Hi, so I want to major in Biology and I’m a senior in High School. I have some AP credit under my belt, but I don’t know whether I should use it or not. I’ve seen some of the 4 year plans for Bio majors and they involved some classes I’ve taken in High School. I checked with the college I’m going to and my ap credit can be used there, but is it a good idea for me to use my AP Bio credit so I can skip introductory Bio to the next level? I’m afraid that High School Bio and Introductory college Bio will be different and I’ll be taking too hard of a course for my Freshman year of college. The same goes for my AP Chem, Stats, Physics, and BC Calc credit. I’m afraid to use my Statistics credit because what if by college I forgot statistics and it’s a necessity in my other courses. Will skipping Statistics + Calc hurt me overall? Should I just retake these courses in College even though I’ve earned credit to skip them?
For a given course that AP credit allows you to skip, if you intend to take a more advanced course using the potentially-skipped course as a prerequisite, try the college’s old final exam for the potentially-skipped course to check your knowledge of the material.
Note that if you are a pre-med and do skip some of the introductory courses using your AP credit, you likely need to take more advanced courses in those subjects, since many medical schools do not accept AP credit for pre-med course requirements.