Great discussion on the AP’s/Dual enrolment classes and how different universities treat the. Seems very complex to figure it all out.
@RadM Make sure you have a list of what to look for when you decide to do college tours this summer. I have mixed feelings about this. I def don’t have a problem with visiting colleges in the summer when not a lot of students are there.
I just felt that college visits we made while on vaca just didn’t stick with S21. It was not til summer after junior year that he cared and he especially cared and saw things differently once he had his list of admitted colleges. Then he got into food halls, how far his science classes would be from dorms, the scene surrounding the colleges.
The only thing that stuck with him was in 6th grade when we toured the NE and he became obsessed with public transportation and declared he must go to school in the East or NE so he would have freedom to hop on a metro or subway and get to places.
I’ve suggested to D24 to follow the schools on Instagram to get the virtual look and feel of colleges. Right now she is obsessed with the snow covered campus of Princeton, which has never been a college I’ve ever asked them about. S21 attempted to apply but finding a graded paper from 11th grade to submit was too troublesome.
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Visiting the summer after 10th or wait until summer after 11th is something we have been debating but was thinking if we can go to few east coast colleges as part of a visit with my brother (who lives in east coast). We will see how he feels closer to summer and decide.
I never thought about public transportation and how far the dorms are to labs and how much walking they have to do. I need to make list like you said so we make sure we consider them.
Good point about following on insta and other social media.
We visited a few places last summer during our vacation in SoCal. My kids weren’t ready to think about colleges at all. I will probably wait until the end of junior year for the next visit.
Some comments were “USC sucks because it’s all red brick building”, “UCI is cool because it’s a big giant circle”, “I love UCSD because their sweatshirt is so comfy”.
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I love the idea of open curriculum. What a great way to explore different interests.
Slightly different topic, but similar… I hate the way most schools require kids to declare a major when they apply. For a lot of kids that’s way too early to commit to one thing. My DS22 is definitely Comp Sci all the way, but his sister (DD24) is a lot less sure of what she wants to do. She could really benefit from going undecided, trying out different things, seeing what she likes, and then committing later.
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There are plenty of schools that have flexibility in declaring majors or allow kids to be undecided. Notre Dame would be a good reach for an undecided student if they are ok with the theology and philosophy requirements. Lots if LACs too
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We snuck in 2 visits on a Thanksgiving trip during junior year, and they helped a bit. By March COVID had closed everything down, so they ended up being a big part of her college visits.
The big problem is how much they grow, mature, and change in those last 2 years. My D was very undecided about her major as she entered senior year, but because of her math skills she felt engineering / CS were the likely pathway. By April when it was time to decide she was starting to lean towards premed, and the rigor of engineering makes med school prereqs tough at most schools.
That’s why I’m a big fan of schools that have very low barriers to switching majors. Most schools have some sort of barrier for switching into the engineering school for example. Some places it’s just paperwork, some it’s a little competitive, and at most it’s near impossible.
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I have been thinking about this a lot. We did no college tours with S21 because he was a performing arts major and the idea was not to fall in love with anything and demonstrated interest meant nothing. S24 has school all day Saturday that is not missable so weekend trips are impossible. Thinking of a few days in chicago and Boston this summer just to let him see the schools and nothing more.
We did a half college tour / half vacation summer after sophomore year. Parents split up for part so D24 didn’t have to spend as much time at campuses. Turned out good thing we did because weren’t able to see anything out of state until April of senior year after acceptances.
The pandemic time tours left much to be desired but better than nothing. Some of the campuses were surprisingly compact and limited. The summer tours where the campus is pretty empty also not the same as seeing kids there. Best case would be long holiday weekends for the high school or a mismatched break, but that’s not always possible of course.
D24 is not too ready but we might try to at least get a big school, small school feel with some in state options this year.
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I surveyed one of my UCLA kiddos today about AP. Granted, I’m more UC-centric based on where we live. I’ll let you know what I hear back from UC Davis. I basically told S21 and D24 (since they are STEM kids) to prioritize doing well in the humanities like history and English on the AP since they would just take the other classes again in college. I just wanted the AP STEM classes to prepare them so that they aren’t shocked. I didn’t take physics in high school and boy was I shocked when I took physics in college.
