Ivy League... be prepared

@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.

@bernie12 fair enough, there may well be more going on with AP policies.

From the son’s personal experience, WashU is pretty stringent when it comes to science AP credits. A 5 on AP Chemistry gives you general education credits but students aren’t exempted from General Chemistry 1 and 2. Same with a 5 in Biology-general education credits only.

I personally felt the policy was good in that it introduced students to a different approach to learning the hard sciences. It was definitely an eye opening experience for the kid. He never took AP Chemistry (Honors Chemistry only) and had no preconceived notions about how college chemistry was supposed to be taught. First semester was a B+ and he was proud of the grade because there were a lot of kids dropping/getting bad grades. He adjusted well enough to get an A in second semester Chemistry.

I remember parents on our WashU FB group wanting to complain to the administration. There was a definite amount of schadenfreude on my part.

A number of you have talked about getting into medical school after an Ivy. There are other things to consider. I just came back from a prestigious Ivy graduation. A number of the kids were taking a year off just to do the applications for med school. I met one phi beta kappa with a 528 who was doing just that. Med school requires extensive letters of recommendation and in person interviews. It is almost why bother applying to med school even if you do go to an Ivy unless you are independently wealthy to fly around the country and have plenty of free time on your hands to work on the applications. I think only 40 per cent of the applicants to med school eventually wind up going.

@collegedad13 : Of course, those at elites are much more likely to end up going (extremely high success rates and lots who can afford the primary, secondary, and interview schedule), unless you mean right after undergrad. Now the latter is becoming rarer and it shows up in the average age of entering med. school cohorts.

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