<p>I'm attending Boston University for Engineering and i'm taking 6 AP classes. The ones I feel are most important are psychology, calculus and statistics. But before I devote all my time to studying, I want to know exactly how important it is to get a 4+ to get credit.</p>
<p>Has anyone ever looked back at high school and said to themselves, "dam, I wish I put in more effort to get that ap credit"? On my open house tour, my guide said that he actually regret getting credit for psychology, because he wishes he could take it in college for an easy A. Does getting credit really save you that much money and does it really help you graduate faster, or does it just free up your schedule so that you don't have to take too many classes your freshmen year? </p>
<p>I also feel like if I get credit for Calculus BC and I don't take Calc I and II in college, when I take CAlc III I might forget everything I learned in high school and do poorly. Since calculus is so important for engineering, would it be better to just not get credit for calculus, roll through it in college to refresh your memory?</p>
<p>I’m at a CSU, so I’m not sure what kind of credit BU gives for AP exams. I took AP Calc BC, Chem, Bio, and Physics C. I ended up with 29 units of credit which has been huge as an engineering major. I do look back and wish I had taken more AP classes to get avoid GEs, because those classes are often kind of a waste of time. Don’t worry about Calc III: especially if you’ve taken Physics, but regardless it’s not terribly difficult to relearn the basic differentiation/integration you’ll need. I didn’t take math my senior year and it wasn’t bad at all. Bottom line: AP credit is great, you can always retake classes if you want a GPA boost, and it’s nice to be able to take sophomore/junior level engineering/math classes early. Oh and the Calc AP test is objectively easy. Don’t need to waste a bunch of time studying for it.</p>
<p>If you score a 5, then in all likelihood you will do fine skipping the introductory courses as allowed by your school. You will effectively gain space for additional free electives. If you are unsure of whether to skip, see if there are old final exams for the courses you are considering skipping so that you can test your knowledge of that course content.</p>
<p>Getting AP credit (or credit from any other tests your college may use) gives you a huge amount of flexibility because it gives you a buffer for switching majors, studying abroad, etc. If you don’t come in with any exam credit, then to graduate in 4 years you have to get all the right classes every semester and quickly work up through prereq classes to get your major requirements out of the way. If you have your gen eds coming in as a freshman, you can leap right into your major and either graduate in less than 4 years or graduate in 4 years on a much more flexible schedule.</p>
<p>If I had gotten a 5 instead of a 4 on AP Chem I would have gotten out of another class, giving me even more time for taking electives I wanted (still no idea how I got a 4, I was a total curvebreaker in my Chem 2 class).</p>
<p>Thanks to me coming in with seven classes worth of AP credits I was able to graduate a semester early and work with one of my professors full time for a few months before heading to grad school. That not only saved me about $6k in loans and my parents quite a bit of tuition, but I saved enough money from my lab job to pay off my unsubsidized loan prior to going to grad school.</p>
<p>^ Those are the most important AP classes for sure. Bio is nice too if there is a natural science requirement, you can often avoid biology classes with labs. Psych and Stats…not so much. Again it depends on how much GE credit you’re willing to work for in high school</p>
<p>Taking a couple of the social studies ones can be nice if you’d rather not have to endure those gen eds. Check with your school’s bulletin: different programs require different gen eds, and have different restrictions which ones you can take. For example, I came in with 9 hours worth of history courses, but only needed 3 of those for my Computer Science degree.</p>