<p>so I have quite a few 5's (psych, eng language, bc calc, micro, macro)</p>
<p>now it seems clear to me that placing out of psych is a no brainer. easy credits, save myself some time/money</p>
<p>however, what about placing out of calc? I am pretty good at calc, but it's not exactly easy to remember all that stuff, especially after taking a gap year. though I did get a 5 on the exam basically without going to class all year (I took ab junior year, then bc. i had an arrangement with my teacher that I would try to keep pace with the class and just take the tests in senior year). Wouldn't it be really intimidating to go straight into a sophomore calc class?</p>
<p>Or what about english language? Would I be missing an excellent writing class that could help me build fundamental skills?</p>
<p>Or macro and micro? I enjoyed the classes a lot, but I didn't really do much work in them (especially macro). I don't want to go to a more advanced class where people are better prepared by the UVA courses.</p>
<p>in other words, I have the potential to wipe out a whole year (or more, once my cc credits transfer). I am concerned that this approach might backfire on me though. Or would it just open me up to taking less gen ed classes and pursuing the ones that genuinely interest me?</p>
<p>If you’re going to be doing a lot of writing in college, it can be helpful to take a comp course, but if you are a strong writer and have a good score on the AP English exam, there’s no real point in bothering with freshman comp. Look into taking one of the more advanced expository prose classes instead: ENWR 3800 or 3900. Or you might want to take one of the ENLT series; these are seminar-style literature courses for nonmajors, most of which fulfill the “second writing requirement” as well. Some kids can jump right into the major-level courses but others struggle a bit; I advise people not to do this in their first semester if they are the type to obsess over their grade.</p>
<p>Re calculus: my S got a 5 on the calculus AB exam, and then, as a high school senior, took second-semester calculus at UVA as a Community Scholar. He thought the UVA course was dramatically harder and more thorough than what he’d been doing in high school. He did OK in the course but really had to work. OTOH he was glad he took it because he’s going on in math, and he felt his grasp of the material was much more secure than it would have been if he’d just done calculus BC.</p>
<p>So YMMV depending on whether you’re going to use these courses as building-blocks for later courses, and also on how protective you want to be of your GPA. If you worry that the AP course might not have prepared you well enough for something you want to continue to do, or if you are planning to do something like premed where your GPA matters a lot, or if you are a risk-averse person who hates getting low grades, then you might prefer to repeat classes even if you are a little bored. OTOH if if getting a B or a C is not going to send you into a tizzy, or if you want to graduate early, then you would do well to accelerate. Just don’t do it in every single subject at once.</p>
<p>thanks a lot jingle. i am still waiting to hear my admissions decision but your post is very helpful. I think I will probably skip the 1st semester calc, as I know the fundamentals very well. regarding english, I think I would be better suited if I skip the intro class.</p>
<p>I disagree with what was said above.
For calc, if you want to go further, try signing up for the class and seeing how it is. Calc 3 is easier to do well in than Calc 2 here because Calc 2 is a weed out class. At worst, I would take the credit and audit Calc 2 if you need to repeat it because then it will not affect your GPA. You also could take the new Math 3000 class which prepares people to do upper level math like proofs and just requires calc 2 as a prereq.
Intro writing classes are taught by grad TAs that want to be there just as much as the students do (not at all). Take your credit for that and take an upper level writing course if you want one. The only writing class you HAVE to take is your Second Writing Requirement which is usually a class in your major so I don’t really see how anything other than your major would help you prepare well for that. For example, what kind of writing course could have prepared me for my 500 level math history class (15 page proofs paper)? Just other math classes and the professor of the math history class telling us exactly how our paper needed to be formatted.
Intro econ is also weed out here for the business school so I can’t imagine you would want to sit through those. Again, if you need to, you can audit… With those you can also just sit in on the lectures since they are huge (100-500 people).
They would not award AP credit if the proper topics were not covered. The fact that they still accept 4’s and not just 5’s says a lot about what they think correlates.
Also, you can waive your AP credit at any point later and take the class, so I don’t see why you wouldn’t just transfer it, you can just waive it later if it bothers you. I came in with 49 credits I think? Best thing ever, I could take all sorts of fun classes that actually interested me, and thus I did better in, and avoided all of the intro classes.
The only class I ever “repeated” in a sense (didn’t do AP just knew the material) was intro CS in the engineering school. It was ridiculously easy and the only reason I enjoyed it was because of my professor. In hindsight, I do not regret it, because it landed me my sweet TA job here that I have held for 7 semesters now. But it was not the kind of thing I would have a) wanted to do for an entire year and b) in every class. One class was enough… Transferring in a year of credit, you will have the luxury of taking 12 credits per semester if you feel you need more time to put into your real classes which is, in essence, what re-taking intro courses does (except then you actually have to put work into those classes if you re-take them!). UVA is a public school where people come from all different backgrounds and the amount of TA and professor office hours will save you if you need them.</p>
<p>Wow, great post hazel. Thanks a lot. Auditing is a great idea. I can take it slow first semester and take 3 classes while i brush up on 2 or 3 audits. </p>
<p>@woosah, if I do end up at UVA I would like to double major, some combination of econ, finance, philosophy, physics, cognitive science, neuroscience…possibly something in politics</p>
<p>It might not sound very narrowed down, but at this time last year I had no idea what I wanted to major in!!</p>
<p>You actually have to be enrolled in 12 credits to be a full time student, so basically you need to take at least 4 classes. Also, ECON 2010 and 2020 are always at capacity so it may be difficult to audit those, however, I am not saying it is not possible. Just be aware of it. I would just look at the areas you have an interest and go to the department pages and see what courses they offer and what you need to take to declare it as a major or minor. In addition, look at any prerequisites you may need to take. Being able to explore many different courses of study is a wonderful option at UVA. </p>
<p>Jingle and Hazelorb have great points, please heed each of their advice. </p>
<p>As far as becoming a finance major that is part of the comm school and there are prerequisites for that program that you may want to know about in advance. Everything else you have an interest is part of the College of A&S. You have great major ideas to explore, best of luck to you as you finish up senior year.</p>
<p>The great things about auditing a class where you got AP credit is that you can concentrate on things that you did not learn well the first time, and it serves as a review session to prepare for the next class. At the same time, if you get overwhelmed with another class, you can easily decide to skip your audit class for a week.</p>
<p>When I was about to enroll my first year I got the same advice from hazel about repeating calc 2 and going straight into calc 3…I’m so glad I listened. Calc 3 basically doesn’t use anything from Calc 2 anyways, so it’s not a huge deal if you don’t remember everything perfectly. </p>
<p>But anyone planning to go higher in the math department really should take Math 3000. It is the most helpful class I’ve taken so far–not so much for Differential Equations which is still pretty much calculation-based, but for Linear Algebra it was great. And I’ve only been to one class of Real Analysis and Survey of Algebra so far this semester, but considering that the first lecture of Survey was zipping through every single thing we learned during the whole semester of Math 3000, I’m guessing it’s going to be verrrry useful to already know all of that.</p>
<p>As far as not knowing what your major is, personally I think that’s great no matter where you end up. Way too many people come in thinking they know exactly what they want to do and don’t explore any other options–and may miss out on something they would love. Having those AP credits gives you the flexibility to try out other fun classes or go more in depth with say Econ and figure out right away whether or not it’s something you’re really interested in.</p>
<p>Also, another option from auditing is taking a class Credit/No Credit…it doesn’t affect your GPA and can’t be used for completing requirements (for your major or the general area requirements) but will count towards keeping you above 12-credits.</p>