PSA: AP and IB units no longer count for registration times

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Davis
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I’ve heard this rumor going around for several months, and as of today it’s been confirmed.

Previously, units earned from AP and IB exams counted towards your registration standing. The more units you came in with, the better your registration time each quarter. This is no longer the case.

From the registrar’s site: http://registrar.ucdavis.edu/registration/register/pass-times.cfm

What does this mean for current students?
Any advanced standing for registration you had from AP or IB units now doesn’t apply. However, do keep in mind that the rest of your peers are equally affected by this. The only people truly benefiting from this are those that didn’t take APs or IBs for whatever reason. Given the amount of students who do come in with those units, I’d predict that it won’t affect current students’ relative pass times too much. We’ll see for sure with the next couple registration cycles.

What does this mean for prospective freshmen?
Unfortunately for those who have passed the exams, your AP and IB units won’t help your registration time anymore. Fortunately for those of you who don’t have those units for whatever reason, people with those units don’t have a registration advantage over you.

Those of you coming in with AP/IB units, think of it this way: Unless you’ve taken and passed every single exam out there by the time you matriculate, chances are there’s someone in your year that came in with more units than you. They’re no longer at an advantage over you for registration.

Those of you with dual enrollment units, it sounds like those might still count towards registration priority. I’m not positive though.

What does this mean for prospective transfers?
To my understanding, not much changes for you guys. I’m not sure how they handled AP/IB units for transfers before though. If anyone knows more about that topic, please chime in on how much this affects things for transfers!

So what are AP/IB units good for now?

  • These units still count towards graduation. If you meet all other requirements for graduation but come up short on units, having AP or IB units will help. As such, depending on your exact situation they may even help you graduate early.
  • You can still opt out of certain classes depending on your scores. This helps you take higher level classes quicker, if you choose to. Likewise, if you get a high enough score on the pertinent exam then you'll fulfill prerequisite requirements for any classes requiring the class you tested out of.
  • If your college allows it, English AP/IB units can be used to fulfill part of the English composition requirement. From the looks of it, Letters and Science, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Engineering all allow this. I'm not sure about Biological Sciences.
  • They still count for both the Entry Level Writing Requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement.
  • A high enough score on a foreign language exam can still test you out of any language requirements. Note that the score required for this point to apply depends on what level you need to take language classes to for your college and/or major.

That’s all I can think to add right now. If anyone thinks of something I missed, please comment below! And feel free to ask any questions about this as well!

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Correction: I was a dual enrollment student with sophomore standing currently (this is my first year), and I got a regular freshman registration time (infact a lot of my friends have an earlier time although on the same day) than me. I’m not too sure how they count.

A bit irrelevant, but I just wanted to point it out. I think UC Davis has a REALLY bad policy on AP’s. The fact that they don’t give you any AP credit for GE courses is ludicrous. For anyone planning on being admitted to Davis, unless you are taking AP for the intellectual enrichment, there is absolutely no use to take AP classes (unless you are choosing a major like Design or English where there are less core curriculum credits than you need to transfer in which case the “artificial units” Davis gives you from AP’s might help… but if you are majoring in a STEM related field, AP’s have essentially no advantage to you).

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UC Davis is not alone, UC’s in general give little AP credit for GE’s and usually for English (AP Lit/AP Comp). If you wanted a lot of AP credit, Cal states have a generous AP policy. Younger son opted out of 5 classes due to AP credits.