AP credit is basically useless in college unless you’re going to cc. Collegeboard basically lied to us like they always do. AP scores are only useful to put on college apps, nothing else. Sometimes they’ll apply towards some major classes (AP Physics C is equal to the first physics class here, but our hs doesn’t even offer it). The only AP credit that was useful for me was AP Lang and APUSH/AP World/AP Gov (don’t take all 3 AP tests, only take one cause the credit for only one counts). Take cc classes!!! Those credits helped me tremendously.
From the Cal kid who is in MET (CS/EE and Business dual):
They’re mostly useless I used chem for my natural science requirement, APUSH for American history, AP Lang for 1 semester of english, AP Econ for an intro econ course for business.
Both said AP Physics C would’ve been ideal if we had that at our school.
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I think this makes perfect sense and probably what we will do.
Glad to hear AP Physics C is useful. That is the only AP physics our school offers and something we are planning for S24 to take
Many colleges use AP courses to get a feel of whether students will be able to handle the rigor in college. I think top schools would like to see applicants demonstrate success in both rigorous STEM as well as rigorous humanities courses.
As an example, UC Berkeley has information about their selection process on their website. In addition to GPA, they look at
- The number of college preparatory, Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), honors and transferable college courses you have completed
- Your level of achievement in those courses relative to other UC applicants at your school
- Your scores on AP or IB exams and SAT subject exams
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This is one of the main reasons why we are considering going early as with Covid we never know how things will end up. I know friends who could not visit any before choosing college due to this.
Yes agree seeing the school when they have the students there is best. So may we have to see if spring breaks are possible.
Wow full day school on Saturdays my S24 would not be happy about it 
Yes makes sense to see a few schools in summer if possible.
Change from CS/ENG to Pre-med is a big change. I know some one else who went through this but in reverse order after applying to college. Luckily they were able to change and this was a Cal.
Davis kids said AP was good for their high school GPA bump, but at Davis, only a handful. They didn’t think it was very useful. I’m going to have D24 still take her AP exams, but not worry about STEM ones so much and then senior year, I’ll probably have her not take any AP exams (since they will have already been admitted). Similar to S21. Saved me payment for 4-5 exams.
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@RadM It seems like it’s easier to go from CS/Engr to Pre-Med because from what we’ve seen with S21 apps, CS and Engr seems to have a separate admission (admit to university and then admit to the colleges that house Engr or CS). I think UCs are like that. If the major is in the general letters&sciences, they can switch whenever the first two years as long as they meet the pre-req. Just that UCSD and UCI (that I know of), it’s harder to get some classes that aren’t engr/CS if you’re not in the major. An example of this is bio classes and lab if they’re not already in the life sciences dept.
Luckily it is his music school and except when they are not playing due to COVID issues he loves the day!
@lkg4answers noted that UCB consider AP scores in their Freshman admission review and I would like to add another piece to this discussion regarding AP exams and classes.
Last year in UCB’s provisional admission contract, they added an AP category change update to the contract where you would indicate if you planned to take the exams Senior year.
Here is their response to inquiry made by many of the applicants:
As always, admission decisions are based on all that students report in the application, so we do expect that students follow through with the planned AP exams reported on the application. That being said, we understand that things change, and that it might not be in a student’s best interest to complete all planned AP exams this spring, especially with the ongoing pandemic. For students who choose to not take all reported AP exams this spring, their admission to Berkeley will not be rescinded. We do still ask that they submit an Update Form if there are any changes to what you reported on the application, including dropped AP exams.
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The key is to let admissions know if you don’t plan to take the exam. If you give them a reason, they won’t rescind–confirmed with students in years prior to Class of 2021.
The AO at Brown told us that they get the letters every year and as long as grades don’t drop and the students don’t drop out of the class they listed on the app, AO won’t rescind. Our reason to Brown was that Brown didn’t provide credit for the AP classes S21 had left to take and it was a move to save our family $500.