@mathmomvt : I would advise caution with interpretation of AP policies. Some may reflect hardcore care for students’ success, and some may reflect enrollment control policies, whether that is to limit enrollment in traditional “service courses” or to increase headcount in them for whatever reason (perhaps to avoid inflated enrollments in upper divisions/intermediates that want to keep them reasonable). I will give an example (chemistry as always). Emory pre-“Chemistry Unbound” curriculum covered roughly the same content as Vanderbilt did, yet Emory only exempted AP 4/5s from gen. chem 1 and Vanderbilt exempted from gen. chem 1 and 2. Now admittedly, most instructors at Emory technically write harder (often only marginally harder though) tests than those at Vanderbilt for the course (they have harder math problems and also include a decent amount of conceptual problems, which students struggle at more than math. Beyond the “lewis structure” test, VU gives semi-rigorous plug-and-chug/math logic exams which students at elites are usually ready for as their high math SATs predict. See what Dr. Eric Mazur says about this phenomenon in physics:https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/19140/dont-lecture-me-rethinking-how-college-students-learn-2 . Most gen. chem classes are like what is described and play into students’ hands. A seemingly simple “justification” or conceptual logic item can sink most students who are great at plug and chug and in fact, you can see on ratemyprofessor how many complain about teachers for physics or chemistry who are “too conceptual” or “problem solving focused”…which is them perhaps accidentally recognizing a difference from “real problems” and exercises/algorithmic learning. Usually, complaints saying “tests don’t reflect what was directly taught in class!” is a huge hint that instructors unexpectedly deviated from the latter. Unfortunately some courses are stereotyped and students measure “quality” and “learning” versus the expectations that come from said stereotypes).
However, I don’t think they were so much harder to be able to claim “well we really want to ensure your problem solving skills before going forward” because this same crowd they refuse to let skip both semesters, they allow them to enroll in organic chemistry (freshman only or sophomore sections) which is a concession of what most already know, that general chemistry 2 is not particularly congruent with things emphasized in problem solving oriented organic chemistry courses. I can only see its use if it is to prepare AP students for the level of problem solving in a more quantitative course like pchem or analytical chemistry. Vanderbilt’s motive may be to reduce enrollment pressures of engineering students who are non-prehealth (most) and Emory’s…who knows? Could be a recruitment strategy as, for some reason, they want to be as popular as the biology and neuroscience programs. The instructors are really strong for chemistry at that level, but to be blunt, I would rather recruit the students who do well in something like organic as a freshman to help get more top notch majors.
It could also be that maybe they noticed a correlation among those not ambitious enough to start with ochem, but who did go on to skip gen. chem 1 and enroll in gen. chem 2. Maybe the latter group didn’t perform as well as expected so they are stopping disasters that may occur if they allow them to instead go to analytical.
Either way, some schools and departments may have ulterior motives with credit policies.