Should students graduate more quickly when they take many APs?

[ucbalumnus]

@RichInPitt

“Save money with AP exams” is also what I find to be an often misleading claim. You need to attend a college that accepts the exam scores for credit and has a program with a graduation sequence that has no dependencies that extends the graduation time.

Here is an older thread on the use of AP/IB credit:

How do students most commonly use AP/IB credit?

How do students most commonly use AP/IB credit? (assuming that they attend a school where credit units, subject credit, and advanced placement is available for at least some of what they bring in) I.e. which of the following (could be more than one)? A. Instead of taking typical common frosh level courses, the student takes more advanced courses and/or additional free electives in place of the courses that the AP/IB credit can substitute for, but still takes eight semesters and the full number of courses/credits to graduate. B. The student uses the AP/IB credit to graduate in fewer than eight semesters. C. The student uses the AP/IB credit to graduate in eight semesters after taking fewer than the usual required number of courses/credits. In my own case many years ago, I did A (substitute more advanced courses and free electives).

With the caveat that the forum population is not necessarily representative of the overall college student population, it does appear that a popular use of AP/IB credit for forum users was to replace introductory level courses with more advanced courses and/or additional free electives within one’s eight semesters. Using it to graduate in fewer than eight semesters seemed to be less common.

So it was not “saving money” as much as getting more for one’s money in terms of additional advanced or elective courses that one would otherwise not be able to take.