So the kid took MVC/Linear Algebra in high school. I can’t remember if those were the classes he had to take over or if it was all the way back to BC.
For kids going to med school they too will have to retake the courses they have AP credit in that are sciences as med schools don’t want to see those taken for AP credit. That doesn’t sound like your son is interested in that.
My daughter also took the same MVC/Linear Algebra class, She is at an Ivy where they did give her credit for her AP Calc BC course. She’s in Engineering and they do not give the AB portion of the credit, so she only received the 4 not 8 hours of credit. They expect everyone to have taken at least through AB in high school so don’t give that credit. Her MVC was dual credit but since it was taught at her high school in tandem with receiving college credit, they refused to give her the dual credit. Her options were to take it over or take a placement exam. She wasted her summer not studying for the placement test so she wound up retaking it. It was really hard and went more in depth than when she took it in high school. Also went beyond what they did. This as someone else mentioned is very common. Definitely not an easy A. When my oldest took that class it was not offered for dual credit so I don’t know if it were if the Cal Tech kid would’ve had to retake it or not still. You 100% should expect your son would have to retake some courses.
My other daughter came into her school with 37 credit hours and technically could graduate a year early, but she’s in an honors program and they don’t allow it because they want you to stay with your cohort. We don’t mind because IMO there is no hurry to rush through college. Again using the medical school example, if you have a long road ahead of you like that, it’s a different story, but to rush through college to work or have one more year of grad school, no hurry. They will be working until they’re 80 anyway so why rush out of school? The one at the Ivy did earn at least a semester of AP credit so that was still a bonus even though some classes they didn’t take in her program but if she were in Liberal Arts they would’ve.
These are definitely good questions to ask if he gets in and you go take a visit. It was one thing that turned my kids off of Penn. They didn’t want to retake courses or take harder courses in the same subject just for the required credit.
@Mwfan1921 yup. Would get nada. For reg decision, do you suggest filling out the school required FA program? This is our first kid. Figured we would apply once we got accepted. I was poor growing up and even my parents on a mailman income, I couldn’t qualify for any grants so never bothered Fter the first year. Just applied for merit and internships.
[quote=“srparent15, post:122, topic:2795347”]
For kids going to med school they too will have to retake the courses they have AP credit in that are sciences as med schools don’t want to see those taken for AP credit.[/quote]
I’ll preface by saying that I’m not an expert. But, I’m not sure your med school info is correct, unless you have been through the process recently and there’s been a change.
In fact, there’s a provision in the AMCAS application info about “repeated courses.” The AMCAS Instruction Manual states: If you take a college-level course for which you already have been granted AP credit by the same institution, AMCAS considers the course a Repeat.
As for Michigan and MV Calc, we were told by D18’s advisor “that’s Michigan’s Math Dept.” No matter one’s scores on the freshman math placement exam and SAT 1 & 2 scores.
@kartaqueen You don’t have to go to a ‘top college’ to take advanced math courses. It’s not like everything outside of the top 10 or 20 are community colleges.
@rbc2018 fully agree and I do not believe I ever indicated otherwise and if I did I did not mean to.
The issue we have is DS is advanced at math (and we are very aware there are numerous HS kids much more advanced than he is…yet he has been fortunate to take accelerated courses in HS). From conversations with a few schools to date, some have a process in place where I am very confident he will be challenged, some do not and some of this group would be very reluctant to allow any sort of skipping. We plan to sort through these once acceptances are in…It is the same process we have been going through since elementary school.
Re your comment on advanced math classes, absolutely there are many schools that offer them. Once again, that was never my concern.
@kartaqueen Thanks for the clarification, I definitely thought you were implying that your son would only be challenged math-wise at a top university. I understand your wishes as far as him not repeating classes, but maybe you are getting stuck in the weeds so to speak. Maybe focus on picking the best university and program for his interests (and that he wants to attend) and trust that the program knows what they are doing in terms of curriculum? The transition to college can be difficult (organization-wise, socially, etc.) even for extremely bright kids, so having some review in terms of content at the beginning might not be the worst thing, especially after the trashheap of a year that this has been.
Anyway, I’m just offering another perspective. Sounds like you have a very gifted boy that you advocate for as a great parent!
Actually, yes, I’ve gone through it as a spouse as well as seeing the many kids go through it at my daughter’s college. It’s a constant discussion in the parents group. AP Chem and AP Bio are courses that Med schools (at least top med schools) want students to have taken in college, not have taken the AP credit. So if you have a kid on the med school track planning to apply to med school using AP credits for those types of courses, you should have them check if that will hurt them for certain schools.
I don’t understand your comment re MVC at Michigan. I don’t know of any school that uses the Subject Math SAT scores for placement. Virtually no school requires the subject test now anyway. I think Michigan is one school that does take the MVC dual credit from our school based on past students that have gone there. But for most students if they need to take a higher math than that, it may be prudent to retake the course because as I said previously, it goes much more in depth than the high school/dual credit courses. Or at least depending on the college where the dual credit was from.
I was a math major in college and I also attended a STEM-focused high school for the top kids in the county. College math made high school math, even at a higher level due to the STEM program, seem easy.
Math is a hard one because it builds upon itself and so some colleges are reticent to let kids skip certain courses because in their experiences they have found very few are capable of doing so without adversely affecting the student.
