Hi, I am a current senior getting ready to fill out my common app and apply to schools. I have taken AP Chemistry (4), AP Lang and Comp (4), AP Physics (3), AP Statistics (5), and am planning on taking AP calculus BC. I want to major in Biomedical Engineering or Chemical Engineering and hopefully attend medical school. I know college GPA is very important for getting into medical school. That being said, should i Report my AP scores and effectively skip classes that I know I can do well in or not report them and use the classes to boost my college GPA for medical school?
You make an interesting point, but I don’t know that skipping ahead is required. I got a 4 on the AP Lit test, and so I could have gotten out of the otherwise required English 101, but I opted to take the class anyway because it made me feel more comfortable.
I don’t think there’s a downside to reporting them.
The scores that you self-report on your college applications are just a part of the application process. When you do commit to enroll at a particular college/university, you will need to have the College Board send your official AP scores to that college/university if you want placement or credit.
When you know for certain that your AP scores will place you out of a course, and/or result in credit for a course, that is the time to have a discussion with the pre-med advisor and the engineering department at that particular college/university about using AP credits or not. They have a lot of experience in this, and they will be able to tell you if your AP courses were truly equivalent to the courses you would get credit for.
You can also try the old final exams of the courses that you are allowed to skip with the AP credit, so that you can check your knowledge compared to the college’s expectations.
For pre-med purposes, many medical schools do not accept AP credit for some or all pre-med requirements, or may accept it only if your undergraduate college specifically lists its course subject credit that the AP credit gives on the transcript. If you skip some of the pre-med courses, you may have to substitute more advanced courses in the same subject area to satisfy the pre-med course requirements for those medical schools. Calculus (if required by the medical school) is usually not an issue, since if you skip frosh calculus, you will take multivariable calculus for your biomedical or chemical engineering major anyway, but in some other pre-med subjects, you may have to take additional more advanced courses not otherwise included in your major.