave him credit for one or two AP classes where he only had a 3 on the AP exam; these were classes for which a 4 is required by most colleges.
He obviously worked hard in high school. As a freshman in college he took only 24 hours. Pledging was very time consuming. He has Alabama’s free-tuition scholarship that covers eight semesters. It now takes 150 credit hours to take the CPA exam. This is his second year and he started as a senior. He’s a double major and is planning to get a master’s degree, so the credits will come in handy.
He also has an internship lined up for this summer with a Big 4 firm; it pays $25 an hour so he’s looking forward to it, and most interns get job offers on graduation. He got a summer internship this past year with a big bank and made $13 an hour. I think the fact that he was a first-year student with 91 semester hours probably helped him get these internships. (My advice to him this past summer was "You’re wasting you time sending out all these emails. You need to just starting walking in sandwich shops and ask for a job. Shows what I know.)
I think taking at least a couple of courses through dual enrollment at a four-year college is highly worthwhile. It gives kids a chance to see what a real college class is like while providing parents the opportunity to monitor, counsel, and advise them. A lot of colleges have a reasonably priced residential summer program that allows rising high school seniors to take college courses while still receiving extra advising and supervision. Ole Miss has a good program but the kids get locked up and can’t leave campus or drive anywhere, so my son just stayed at home. It cost me substantially more for my son to stay home and commute four miles to school than it would have if he had taken the classes while enrolled in the special summer program and lived and eaten on campus, but he didn’t want to be a prisoner and I really don’t blame him.
@rjm Sure, Michigan State, Alabama, Nebraska, & Florida State were the main ones. Also considered Kentucky, West Va., Texas Tech.
We live in Michigan, so MSU was our starting point. But kid also wanted out-of-state options, & I demanded ones that give automatic merit aid that made the price comparable to MSU. Looking back, I would have encouraged applications to Oklahoma or Oklahoma State as well (amazingly nice schools).
BC calc, stats, psychology, microecon, macroecon, & Spanish language (16 credits for a 5 on AP Spanish exam!–a whole semester’s credit! ) were the most helpful. Also took several community college classes (English composition, U.S. Government , intro philosophy, cinema). All of these put a big dent in the gen ed requirements at most of the colleges listed, & stats & econ trimmed the business requirements as well.
One thing to be aware of is majors like accounting have pretty inflexible sequences of classes…Intro Accounting I, Intro Acc II, Intermediate Acc I, Int Acc II, etc. If student is trying to graduate in fewer than 4 yrs, it is helpful if they are allowed to start taking some advanced accounting classes (managerial accounting, accounting systems, etc) after the first 2 Intro classes, rather than only after the 2 Intermediate accounting classes have been completed.
@schadret…re graduating early: some of us aren’t in a position to bankroll a whole 'nother yr just cuz junior enjoys studying. The net gain from not paying for a 4th year & kiddo working that year as a full-time accountant is pretty dramatic.
@EarlVanDorn and @moooop, thank you for all the helpful info and advice! This thread is great.
@moooop, so did your kid end up as a Sparty or did he go OOS? We’re also looking at OOS schools that offer good merit and could hopefully bring it down to close-to our state school cost. Thanks so much for your school list. Also, for the AP classes that proved most useful for college credit.