<p>I'm an Electrical Engineering major entering Thurgood Marshall College. I've always felt my math foundation was a little shaky, and I'll be seeing a lot of it in my major, so even though I'm taking AP Calc BC this year, I was looking forward to starting over with math from 20A. I got a perfect score on the SAT 2 Math Level 2, so that fulfills the prereq for 20A already.</p>
<p>However, if I pass the AP Calc BC exam, it appears UCSD's AP credit policy will not allow me to take Math 20A for credit or a GPA boost, so I would have to jump right in to the uber-hard Math 20B while I'm still adjusting to freshman year. I don't need the AP credit either. I'm entering with sophomore standing, and I've skipped more than enough GE's.</p>
<p>I've heard horror stories of people who skipped out of classes integral to their major only to find that AP classes and exams (significantly easier than the real college classes) hadn't prepared them at all and they flunked. It's just one quarter, more or less, and I really don't think it's worth the tension.</p>
<p>I can avoid all of that potential drama and queasiness by just heading into the exam, randomly bubbling in answers, and writing rap lyrics in the FRQ's. None of my other 5 AP exams give me anything but elective credit besides Calc, and I'll be following a similar strategy for those.</p>
<p>If you say you got a perfect SAT Math 2 score that waives 20A, then won’t you have to start at 20B unless you pass the calcBC exam?</p>
<p>I personally felt that receiving a GPA boost for 20A would be negated by 20B (and common consensus is these classes are harder in college compared to your high school AP class). 20C is among the easier of the math courses in the 20 series, and it’s what you’d start at if you do well on the Calc BC exam. I skipped out on 20A/B, took 20C and did very well, even though I was told personally by my math teacher in high school that I sucked at math.</p>
<p>I do have two other accounts: my roommate chose to repeat 20A for no credit because she didn’t feel ready for 20C. Two weeks into the quarter she felt dead bored and kind of regretted her decision. My cousin chose to repeat 20A because he had taken calcBC his junior year and didn’t feel confident. He struggled through 20B but he did feel it was worth it because he remembered absolutely nothing from high school. Ultimately it’s your call and these are just our experiences!</p>
<p>In my opinion, I would stay on the safe side here and just do your best on the AP test. Honestly, you’ll probably taking around 40-50 classes at UCSD. A good grade in jus class will not affect your GPA by a huge amount in the end. And being already passed out of the class increases your flexibility on your future class choices because you have one less class to take.</p>
<p>That’s just me though. I didn’t take the 20 series (I took the 10 series) so I couldn’t give you an answer based on my experience, but those are just things to think about in general.</p>
<p>In my opinion, lower math division is boring as hell and super uninteresting so I suggest you try to get rid of as many of those classes as possible. And I thought if you got a 5 in BC you would go straight to 20C? I would totally do that if I were you.</p>