<p>AP credits are granted to give you units - these can be counted towards your minimum 120 needed to graduate, meaning you can skip taking elective courses that otherwise would be needed to push your total to 120 or higher. These are, AFAIK, not in question - if you meet the criteria, you will be given the units. The units could be removed later but only if there is a specific course that the AP test is considered to match, and you subsequently take that same course at Cal. So, for example, if you are passed AP Chemistry you would be given 5.3 units of credit, but if you go on and take Chem 1A at Cal, you may have the 5.3 units subtracted. In general, if you pass a class twice, you are given the units only for one instance - a few classes are explicitly approved to give you units every time you take them, typically because they are seminar type classes that cover different material each time. </p>
<p>European History AP earns 5.3 units for a score of 3, 4 or 5</p>
<p>US History AP earns 5.3 units for a score of 3, 4 or 5, plus it waives the need to take the American History and Institutions course that otherwise CNR requires for graduation. </p>
<p>Psychology AP earns 2.7 units for a score of 3, 4 or 5</p>
<p>Macroeconomics AP earns 2.7 units for a score of 3 or higher</p>
<p>Microeconomics AP earns 2.7 units for a score of 3 or higher</p>
<p>If you got 3 or over on all those, you have 18.6 units of credit in addition to the units you earn while here. That is one semester of classes you don’t have to take. </p>
<p>If, in addition to using these strictly for the units that count towards the degree’s 120 minimum, you also want to use them to ‘count’ as the equivalent of a specific Cal class, then you need to talk to various departments. </p>
<p>Why would someone bother? One case might be that you want to jump right into advanced classes, but those classes list a pre-requisite class that the AP test is equivalent of. Lets imagine you want to take a biology course, but it lists bio 1A as a pre-req. If the biology department considers the AP Bio test to be matched to Bio 1A, although they may set a higher score than 3 for that purpose, then you could have your AP counted as completing Bio 1A and that meets the pre-req for the upper classes. Why don’t many bother? Because online registration (Telebears) doesn’t check pre-requisites. About the only risk you take if you didn’t bother to get the AP officially listed as a specific pre-req class is that the department or professor of a class that lists pre-reqs MIGHT, if the class has a huge waitlist, MIGHT check and drop students who don’t have the pre-req listed as taken. This is rare and generally there is plenty of warning that the class is unusually high demand and subject to such cancellations. As one example, Bio 1AL is pretty constrained and the waitlist is managed by the department and they enforce extra rules on taking the class, including unilaterally dropping students from the roles if they don’t meet the additional rules set for this class. If you face something like this, you can either get the AP equivalent class listed or contact the administrators handling the waitlist, in advance, to explain why you have equivalency. They will then remember you and not drop you for this situation. </p>
<p>Another case might be if a major or minor has a specific degree listed as a required course. That department that hosts the major or minor gets to set the rules as to whether AP credit can be substituted for those specific courses as well as what score they demand to count it as equivalent. </p>
<p>Here is a good example - AP Calculus AB or Calculus BC which are each considered equivalent to Math 1A with a 3 but if you got a 5 on Calculus BC, it counts as BOTH Math 1A and Math 1B. That means any course that lists 1A and/or 1B as pre-reqs would take the AP score as equal to having passed the class on campus. If you are a math major, that is all you need care about and you can skip one or both of the intro calc classes using AP credit. If you are going to use this to satisfy requirement for a degree from some other department, and that major requires Math 1A, then the department for your major will also determine if AP credit can be used or if you have to take the actual class. Most times passing the AP test is good enough but you need to check (your departmental advisor helps you figure this out). your advisor might also warn you if this could be an issue after graduating - for example most med school admissions groups frown upon using AP tests in lieu of the required pre-med sequences of chem, bio, ochem, and physics thus pre-meds who want maximum flexibility for admissions to med school will take the course here in spite of having scored well enough to waive it on AP tests. In fact, if the AP test helps you earn a higher grade in an entry class here, like Chem 1A or Bio 1A, that is beneficial in keeping your “science GPA” as high as possible for med school competitiveness. </p>
<p>Bottom line is that the units themselves are given to you for a 3 or higher by UC policy, but the ADDITIONAL applicability of passing that test to count as satisfying some pre-req class for the degree, or for taking more advanced classes, is up to the department owning the major or the classes setting pre-req conditions. Most times, the unit credits themselves are good enough and you needn’t speak to anybody. </p>
<p>One final example. Economics majors have math requirements and can use 3 or above on Calc AB or Calc BC to count for the Math 1A. They can also use a 5 on Calc BC to count as completing the entire calc requirement of 1A and 1B, but the statistics requirement is not waived if you passed AP Statistics, no matter whether 3, 4, or 5. It is not sufficient to be counted. An economics major wouldn’t be able to satisfy stats with the AP, but they would still have earned the 2.7 units by UC policy. The Economics or Math departments might remove the 2.7 units once the student passes a college statistics class that is accepted by the Econ department, but this is only a possibility and often no subtraction occurs. </p>
<p>Since you are a CNR student and there are not specific named social sciences classes for your degree, you would not need to have a department rule on whether your AP score is equivalent to a specific class. You get all 18.6 units, need to earn only 101.4 more units from classes at Cal, and also have completed the American History/Instututions requirement for your CNR degree. </p>
<p>Since many CNR degrees have some humanities unit requirements, e.g. a Forestry and Natural Resources major, Forestry concentration, has to take two calc, one economics, one social sciences and one humanities course as part of the specific degree requirements. To have your particular APs counted as satisfying those courses (and not just counting against the 120 unit total), you need to involve the ESPM department (which hosts this degree) to have them determine that your Calc AP scores count as one or both of the math requirements, although the degree also requires a semester of statistics, they would have to agree that your Macro- and Micro-economics tests grant the equivalent of Econ 1 and waive the economics requirement, and that your others might be counted as satisfying social science and/or humanities. It is possible that 3 or above on the tests (and a 5 on Calc BC) would give you credit for 5 of the 10 lower division required courses for that degree.</p>
<p>Since your CNR major, whatever it is, likely has similar requirements, a departmental advisor would work with you to figure out how to cross of required courses based on AP scores - meanwhile the units themselves are automagically placed on your Cal transcript. You have an advanced standing, with a seniority/class level at least 18.6 units ahead of someone who otherwise takes exactly the same number of units at Cal but did not have the AP credits. It gets you earlier registration times for telebears, a very good thing. </p>
<p>Usually you will have spoken with an advisor before you finalize your plans and register for the first semester. They will go over this and help you figure it all out. That is one reason that telebears will require you to enter an advisor code, given to you after you talk with the advisor about all this, before you can actually register.</p>