I’ve known many kids, myself included, who got 5s on the AP Exams who were still very challenged in college math. Upon advice from an engineering professor, I retook my highest level of calculus my freshman year and I was still very much challenged and learned a great deal more than I did in high school.
I think colleges are much different than high schools in terms of dealing with gifted students. I sort of liken it to the difference as you travel up the grades in schools, the bigger the schools the more ability you have to easily be challenged. Colleges have classes and resources to challenge every child. They also have the experience to know how certain courses are needed to lay the foundation for future courses and the proficiency required to be successful.
Agreed that college math is different. Not sure if calculus is much different but, after that, it sure is. S19 took linear algebra and then a class called math reasoning which is required for the major and all proofs. Not for the weak of heart. His non-STEM friends laugh that S19’s math classes don’t have any numbers. Lol. Not quite true but funny. I do think that high school kids who are so advanced (say past MV) do understand how college level math looks and really should be fine if they are succeeding in those classes as high school kids. It’s the kids who finish up in Calc BC with a 5 and think they’ve got this math this down who are sometimes shocked at what math looks like after calc.
This reminds me of the kids who go to college having never gotten anything below an A and then freak because for the first time in their lives they are suddenly not getting all A’s and don’t know what to do because they are not prepared. College is meant to challenge one and it’s a rare few that are not challenged.
The guidance my daughter’s university gives those on the premed track is that it’s fine to use AP credit, as long as you’re prepared to take higher level courses in those areas - as SOME schools will expect it. So use your Bio 101 credit, but assume you will still be taking a year of biology - just at a higher level. They have a huge spreadsheet of every med school’s requirements and whether they accept AP credit to satisfy - it varies a ton - especially for math. There are very few schools who do not accept AP credit for Calculus or don’t accept statistics.
Oh my goodness we had a low day yesterday here. My S is a very good natured guy but was feeling really overwhelmed with his schoolwork. He had significant homework over the Thanksgiving break and we didn’t even get to his reach essay writing. A lot of this stems from his private school transitioning back and forth to in person learning I believe. The teachers are way behind on the material and trying to catch up. One of his teachers is also the IT guy. There also seems to be a mismatch between the testing programs they use online and the daily instruction in terms of difficulty. Hopefully things will look up soon. Not a fun senior year.
@NateandAllisMom I think the same for many seniors. As the time rolls on and the kids are realizing they will probably get nothing they hoped for in senior year, I believe that they are getting angrier and frustrated by everything. Not to mention the difficulties of being separated from their peers, etc.
My S21 finished Cal BC in 9th grade and has since taken 4 more advanced and applied math courses since ( 2 per year). He is applying as Applied Math major. Do colleges ( specially T20) waive the pre reqs for higher level applied math courses in this scenario?
Colleges aim to place students in the correct math. For your son I would assume he would take a placement test or a math professor would look at the descriptions of his classes, and then place him at the proper level.
Watching many seniors feel the same way. Our school district is trying their best to keep our kids safely active, but our state is making it difficult for the kids to continue and they are starting to feel extremely deflated.
@srparent15 I’ll try to keep this brief to not derail the thread.
The AMCAS applicant guide specifically states in their applicant guide “If you take a college-level course for which you already have been granted AP credit by the same institution, AMCAS considers the course a Repeat.”
So if your college grants a student AP credit, like AP Chem, then taking the freshman level chemistry course again is a Repeat (R) course on your med school application. That is the guidance we received and I sincerely doubt that if a student receives an A grade in Orgo and PChem that a top med school will deny a student’s med school application based on NOT repeating freshman chem.
As for MV Calc, I’ll try to explain it better. MV Calc is the only HS course Michigan didn’t give my D18 credit for and she received lots of course credits when matriculating. The fact that her score on her freshman math placement test, her grade in the HS course, or her scores on the SAT 1 and 2 tests didn’t matter one bit to them in terms of receiving credit.
We were told by her math advisor, the math dept. at Michigan wants every student to take MV Calc again. That’s the guidance we received from Michigan.
My understanding is that there are 2 ways to handle this to avoid the “repeat” flag.
Just don’t take the AP credit. Most people I have talked to go this route. If there is no credit awarded for the AP class, then as far as amcas is concerned it never happened because they only look at college transcript, not high school AP’s.
Take a more advanced class in the same subject. This would mean if you take AP chem credit for the first semester, you need to take an additional semester of inorganic chem. When I talked to a couple people who know more than me, they advised that this is probably a difficult route to go unless D is genuinely interested in pursuing a Chem or Chem E degree. Those will be the only students in that class.
As far as the necessity to do one of those things, some med schools, like the one we are in state for, specifically says that you must take an additional semester if you take AP credit to fufill the graduation requirement. As far as they are concerned, AP Credit does NOT count, so they still need an additional semester of (Chem, Bio, whatever).
Just received an email that Texas A&M extended their deadline:
" Texas A&M University has extended our freshman admissions and scholarship application deadlines to December 15 . The additional documents deadline is now December 21 ."
As you allude to, it’s difficult to generalize about every med school. I have no idea if my D18 will apply to med school some day, but right now, she’s relying on her advisor’s guidance at UMich.
Either way, I feel that we’re derailing this thread, so if someone wants to start a new thread, then that would be best. There are several med school experts on CC, that can answer this question with more authority than I.
