FYI. The CSU’s here in CA have extended their application deadline to 12/15.
Not sure, but the “conspiracy theorist” in me thinks apps were tracking down and with the recent announcements of multiple vaccines in the news, maybe they extended the deadline to capture those applicants who were on the fence and thinking of skipping the year and applying next year. But that’s wild speculation.
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AoPS is why D is strong in math. It gave her a love or at least comfortableness to grit those proofs out.
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+1000 on AOPS!!! and to a lesser extent math competitions in general. They gave him fluency in math and made SAT/ACT a breeze plus helped him so much in Chem/Physics/CS.
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S19 worked as a grader for AoPS this summer as one of his many jobs!
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What is AoPS?
It’s hard to imagine Tufts almost went bankrupt a couple of years ago. The person who said this to you must be mistaken. Tufts’ endowment is currently $1.7 billion, and Forbes gave them an A for financial health (a score better than Middlebury’s) in their 2019 report.
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AoPS is Art of Problem Solving. https://artofproblemsolving.com/
Basically online math.
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Not entirely true: Skipping intro chem works fine for premeds, as long as you take the overall requirements, and as long as you come in very well prepared in Chemistry. Here they are per AAMC.
"While each medical school requires the completion of a four-year degree from an accredited institution, the premedical coursework requirements vary from school to school. Every medical school determines their own list of required or recommended premedical coursework, and some accept AP, online, and community college courses while others do not. Some require you to complete a specific classes while others have progressed to competency-based admissions and do not require students to complete a particular list of courses prior to applying. Each school also has unique requirements for coursework, lab experience, volunteer experience, and “shadowing” experience. In general, students will likely complete the following types of courses:
- One year of Biology
- One year of English
- Two years of Chemistry (through Organic Chemistry)"
I skipped intro chem and AB/BC calc and started organic and MVC as a freshman in a known weed-out, “grade deflation” rigorous school and did fine, got in to multiple med schools. not a single one I applied to had a problem with my chem AP credit. I did have 5s. I was a Bio major and Chem minor.
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Exactly my point. It’s ok to use the AP credit for a generic science credit but if you don’t take a higher level course in that area for medical school, top medical schools will overlook you. If you look at Princeton’s website it says this exact same thing. Just look at their FAQs for example here in the AP Physics questions. Your same point Questions about AP and pre-college credit | Health Professions Advising
Similarly when my kids look at Penn, they would take the AP credit, but they still had a math requirement, so it was either take harder level math courses to meet the math requirement to graduate OR just don’t send in the AP credit. Since minde didn’t want to retake Calc BC or MVC that was a huge turnoff to them and nixed Penn off their list very quickly.
@sushiritto and @2Devils
I never said all medical schools in regards to not wanting to see AP credit in lieu of the required prereqs for medical school, but, if you don’t have a higher level course in the same subject area that will definitely be a ding for a top medical school as mentioned above in my Princeton comment, but there are of course always middle or lower medical schools that make would do this. Med schools care less about AP credit taken for math than they do for the Sciences. I actually don’t know of any that care about the Math.
In addition to Princeton, I also know where my daughter attends they will tell you the same thing. Claiming the AP won’t help with medical school admissions at Top tier medical schools.
Congrats on your medical school admissions. No idea where you are in the process but your hard work I’m sure paid off.
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I’m so sorry for your son. I hope he had a better day today. This whole thing sucks for everyone. The back and forth must be really hard for kids. Our school has been remote the entire year, while other high schools nearby had some hybrid instruction that was working and got kids back in school some of the time. My son doesn’t mind remote as not many things phase him, but I’m worried how the transition to college will be after he has been doing remote for more than a year by the time he’s out of school since I am sure out school will remain remote all year. Our administration is pretty lame and has no plan at all to get kids in.
Tell your son to hang in there. Better days ahead. Best thing for his essay may be to just work on it on the weekend and churn it out. My oldest was like that.
Kids at our school as they’re starting to get accepted and decided on the schools they’re attending, are really starting to check out. In a couple months, half the senior class will have had enough! It’s ridiculous and really will be a joke with the exception of the kids who need to take the AP exams.
This will hopefully end soon!
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Perfectly said. This is why my kids crossed Penn off their list. If they claimed their AP BC credit after they also had taken MVC, they would have had to take a class higher than MVC for the required math credit to graduate. If they didn’t claim the credit at all, they would be retaking multiple classes. They had no interest in doing that, nor did I really want to pay for them to retake classes at Penn that they already took. Maybe it worked out that it was also a downpour that day so they cancelled the campus tour and only gave the general info session with questions so it was an easy school to nix, but that AP thing always rubbed me the wrong way especially when they weren’t going to be math majors.
Congratulations to the QB students that were matched today. Two kids at our school were matched and it’s such an exciting day for them, their families and our school.
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Yeah, that comment had me shaking my head also. Not to mention Tufts isn’t only an undergrad but has a great medical school in Boston which no doubt is one of the best cities to be for that field. But who knows, anything is possible these days.
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D21 got an acceptance today! University of New Hampshire. College of Life Sciences and Agriculture with a major of Environmental Conservation and Sustainability.
So happy to have an acceptance! The mood in our home just got a lot lighter.
The next notifications are in a couple weeks, then that’s it until either February (ED2) or March (RDs).
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WooHoo @JanieWalker! congratulations to you and your D! I know there will be many more for your talented kid!
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@JanieWalker congratulations!! So happy for your daughter, and for you! Exciting times!
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Thank you, @inthegarden and @solstice155!
Yes, I agree, @srparent15, you need higher level sciences if you want the most advantage to not retaking the APs. In fact, skipping the intro courses (if that makes sense based on skillset/background) gives a leg up! You can get into much harder level courses, even grad courses, as an undergrad, much more time for published research, etc, which all prepare one well for med school and the crazy career it is. I am old --Duke undergrad and Duke Med about 20 yrs ago–but thanks.
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Hah I should have guessed it by your handle. Tough loss tonight!
I took my daughters on a college visit to Duke 2 years ago and it was a beautiful campus. One of mine had already decided to apply ED elsewhere and the other was leaning to ED there until the last second when she weighed the plus/minuses of what she was looking for. My current senior missed his visit there thanks to Covid but then wound up writing them off because they program he wanted was in Liberal Arts not Engineering so he too wound up applying ED elsewhere. I think my husband was bummed because he was supposed to take him on that visit and missed the first visit. Eventually he’ll make it out there! 
Science was not my forte. Thank god my kids took after their dad in that arena! They just didn’t want to take after him in the medicine field.
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