In my experience, regardless of score, if an AP class is a prereq for a core class, it IS NOT equivalent to taking that class at your university.
If you take AP Calc and are not taking more calc or finite math, fine. But if you are planning on being a Bio major or premed, don’t use AP Bio to skip Bio 101. If you’re just going to take an elective to fulfill non-major requirements, sure, have fun.
It’s not a matter of curricula. It’s a matter of rigor. I know the faculty who teach the classes that are prereqs for our upper level classes. I sat on the curriculum committee for two of those courses. I also know the expectations of faculty who teach the classes after mine.
Each core course is a link in a chain that starts with intro courses. Students who try to skip a link do themselves a disservice, because it’s hard to overcome that lack of preparedness as they progress up the chain of that major.
I doubt you will find many faculty who believe AP courses are close enough to university intro courses. I tell my students that they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by taking those intro courses just the same.
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Yes, and I thought I made that point. It also depends on the field of study, as some AP courses are viewed as less challenging than others. My point is also the applicant’s interest. Taking an AP just to have an AP class is rather transparent.
Agreed - my father taught Intro Bio at a highly regarding public university for 40 years and thought the AP Bio high school course/exam didn’t even come close to covering what they covered and students who placed out of it ended up struggling if they continued on in bio or biochem.
Someone asked why a college would offer to let students place out or get credit if the AP curriculum is insufficient. My dad would say welcome to academia - he said that the department that made those decisions regarding placing out or course credit didn’t ask the faculty their opinion on those decisions. Not once in 40 years. And I doubt that is different from other large schools. LACs may be different.
IMO, the people you should ask about these decisions are the faculty rather than administrators.
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Retaking intro courses for material that one already knows well is not “nothing to lose”. If you go to an expensive college where you take about 32 courses over 8 semesters, would you really want to waste 1/32 of your expensive education on material that you already know, versus using it to learn something that is new to you?
That is why I suggest that students who are allowed to skip intro courses with AP scores try the college’s final exams of the courses to be skipped in order to make a more informed placement decision based on what the students know relative to the college’s expectations.
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This could also be one reason why major medical schools will say they they want students to retake Biology in college and some (not all) won’t even consider AP Bio. Also, so interesting because AP Bio seems like it always seems to be one of the hardest AP tests as far as achieving a 4 or 5.
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Some medical schools allow or prefer that students who are allowed advanced placement from an AP biology score take additional upper level biology courses rather than repeating introductory biology (which they would have to mark as “repeat” on the medical school application if they are repeating AP credit). But others may not, so a pre-med needs to check the MSAR on the requirements of every medical school they could possibly apply to (though contradictory policies at different medical schools may make it impossible to choose what is considered “best” for all of them).
*For example, https://med.umn.edu/admissions/how-apply/prerequisites says that “If you received CLEP, AP, or IB credit for courses such as general chemistry or biology, you’ll still need 1 semester of chemistry and biology with labs. This can be an advanced chemistry, organic chemistry, or any advanced biology course. Do not retake coursework for which you already received AP credit.”
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Also, a lot of highly selective schools expect that a lot of their students will come in with AP credits and plan accordingly. For example, my school’s second sequential chemistry class is designed so that freshmen coming from AP chemistry will learn and succeed. Our first chemistry class would not be a worthwhile experience for someone who excelled on the AP chemistry exam. We also offer three levels of introductory physics–one with no calculus or physics background assumed, one for calculus background, and one for strong math background + AP physics or equivalent + thinking about physics concentration.
Just an anecdote: I chose to take my AP bio credit in combination with a freshman seminar where I learned more about the topics I was less sure of in AP Bio instead of taking our introductory bio class. At highly selective schools, there are often lots of ways to gain similar knowledge and proficiency.
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I don’t think this opportunity is limited to highly selective (or in keeping with the current lingo ‘highly rejective’) colleges.
That all depends on individuals. My kid took AP Calc BC in 10th grade and Multi V Calc in 11th. When he went to our state flagship, they gave him Calc credits but didn’t let him skip Multi. So he took Multi and scored almost 100 on every exam. That’s one of the reasons he transferred out of it.
He took AP Bio and then took Genetics directly in college without any problems.
Not uncommon. I had the same experience.
That said, many math departments want to teach MVC and beyond their way. And to @CiaraFin 's point, many colleges with have several MVC options, sometimes with a proof-heavy honors version. My college had 3 options (and now are up to 4 options), guaranteeing that anyone taking MVC would be learning material they did not learn in HS.
If your kid literally repeated everything he already learned, that’s unfortunate.
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If the multivariable calculus course was a high school course (rather than a college or dual enrollment course that is accepted for transfer subject credit), the college is unlikely to allow credit or placement for it, although some college math departments may have a subject-credit-by-exam process that can be tried by students who feel that they know the material well enough by the college’s standards.
He is in a new school now and they offer several versions of calc, bio classes, but he passed those already.
Back to our topic about how many APs you should take in HS. He took 12 APs, including all hard ones, but less than some of his classmates. So his GPA was 4.0, but weighed only 4.83/5, ranked him 16th over 400. Although he got some impressive math and physics awards, he only got in a t25 school. His classmates with more APs and higher weighted GPAs got in MIT, Yale and Princeton. He was naive to listen to his GC when he started HS.
The problem is they don’t offer placement tests.
No college course is exactly equivalent to a HS (or even a DE) course, whether or not a student is given credit for it. Colleges’ credit policies are also not set in stone. They evolve. Some colleges also allow exceptions (e.g. by testing out of any course).
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Actually, a DE course taken at a nearby college is exactly equivalent to the course at that college, because it is exactly the same course.
Ok, I’ll make that exception.
While none us will ever know, I highly doubt the reason he “only” got into a T25 was that his rank was “only” 16 based on “only” having 12 APs.
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Of course we will never know for sure. But after he went to our state flagship for one year and took the most rigorous courses he could take and got 4.0 GPA, he was accepted into 2 T10 schools and WL by one while he only applied to 4 as a transfer. He was even accepted by one which rejected him before.
From the info I gathered, those other kids took around 15 APs.
Same issue with 2 of my kids with MVC. All 4 took it in hs and two of their colleges wouldn’t accept the dual credit they received for the course. One is a public university and the other a private. The one at a private it turns out her MVC at college went well beyond what the course did at the high school even though it was a dual credit course and my son will be a freshman. Ironically his school uses the same book as our high school but he’s also taking the Honors version of it to ensure he has a small class taught by a professor and wants to go more in depth instead of just a full repeat. Both kids also have/had to take Linear Algebra again also but didn’t receive dual credit for that anyway and really only were taught a brief foundation.
Where my daughter goes to the private school for her Engineering program they expect everyone to begin in Calc 2 or higher. So if a student hasn’t taken at least Calc AB and earned the AP credit they won’t even be accepted into Engineering.
For my other 2 children, one skipped college so the credit was a non issue and the other was given the MVC credit but she didn’t need MVC for her program so was able to take the credit as an elective. Worked out well for her.
It’s understandable that they want things taught their way or to go into depth how they want but sadly some majors don’t require that level of depth so for some kids it’s sort of a waste to have to retake the class. But doesn’t cost anything extra so they take what they need to take!