I agree with everyone above. Of all the things to get bent out of shape over, this is pretty low on the priority list. Checking which schools would accept which credits was very high on our priority list. And if you have to take it again? At least you’ve seen the material before. It should not be that difficult. And FWIW, back in the day my H had to pass calculus in order to graduate - and he’s an elementary PE teacher!!!
He can always enroll in an extra class in art or music, etc, for a semester. If the calculus course is so easy because of his prior work, he wont have trouble balancing it. If the course is hard-well, then you will understand why they didnt accept AP credit.
@HogeDoty The information you quoted is incorrect. My son is an incoming freshman at Wake and his AP Calc score has given him credit for the Calc prerequisite (MST111) for purposes of admission to the business school.
If your DS ** WANTS ** to take Calc and the 5 is from the AB exam, they will want him to take MST 112 – not retake MST111. But a score of a 4 or 5 on the AB exam will give him credit for MST111, and a score of 4 or 5 on the BC will give him credit for both MST111 and MST112.
Either way, a 5 fulfills the credit requirement for the b-school.
No divisional requirements at Wake can be exempted by AP credits. My daughter also received a 5 on AP Calc, so she needs to take the next level calc or stats to meet the math requirement. AP credits can only be applied as elective credits and to satisfy course prerequisites . This policy is clearly stated on the registrar’s website. We checked in the spring after she was accepted to see if it was even worth taking the AP exams, to see if Wake would accept 4’s or 5’s for any credits.
For the win 
*(a policy that was publicly available before application nevermind enrollment)
^^ Correct, @UGG2023. My DS is taking stats this fall b/c he’s not interested in taking the next level of calc. Either way, his AP calc score means he has that part of the business school requirements out of the way.
My DS ** does ** need to take one math (the stats, this fall) and one hard science (tbd, another semester) to fulfill the Math and Natural Sciences divisional requirement of 2 courses from 2 different departments.
If this is your biggest problem, you’re lucky. If he’s that good in calc, based on a high school pseudo college course and test score, let him take the college version, get the easy A you assume, and have it help his college GPA.
They want business majors to be prepared for the range of tasks in the business world.
I am going through this with a family member. He took multi-variable calc from Harvard Extension School for his senior year math. Since his high school put it on his transcript, Wake won’t allow it to be counted as credit. If it wasn’t on his transcript, it would be counted.
For schools like Wake, calculus is the basic default all stem /business majors have. Either he takes the more in-depth, specific class that Wake offers, or challenges himself with an upper level class.
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Do you have a son or a daughter? In posts from last year, you indicated it was your daughter who would be applying to Wake Forest.
OP seems to have left the building.
I would argue that if you want that “well rounded education” you take the college course in college, as opposed to taking it in high school and letting one test define your abilities.
And calculus is absolutely used in business.
I just finished a college calculus class and it seemed like quite a lot of it had to do with business applications. I can see how optimization and related rates could be useful. I’m sure there are more topics that will become clearer in calc 2. Breadth in a college education is important, but depth matters too.
Can it be counted or not? Looks like for @GnocchiB 's kid it was counted.
Lots of piling on and shaming here about a legitimate complaint. High school students are led to believe if they put in the work for an AP course, they will get college credit. Even the most elite schools (and Wake is arguably not in the upper echelons of the elite schools) give credit for an AP score of 5. If they didn’t, why would students bother to kill themselves taking AP classes in high school.
Another couple of points: parents who are paying full freight out of pocket for a Wake education are looking at up to $300,000 for a college education for their student. Expecting a certain level of ethical treatment from the school for that price doesn’t seem unjustified. We ourselves took a dim view of Wake’s gaming the course requirements and availability so our student was forced to take summer school classes in order to get all her requirements in, due to lack of availability of those courses during the regular school year. Of course Wake has a financial incentive to manage their system that way. Summer school is not cheap, and it’s extra revenue for them. A family receiving financial aid may be inclined to dismiss this concern, but families paying over a quarter of a million for college for one student are understandably less tolerant about having to shell out even more money.
Lack of exercising due diligence does not make this a “legitimate complaint.”
High school students can infer whatever they want, but that does not mean that they are right. Putting in the work for an AP course will garner credit at a grand total of zero universities. One actually has to take the exam, and receive a score that will get credit - assuming the college gives credit. And even if the college gives credit, it may not apply to the major.
Because at many high schools, AP courses show course rigor, and many top colleges expect applicants to have challenged themselves academically in HS with rigorous courses.
Agreed. But what is also unjustified is expecting a college to conform to what a student/parent thinks the college should do. Nothing in the OP’s original message should have come as a big freaking surprise to a student who had done due diligence. WF is not keeping its AP policies or its graduation requirements a secret.
An understandable and valid concern, but there is no indication that this is a concern of the OP.
Also interesting to note that it is the parent, not the student, complaining. Not has the parent mentioned that the student had an issue with the situation.
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There is a difference between “college credit” and specific major requirements. Every schools policy is different. WFU DOES give college credit for AP work. The information of what credit is given- course by course- is posted on the website. Wake Forest’s policy is easily found: https://prod.wp.cdn.aws.wfu.edu/sites/120/2012/06/AP-Equiv-Credit-17-18-3.pdf
For the student who could not find a way to get their required courses scheduled in to the regular academic year, I would look at some combination of the student, unusual circumstances, and the advisor not getting a plan laid out. None of the WFU students that I know have had to take summer courses to meet course requirements in the normal course of events (I do know one who did, but it was b/c of a very late change of major).
Because it is the best choice for the student, the most challenging high school course?
It never occurred to be to take an easier course in high school. I took the honors math and the English courses for students planning on college. These were long before the days of AP (if we wanted a college course, there was a college right down the street). The honors section of math finished 2 extra chapters in the book, but we still went to school the same number of days, took the same tests, but we moved faster. No big deal. And no extra boost to our GPAs either.
Right, do your ‘due diligence’ and spare the outrage.
For an eternity, college kids have been required to fit the proper number, balance, and depth of courses to meet grad requirements. They figure it out and have time for electives.
Interestingly rapid responses…offhand I would say it’s the parent complaining, because it’s the parent paying $300,000 for their student’s college education? Like it or not, this makes the parent the “customer.” Of course Wake likes to paint parents who express concerns as “helicopter” parents when another perspective is they are demanding consumers paying top dollar for what they expect to be a reasonable quality product. Colleges can’t have it both ways. If they want parents to pay $100,000’s for college, they will find themselves expected to be accountable to those who write the checks.
In terms of AP classes, there’s actually a lively debate in academia about whether they confer a proven educational benefit, or whether they are just another educational product being marketed to students desperate to look good on college apps. I didn’t find the teaching or learning experience provided by my student’s AP classes to be all that impressive.
In terms of my own student’s need to attend summer school at Wake-- after three semesters of my highly organized student NEVER being able to register smoothly for classes at Wake, and being told her friends were also having multiple difficulties, I flew out personally to meet with her and an advisor (this was a major nuisance I would have happily avoided btw), to see what she was doing wrong. The advisor’s response: “this wouldn’t happen at another school, it’s just a problem at Wake.” I appreciated the advisor’s candor as it was a breath of fresh air after the student-blaming so prevalant at Wake. Hope Wake doesn’t hunt down and punish the advisor for being honest with us…
P.S. Our student loved her professors and her classes, when she got the ones she was interested in. They were the best. Wake adminstration, not so much. They need to get their house in order.