<p>I know it's different for every college, but generally:</p>
<p>if you receive enough AP credits to fulfill a whole years worth college (For example 10 classes) and are able to skip them and you need 40 classes to graduate with a degree (Typically 10 classes per year). Is it possible to spread out the 30 classes through 4 years? (7/8 classes per year with all the AP credit)?</p>
<p>If so, would tuition cost the same? </p>
<p>Because of course, I want to enjoy the college experience and make it last.</p>
<p>It depends how tuition is calculated at your school. Make sure you don’t drop below 12 credits/semester because then you won’t be considered a full-time student, and you are ineligible for some financial aid and there are tax repercussions.</p>
<p>I think I had close to a year’s worth of AP credits. The thing is that you don’t use a lot of them, like I got several history credits, but I don’t really need to take any history classes that it would go for. AP can be helpful, but I don’t think it’s like a huge lifesaver or puts you that far ahead. Lots of times you have to take a certain class even if you have AP credit for it to declare your major.</p>
<p>Most schools have a minimum number of credits you can take and still be considered full time. If you’re relying on your parents health insurance or scholarships you would also need to be full time. You can kind of just fill up on electives though and take things unrelated to your major that still interest you. You might end up with enough to declare a minor in something.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I generally find that you just have more time for electives and such. Try taking something interesting you’ve never studied - you might find you absolutely love it.</p>
<p>AP isn’t for cutting down on classes or graduating early as much as it is for giving you a LOT of freedom. For a heavily undecided person like me, I would probably lose 1-2 years worth of major-related classes if I didn’t have AP and graduate with the bare requirements. ap only seriously helps in math/science though</p>
<p>The AP policies vary greatly by college. Many have a maximum amount of credits that can be used. Many do not let AP credits be used towards requirements for your major. I’m told many med schools also require that prerequisites be taken on a college campus.</p>
<p>I’ve read at UVa, the students like the experience so much, that they don’t graduate early even when they can. Instead, these students typically take a double major so they stretch their undergrad experience out to all 4 years. (The state of Virginia has rules that change in-state to out-of-state tuition rates if a student has too many credits for their degree program).</p>
<p>I came in with 45 credit hours of AP credits (yeah…I took 12 AP classes through high school and passed them all, with 9 5’s, 2 4’s, and only one 3…it was a ton of work though). Most of them were just gen ed stuff that I had a surplus of and that I would have had anyway between my minor (classics) and honors college classes. The best thing was probably getting out of English and Biology. I definitely could have gotten out of calc 1, but I felt it didn’t hurt to review and it turned out to be an easy A+. I’d say AP helped me more in that I had already been handling a college level workload for the past two years than any of the credit aside from English or Biology actually did. Getting out of bio meant I didn’t have to take three sciences at once during freshman or sophomore year to be able to get into the upper level classes on schedule.</p>
<p>It’ll probably help my brother get decently ahead, though, since he’s going for a double major of history and something else he’s still deciding on and he’ll have both Euro and American history done as well as English, US government, and a few others.</p>
<p>The one thing that having a lot of AP credits will usually help with, especially at large public colleges, is registering for classes. A lot of the upper level classes, especially in Psychology and Political Science, here at Michigan fill up incredibly quickly. So having a lot of credits coming into college can help you a lot with getting an earlier registration date.</p>
<p>I used (and sometimes feel like I abused) my AP credits to finish undergrad in two years.</p>
<p>If you can, I would strongly suggest graduating early instead of spreading classes out over 4 years. Double majoring is overrated. The value in having one major is huge (you can’t graduate without one…). The value of a second is much, much less. I’m always annoyed by new students who expect that they will be able to combine subjects like environmental science, sociology, and Italian in some meaningful way. If another subject happens to interest you -go ahead, take classes in it. However, I think that it rarely makes sense to stick around for another year to complete a second major if you are able to graduate.</p>
<p>Finishing early saves a year in tuition, and gets you closer to actually earning money. Think about it. Say tuition is 40k and you could make 50k working. Is a double major worth 90k? Is the “college experience” worth it (you still get the bulk of it over 3 years)?</p>
<p>It depends on the college…I have about 60 hours done just with AP credits, so even though I’m only a freshman, I’ll probably graduate college two years early.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that more students who are able to graduate early choose not to do so.</p>
<p>I will admit that finishing early does not make sense in all cases. Certain kinds of graduate schools may not like the idea, and in other situations students may not feel as if they have sufficient work experience to get the type of job they want. Still - in most cases, I think that the benefits of graduating early outweigh the costs.</p>
<p>I would probably stay more years in college if I could. Yes, it’s expensive, but the amazing times I’ve had and the great things I’ve learned, in my opinion, are priceless. Yes I am only a freshman and I understand that my views could change, but I would never even think of graduating early. College is too wonderful for me to skip that. In my opinion.</p>
<p>^I do not doubt that, but you only get 4 years of college and then the rest of your life to work…I don’t need to skip to that. I don’t think it’s a question of me being sold on something that isn’t actually that great…since I am already here and have had so many completely wonderful experiences that I think wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t in college.</p>
<p>I recognize that many people don’t feel the same way, and that is fine. But I would never give this up if I didn’t have to - I think where I am is the best place in the world.</p>
<p>***. If I’m having fun, who’s brainwashing me? I think I’m pretty capable of critiquing my own experiences. If I hadn’t been to college yet, I could understand your point of view, but not everyone sees college as hopelessly overrated. I like what I’m doing, simple as that. No one told me if I would or not, that was my own decision to come to.</p>
<p>even if i could (first off probably not enough and many ap credits over lap, like a bunch of random history credit, and secondly premed makes you take an advanced class if you ap out i heard), i wouldn’t.</p>
<p>I have 30 credits (credit hours) of AP transferring, plus about 12 credits of CC classes. So 42 credits will transfer. I plan on using most of them. I want to stay four years no matter what, but this will open up my schedule for a double major, and allow me to take more upper level classes that seem interesting.</p>