<p>Coming into my freshman year at the University of Maryland, I have about 43 credits that I have earned through 10 AP classes in high school (already checked and verified from UMD's online table). I've already decided that I'm going to be on the pre-med track, as I want to go to medical school after I graduate. My cousin (who's already been through the system), told me that, at least for classes that are Pre-Med requirements, I should retake the classes in order to start college off with a very high gpa that will be tough to lower later on when I'm taking harder classes. </p>
<p>His rationale is that because I've already taken these classes and gotten 4s and 5s on their respective AP exams, I know the subject material, and I should be able to breeze through their intro level classes, and earn a very high freshman year GPA. However, I'm hesitant, mainly because we're talking about more than a semester's worth of credits that I'm leaving on the table. </p>
<p>Also, on UMD's premed page, it says that they do not recommend retaking intro level biology and chemistry. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience retaking classes/ can anyone advise me at all? TIA</p>
<p>most med schools dont take ap credit so you’d have to retake those bio/chem and maybe physics classes. I would use the ap’s to fulfill general education reqs and maybe elective credits.</p>
<p>More importantly, pre-med/science student at D2’s school (honors program) do not recommend using AP to place into higher bio and chem since they feel students may have taken class too long ago (soph/jr) or it’s just too important to get basics down, especially if you want to use AP to place straight into something like orgo. Guess it depends on how comfortable you feel with content…maybe look at syllabus/book for the classes to judge.</p>
<p>Some medical schools require calculus and/or statistics while others do not. Some which require calculus do accept AP credit for it while others do not (but they should accept a more advanced math course if you skip calculus 1). You have to check each medical school or the MSAR.</p>
<p>For most pre-med purposes, if you skip something with AP credit, you need to take a more advanced course in that subject in substitution for the skipped course. Ask your college’s pre-med advising and the pre-med forum for more details.</p>
<p>If you are considering skipping something with AP credit to take a more advanced course in that subject, check to see if old final exams for the course you may skip are available (try the search function on the college’s web site). Use the old final exams to check your knowledge of the subject matter from the college’s point of view.</p>
<p>Note that a lot of pre-med and other students repeat their AP credit, so the curves in those freshman level courses may not necessarily yield “easy A” grades just because you have seen the material before.</p>
At my college it was the other way round. Introductory classes were graded the harshest and most students started off with a low GPA. Later everyone’s GPAs gradually improved as they got to upper-level classes which rarely gave out grades below a B+. </p>
<p>If you have mastered AP Calculus or both Physics C exams, I would skip the intro courses in college and take the next courses in the sequence instead. Med schools will be fine with that and you’ll be much more engaged in class. (If you only had Physics B, you might benefit from taking a calculus-based intro course.) I don’t know if this would also apply to biology and chemistry - someone above suggested that it might be worthwhile to retake those classes anyway.</p>