<p>I'm a junior right now, looking to apply to colleges next year. I kind of have a concrete idea of where I want to go, and I'm pretty certain that I will get in. My school(s) of choice (I'm looking at 3) give a max of 48 AP Credits, all of which I can fill. Currently, I have about 50-55 credits at each school. Should I go ahead and take the 48 credits or re-take the courses to cushion my GPA? </p>
<p>I want to go to Medical school, so it's obviously important for me to maintain a GPA of 3.6+.
Any advice from current college students?</p>
<p>Money is definitely not an issue, however, I do fancy the idea of graduating early, I mean with 6-8 possible years of Med school/residency looming ahead of me, isn't time management important?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance:)</p>
<p>My advice would be to take the credits and move on. If your concerned about medical school, you should be cautious in your class selections, study really hard to maintain your GPA and get a good MCAT score.</p>
<p>P.S. I’m a fellow junior.</p>
<p>Intro classes can be tedious and difficult. I would skip the intro.</p>
<p>Wait, I thought intro classes were easy?</p>
<p>They have bad curves (at least at Duke). When everyone at your college is at least as smart as you are, if not smarter, the curve can ruin your grade.</p>
<p>I think you should take the credits towards your general ed. requirements only. For the courses in your major (particularly the sciences), you should take the intro courses at the college. The AP high school courses are usually not up to par when compared to the actual college course. </p>
<p>Take the AP credits for your general ed. classes. Do not take the AP credits for the science classes (if you are planning on being a science major). If you skip the science intro. courses, chances are high that you will find yourself struggling at the next level.</p>
<p>Some medical schools do not count AP credits as fulfilling specific course requirements when you apply. Take a look at the pre-med and med school forums to find out details such as which med schools are problematic. You can reach those forums by clicking on “Discussion Home” in the upper-left of this screen, and scrolling down.</p>
<p>I think you need to do this course by course. In my thinking the question of “easy” grades, high GPA in college are not the relevant questions. If you have serious concerns about that then you may find medical school out of reach. You’ve done well in high school with a rigorous schedule. Do the same in college.</p>
<p>So, for math AP courses, unless this is an area of great passion for you in that you’ve done much beyond the minimum of the AP course, I wouldn’t skip college courses beyond introductory calculus. If the college starts off calculus at a rigorous level, then I wouldn’t skip it. Foundation courses are critical, and selective colleges teach them at a much deeper level than in high school. Also taking them in context with science courses makes learning concepts in depth easier. I wouldn’t recommend that you place out of statistics, even if you’ve taken AP Statistics. The college version at selective colleges is much deeper.</p>
<p>For the core science courses – chemistry, biology and physics, I think it very unwise to place out of the “introductory” equivalent courses at selective colleges. They are foundation courses, and if you miss key concepts then your intermediate follow-up courses can become very difficult. It is not easy to make up for gaps in college.</p>
<p>For foreign languages, if you’ve gone through and possibly beyond level 4 (through the typical AP course and possibly AP Lit course) then place out of doing more at college, unless the language interests you.</p>
<p>For any other AP course, I don’t think it matters.</p>
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<p>Yes, I agree. You probably have an idea of how comfortable you are with the material covered in each of the APs you’ve taken. Also, I would talk to students who have taken the intro classes at whichever college you end up attending (to gauge the level of the classes / material covered in the classes) before you make the decision as to whether or not to take the AP credits.</p>
<p>Also, for science/math classes, if you took some of the AP courses several years before college, you might want to consider how much of the material you still remember from those classes. Sometimes it might be better to take an intro course to refresh your memory on the basic concepts.</p>