<p>Advanced</a> Placement coursework continues to benefit college students (Feb. 8, 2012)</p>
<p>I received around 30 credits from AP, and after my first semester, I already had enough credits to have “sophmore standing”. I get to choose classes earlier than people now and there are also some other perks. The only thing I found difficult was that the rigor of college classes is a lot harder than AP classes. And there are also some differences in topics covered. I know in AP Calculus, we didn’t go over anything about trig identities/derivatives/integrals, but it is heavily emphasized in the next level. So if you are taking AP credits for a class, you have to do a lot of review to make sure you know the basics.</p>
<p>AP Calculus is focused almost entirely on derivatives and integrals…What did you get on the exam?</p>
<p>I got a 5, but calc 2 (at least what i’ve done so far) has very heavy use of trig identities, trig derivatives (not just sin’, cos’, but also of tan & sec, inverse trig functions), trig derivatives (antiderivative of tan, sec, etc) as well as trig in u-sub. It’s probably the large lecture and fast pace of the class that makes me more confused though, but that trig stuff took a while to relearn again, especially after taking a break from them for 2 years or so.</p>
<p>Even though there is a standard AP curriculum, the variation on quality of AP delivery is great. If the teacher is passionate and knowledgable, one can get an pretty in depth coverage. For example, my son took AP calculus from a self-proclaimed “nerd” teacher who spends summers reading classics in mathematics. The rigor and conceptual depth of the calculus was amazing. While my son’s friend is taking AP calculus cross town and it looks to be a cookbook delivery.</p>
<p>Administrative question: My son is enter UW Madison as a freshman this coming fall. He has yet to send his AP scores. Some tests he still has to take this spring. At what point in time, does he get those scores to UW to plan his course choices?</p>
<p>The scores get posted to student center about a week before you get the official letter in the mail from Collegeboard. If your son signed up for a later SOAR date, then he’d be able to plan with the scores that he received, but if he hasn’t gotten the scores yet, he signs up for classes with a guess of how he did on the exams. If the scores differ from what he signed up as, he has to change them before classes start.</p>