<p>@ anyone who can answer - so are you basically saying that since my daughter rec’d. a 5 on the AP Chem, and will be taking the AP Bio and AP Calc test this year, that regardless, she should not bypass those intro classes, and maybe apply her credits elsewhere? Just curious at this point. She’s a senior in hs, accepted to Pitt Pre-Pharm; we are not 100% sure on Pitt, as still waiting for others, but we are interested in hearing your thoughts since you put it out there. Thank you.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman engineer. He got a 5 on AP Physics, a 4 on AP Calculus BC (but a 5 on the AB subset), plus he had a college credit for a Calc I summer class (so he could get into AP Calc BC senior year, long story). Also had a 5 on AP Comp Sci.</p>
<p>He elected to take regular Physics (even with the 5), regular Chem (he had only taken honors, and back in 10th grade), and Honors Engineering programming. His biggest gamble was taking the opportunity to go right into Calc 3, as he had heard from students at Pitt and other schools that Calc 2 was not only notoriously difficult, but not terribly applicable to his future course of study. </p>
<p>So far he is doing well in the higher class and seems to be handling his total workload fine.</p>
<p>Regarding the “weed out” classes - just because a significant number of students fail year after year does not mean it’s a weed out class. If the coursework is difficult (as it should be), a certain percentage of students will not make it - simply statistically speaking. I believe there are many students who would like to do premed because of the prestige or money of being a doctor but who may not have either the aptitude or motivation to study science.</p>
<p>@PhamrDmom-- This is how my DS handled the situation. He took AP Chem and Bio in high school (Along with 3 history, 2 English). He skipped Chem 1, and went right to Chem 2. He took Biology 1&2 Honors–over two semesters Freshman year. He got a B and B+ in Biology and an A in Chem 2. Biology was a lot of work because of it being honors and it was a bit of a risk taking the honors version because of having to have a 3.25 for entrance into PharmD program. He liked the challenge and the courses themselves–there were only about 30 kids in the class and they were all motivated. They discussed topics at a high level that he was interested in.
For Chem, he started the first day in Chem 1 and realized it was just going to be way too repetitive. He spoke to the professor, and was able to get into a Chem 2 class with him and it worked well. One thing he did a little differently was that he didn’t take the Chem 2 lab until second semester Freshman year. Sounds strange, but they are independent courses. It worked out fine for him. He did the same thing with O-Chem 1 and 2, taking the lab the semester after he took the course. He did say O-Chem 2 was the hardest course he’s taken so far.<br>
He did use a couple of his AP courses for gen-ed type of credits.</p>
<p>PharmDMom, my DD took regular chem in HS because her schedule did not have room for honors. She enrolled in honors chem at Pitt and felt as though it was geared toward students who took AP Chem. She took AP Physics ( algebra based one, scored 4); she bypassed the AP credit and took honors physics. She also took AP Calc AB and scored 5. She started in Calc 2. If I am remembering correctly, she took the chem pass/ no credit because she could and passed, she got B/B+ grades in physics ( one semester the prof, Doc Stewart died), and she got an A in Calc.</p>
<p>pamom59, if you are defining “weed out classes” as ones intentionally designed to be more difficult than necessary so as to fail students, then I’m telling you that you are flat out wrong. I can’t speak to Calc 2, I’m not a mathematician.</p>
<p>Some professors of intro classes purposefully grad their first assignment really really hard to shock the students into working harder. It also lets the students know that high school level work won’t be sufficient anymore. That doesn’t involve giving half the students in the class a final grade of D or F, but it might involve half of the students receiving a D on their first assignment.</p>