<p>I got in for CAS next fall ED and I was wondering if it would honestly be worth it to take the AP tests for the courses I am taking. I'm actaully thinking of transferring to ILR after the first year if that makes a difference. I already got a 4 on US history, and am considering AB Calc (not very good at calc, but it seems like you only need a 3), psychology, and English literature. If I took all three, it would be a total of 14-15 credits according to the chart. Is that going to make a big difference when I get to Cornell next year? I wasn't planning on taking any this year but then I heard that it might help if I eventually decided to study abroad or something, so I was just curious. Just wanted to get some imput as to whether or not It would be truly beneficial. thanks</p>
<p>Yes you should take them. AP credits will give you more flexibility in your course load and can help you take care of distribution requirements. Having AP credits does give you some extra time to study abroad, but in ILR I think the curriculum is designed in such a way so a good chunk of students study abroad each year anyway (if you do end up in that school). </p>
<p>Also, classes at Cornell (or in any college for that matter) are usually MUCH harder than AP classes in high school, even if you are retaking the class. For example, I took a class in high school and did well, but took the same class at Cornell and ended up with a C+...not so fun. College classes are much more fast paced and require you to learn independently. AP classes, meeting everyday, cover in one year what most college classes cover in a semester, meeting only 2 or 3 times a week.</p>
<p>Why wouldnt you?? It's 3 hours out of your life, and if you do well, it means not taking a class for 3 hours per WEEK for a whole semester, sitting through material you've already learned. </p>
<p>I took AP lit and AP Spanish and by my freshman year (not at Cornell) I was considered a Sophomore. And that was only with 2 AP classes. Do it.</p>
<p>I have a daughter in Cornell in CAS who came in with 30 AP credits. </p>
<p>One of the restrictions of CAS is that you must have 100 credits of CAS courses (unless you are a transfer student) in order to graduate. The other 20 credits can come from anywhere -- AP, other schools at Cornell, in some cases even other colleges, if the credits are transferable.</p>
<p>So unless you want to take more than the standard courseload (an average of 15 credits per semester), you can't use more than 20 AP credits toward graduation from CAS. And you will probably find that you will use fewer than 20 of your AP credits toward graduation because you will want to take some courses in Cornell's other colleges.</p>
<p>Another thing: You can't use AP credits for distribution in CAS or to get out of the foreign language requirement. But you can use a 5 on either of the AP English tests to get out of one freshman seminar. You may want to take both of the AP English tests just in the hope that you might get lucky on one of them. In my daughter's experience, very few people actually want to take freshman seminars because of the annoyingly frequent writing assignments.</p>
<p>What AP credits are mostly good for in CAS is letting you place out of introductory courses that you don't want to take, allowing you to take more advanced courses sooner. My daughter's AP credits took care of the prerequisites for her major, allowing her to start on the real 300-level courses in her major her first semester.</p>
<p>Credits that you get from AP tests can help you impress people outside of Cornell, too. When you apply for summer jobs and internships, for example, you will often be asked how many college credits you have. It certainly hasn't hurt my daughter, in the eyes of people outside Cornell, that she had completed 77 credits by the midpoint of her sophomore year. Both last summer and for this coming summer, she has gotten internships that I would not have ordinarily expected a student at her stage in college to get. Last year, she was the ONLY rising sophomore interning at the organization where she worked; everyone else was at least a year ahead of her in school. For this coming summer, she has obtained an internship that seemed to be pretty obviously aimed at juniors rather than sophomores. I strongly suspect that the larger-than-usual number of credits she could claim helped in both instances.</p>
<p>thanks everyone for you input. I have decided to take AP calc in hopes of a 3 or better because if i successfully transfer to ILR, i will no longer need to take any math courses. AP psychology, and AP english. thanks for all the guidance.</p>