Hi guys this is my first post on CC and congrats to all students who were admitted in EA.
I am an international student accepted to LSA Fall 2016 majoring in Computer Science. I am thinking about transferring to CoE for Computer Engineering in the second year so some pre-requisite courses are required. Since I am international, in my home country students do not take AP courses for graduation in high school. What do you guys think would be the most recommended APs to take prior to enrollment given that I would like to do Engineering after freshman year? I do not intend to take too many liberal arts or humanities courses at LSA given that I am an engineering type. I am informed that students in LSA must take 16 credits of “Intellectual Breadth” which mainly consists of humanities. So maybe taking some APs in Humanities would help?
Currently I am considering: AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C, AP Chemistry, and AP Computer Science A. What others would be useful at UofM LSA or during LSA-Eng transfer?
LSA and CoE have very different AP policy. You should look at the LSA policy as this would be counted at the time of enrollment. They will give you credit on the equivalent courses according to their list. The AP on your list are useful for STEM majors in both LSA and CoE. Other APs would depend on your intended major. For example, Biology and Econ are required for ChemE. You will also need some LSA/Humanity credits anyway.
AP Calc BC is tricky as you will only get half of the credits until you take the next level class in LSA. You should do that in freshmen year so that you will get full credits from the AP and Calc3 before transfer.
Yes, the AP policy for LSA and engineering are different. So, LSA may award credits for a certain score on a certain exam, but engineering may not.
For the intellectual breadth requirement, they only require that at least 3 credits of a 300 level humanities course be taken at umich. This is an engineering requirement, not a LSA requirement. You are free to use AP and transfer credits for the rest of that requirement. The requirement is not mostly humanities (only 3 out of the 16 credits need to be humanities). Social science courses, such as psychology and history, can count.
Definitely take Physics C, Calc BC, Chem (will get you credit and ahead). You may want to take Econ since Engineering requires Econ. I wouldn’t worry about any humanities since you will have to take upper level humanities here. You probably don’t need Comp Sci (don’t think it transfers) but it’s good knowledge to have. I know multiple people who transferred from LSA into engineering and they had >3.0 in physics 1 & 2, eecs183 etc. etc.
My D had all LAC credits (except for the 300 level Humanity) fulfilled by AP credits from US History, English, and Spanish. Spanish alone got her 8 credits (including placement exam). Indeed, she has a couple extra credits from those. So you don’t really need many AP.
MicroEcon and MacroEcon only gives you departmental credit here at UM, which means they will only count as free elective credit rather than actual econ credit. Not worth it.
@umcoe16 Well that’s fine haha I’ve registered for the Econ tests anyway! I think I really need something to shake off senioritis in the post-application season! Thanks
@productrule says Econ is a requirement in COE department.
Econ is a requirement only if you are majoring in ME, CEE, or ChemE, or MSE. The requirement can double count with the intellectual breadth requirements for those majors. For any other engineering major, it can get you intellectual breadth credit, but it is by no means mandatory. However, AP credit does not satisfy the requirement.
Econ101 is a 4 credit course but the AP microE only gives you 2 credits of the Econ101 if you get a 4 or 5 and one have to take Econ101 again to get the remaining 2 credit. Econ101 can satisfy the ChemE requirement but having AP microE alone is not sufficient. AP MacroE is for Econ102, but again for 2 of the 4 credits. This is based on the LSA policy as those are considered LSA credits.
AP credit gets you credit for Econ 101X or Econ 102X, which is just departmental credit. These are seen as being no different than just general elective credit.
