Orientation before AP scores are released

<p>My orientation is is May 29-30 and AP scores won’t be released until July. For scheduling, will they give me the benefit of the doubt that I passed an AP course, or will they schedule me for a class even if I may already be getting credit for it then put me in the next class later?</p>

<p>Students typically register for courses with the assumption that they passed all of their AP exams. It’s also worth noting that students do all of their own scheduling based on a plan approved by an academic advisor. In most cases, UA faculty and staff are not allowed to register students for courses; they can issue overrides, but the students need to do the actual course registration themselves.</p>

<p>Ok, thank you!</p>

<p>My daughter is just coming in from Bama Bound and they did NOT give her the benefit of the doubt on the AP score. She already has 4 others that they already gave her credit for from previous years, however, they put her in the first Biology even though we are pretty confident she will test out. They told her it will be easy to change herself when she does and she knows what she will take if that happens, and has a backup or two if things are full. I will say her advisor was able to override two classes that appeared full and got her in them. My husband and I are amazed at just how awesome her schedule is for a freshman…no early mornings, nothing too late, and only one late morning Friday class! </p>

<p>Perhaps it depends on your advisers if they give you the benefit of the doubt? The College of Engineering advisers told us to use our best judgement on if we thought we passed our AP tests or not when registering. I know I was able to sign up for Calc II without my AP scores, and it didn’t even require an override from an adviser.</p>

<p>I can confirm what MontessoriMom2 was correct at my DD’s Bama Bound last year. If it wasn’t in the system no credit. The AP scores arrived in the mail the day we fly to Bama and we had the paper - if it wasn’t in the system no credit.</p>

<p>Sorry I was on my phone and didn’t get a chance to edit my response above. </p>

<p>At DD’s Bama Bound session last year, if the AP credit was not showing in the UA system, most colleges did not provide overrides at Bama Bound. In our case, the scores came in the mail literally an hour before we left for the airport so we took the letter from the College Board with us - still no overrides. However, in a week or two, once the credit was received by UA and was in the system, students could go back into the registration system and try to sign up for classes where the AP class was a prereq. It wound up being not a huge deal for DD since many of her AP credits applied to English, History, Psych, Calc etc.and didn’t involve prereq’s. </p>

<p>It all worked out in the end, but this is, in my opinion, a slight “glitch” in their system. However, given the size of the university, I can see why they would want to keep strong control over waivers. If they gave out waivers indiscriminately, they could have a registration nightmare if a lot of kids didn’t really pass the AP test and needed to change classes.</p>

<p>Is it better to register for an early Bama Bound and deal with the schedule changes once the AP scores are sent or to register for a later Bama Bound after AP scores have been sent?</p>

<p>WAPacker - good question. My understanding is that in most instances, with each Bama Bound session, a number of seats are released for classes typically used by freshmen - so going later shouldn’t be a big disadvantage. (Upperclassmen can also use the BB windows to go in and adjust their schedules, so some seats can open up that way also.) </p>

<p>I guess my recommendation would be if you have AP credits from FR - JR of HS, pay the nominal fee to the College Board and have those scores sent at least a month before Bama Bound. That way, those credits will be in the system regardless of your BB date. That will take care of being forced to register for freshman English when you have AP credit from junior year. </p>

<p>Maybe someone can chime-in, but I thought in previous year’s posts it seemed like engineering was more willing to do waivers - maybe due to all the senior year AP many of those kids take?? If no one responds, you may want to search the forum for last year’s posts. </p>

<p>I am getting way ahead here as I do not yet know for sure that my son will choose to enter UA in the fall of 2015 as a CS major. However, when I look at the recommended CS curriculum for first semester of freshman year I anticipate that he will have AP credit to cover 3 of the 6 classes. With an estimated 30-35 AP credits the majority of his general ed classes would be taken care of. Around 1/2 of these credits would come from his senior year. It seems like it could be difficult to find major applicable classes to fill out a schedule. Perhaps even more difficult when one has to wait for a later BamaBound or change ones schedule later once AP scores are in the system. Kids obviously manage this every year but I wonder what the best strategy is.</p>

<p>I just finished Bama Bound and am in engineering. I ended up not even needing to have an adviser override for me to take Calc. 3. They said they use an honor system so if you’re confident you passed the AP exam, then you can still enroll in a class without technically having the prereq yet. </p>

<p>@WAPacker Last year I thought it well worth our money to have AP scores thru 11th grade sent to Bama as soon as DS decided to attend. Then at BB it was already in the DegreeWorks system that he could AP out of genl ed classes like Freshmen Comp. </p>

<p>My son also went in with approx 30 credits. He is in the Honors College and had no issues filling out his schedule first semester. He replaced Comp with an Honors College core course. He also was able to participate in Emerging Scholars (1 or 2 credit class) and STEM MBA 1.5 credit.</p>

<p>Based on great advice here, he was also able to look at dual major and minors that easily overlapped with his chosen Engineering major. For example, after AP Calc credits and with the required Engineering Math, he is only required to take 2 additional Math classes and he will have a Math minor.</p>

<p>Thanks all. It seems like a good idea to send junior scores early. I am glad to hear more anecdotal evidence that the college of engineering is not rigid in the requirement for AP scores to be on file at the time of registration.</p>

<p>@longhaul We have talked about the possibility of adding a minor due to the difficulty of graduating in less than 4 years even with a lot of AP credit in most technical fields due to the pre-req structure. We have wondered if it is possible to complete the combined BS/MS program in 4 - 4.5 years?</p>