Hey everyone!
I’m currently a Sophomore applying this year as a transfer to Cal, among other UCs.
I called Berkeley about this a few months ago, but a student answered my question…so a little too dubious for me.
Anyway, I passed AP US Government in high school with a 4, and am majoring in political science. Thus, I’m required to take American Government, and my AP credit doesn’t waive that requirement. My question is, after taking American Government, would I get 3 units from the class, and still get to keep my 3 units from the AP exam? So would I have 6 units?
Same with AP Stats and AP Macroeconomics. Passed those also, but I still have to take the class. Would I get “double credit”? As it was briefly explained to me, I would get “raw credit” for the AP exams–meaning general, blank, humanities credits, while still getting 3 units in those subjects from the actual class.
Does this sound right? Anyone with better info?
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/exam-credit/ap-credits/index.html indicates that AP US government score >= 3 is worth 4 quarter units = 2.7 semester units. However, UC also has the policy that you cannot get duplicating credit, and an introductory American politics course is likely considered a duplicate of AP US government for this purpose.
For the political science major, you need at least two of the following four courses:
PS 1, Introduction to American Politics
PS 2, Introduction to Comparative Politics
PS 4, Introduction to Political Theory
PS 5, Introduction to International Relations
If you have a score >= 4 on AP US government, you may substitute an upper division PS course for PS 1 after declaring the major (such a course does not count toward the upper division requirements).
See http://polisci.berkeley.edu/undergraduate-program/declaring-major and http://polisci.berkeley.edu/undergraduate-program/requirements-major .
If your current school has courses equivalent to any two of PS 2, 4, 5, then you can take at least two of those before transfer and defer the PS 1 question until later.
The political science major at Berkeley does not require a statistics or economics course, although it does requires its own quantitative methods (presumably including some statistics) course, PS 3.