<<<
they do offer concurrent enrollment with UG and graduate courses (that is basically the whole point of University Scholars anyway)
[/QUOTE]
Right.
@SEA_Tide graduated with his BS/MS at the same time…all within 4 years. Those coming in with a good number of AP credits can generally do that.
Both of my boys easily could have been done with undergrad in 2-3 years…they just took extra classes and minors to stay all four years.
Thank you. That is what I had understood, but when ds met with one advisor he was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to bc he hadn’t completed his gen ed requirements first. (He entered with very skewed credits–very math and science heavy (almost jr status in credit hrs just based on those 2 areas alone).)
He has not specifically spoken to anyone in Scholars directly. I will share the info you shared. He did not want to have to take semesters of just gen ed courses and really wants to intersperse them throughout his 4 yrs. Math and physics heavy semesters make him happy!
I understand the whole concept of coming in with a significant amount of AP credits. Obviously, those students must be very intelligent almost genius level.
My approach is different and I am advising my children differently. Coming in with a lot of AP credits puts you in Sophomore level classes as a Freshman (especially fall semester). That is VERY difficult as far as I am concerned as you are in classes with students are very experienced with the rigors of college classes. There is a transition from HS to college, maturity and otherwise.
I just remember that when I went to college and was in engineering the Freshman classes were very challenging and the Sophomore classes are even more challenging and weed out classes. Going into those as a Freshman would be difficult and I have seen many great students bomb out by getting ahead of themselves maturity wise.
A student needs to be careful with AP credits in engineering/STEM classes. Graduating with multiple degrees is not as important as learning one curriculum very well.
My approach is to only have my kids, who are going into engineering, take credits in humanities/languages.
@CyclonesGrad
This is where we need to know our children and their specific abilities. My kids’ credits tend mostly to come from DE at local universities, not just AP. Jumping into upper level credits has been a blessing for them. They would have been bored to tears having to repeat material that they had already thoroughly mastered. (I think this is key. They didn’t sort of know the material. They had completely mastered the material.) Being that bored can lead to just as many issues as being overwhelmed.
Just an alternative perspective.
(I will add as a side note that my children are homeschooled and have been regularly self-studying upper level content since middle school. They self-challenge in a way that is really foreign to most students, so maybe their experiences are atypical. I would not consider them geniuses,but instead intelligent and self-motivated with a heavy dose of determination.)
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Agreed that you need to know your children for sure. There are those that definitely are capable of jumping ahead. No different than in sports there are those Freshman that can start on the varsity. Natural ability and drive determine a lot of that.
I am just saying that the vast majority of kids do not have that ability/drive but are expected to do so by a hyper competitive society. I do see on CC that most of the discussion is about super smart kids. Maybe my perspective is skewed from reading the posts that it seems a tremendous amount of kids are skipping thru their Freshman STEM classes.
What can I say? I am just an average engineer! Not a genius by any means!
We are homeschoolers and started out dual enrollment with the idea that we would check off some of the humanities gen-ed credits. DS has done a bit of that (English Comp) but we have evolved into first year chemistry/lab, and then son decided to formally take trig and pre-calc through DE, and will finish high school with Calc 1. He also has engineering credits from a special summer program.
I do think some schools prefer you to get your math/science credits in their programs (if you’re a STEM major). But we figure most of our math/science is more basic so it’s OK. I’m really glad he has a feel for the pace of college math and science courses.
ETA: We don’t have any AP credits.
@CyclonesGrad @Mom2aphysicsgeek Our third son is considering Alabama for Mechanical Engineering. He has two older brothers at other colleges, also studying engineering. All three boys had/have the opportunity to take significant AP credits, so I have learned a bit.
Son number one is at Texas A&M in Aerospace Engineering. He pretty much took all his AP credits, including his AP Chemistry and Calculus BC. (He actually had to leave some AP credits on the table, or he would have exceeded the maximum number of credits allowed for graduation.) He is starting his second year with junior status and has completed all his non-engineering required classes. He intends to graduate with minors in history and German. He did not take AP Physics in high school, so he still had freshman physics, which was a tremendous amount of work. He also took Vector Calculus and Differential Equations. He had some post AP math in high school, so he felt well prepared.
Son number two just started at Miami University in Ohio. He also took all his AP credits, except he decided not to take his AP physics credits. (He had 5s on all three physics AP exams.) He is doing well so far in second year calculus, but he is pretty bored in freshman physics. Like his brother, he pretty much has satisfied all his non-engineering graduation requirements.
Son number three is a HS senior. He is less of a self-starter than his brothers and I think he has felt overshadowed by them in HS. My guess is that he will likely not take his AP calculus and AP physics credits, but will take the rest of them. I think that’s a good idea for him, so that he can start to shine in his own light. It’s not just his brothers; he has one classmate that got a perfect score on the Calculus BC exam in 9th grade! Another got a 240 score on the National Merit test and another got a 239. He will “just” be a commended NM and “only” got a 33 on his ACT. He needs a chance to feel smart again.
Anyway, this was pretty long-winded and maybe not helpful. I guess my point is that each kid is different. Some have more self confidence than others. Some are late bloomers, while others are raring to go. Some are shy and others are extroverts. I can’t see any harm in taking all AP credits outside your child’s major. Some will be fine taking the AP math and physics credits, others may be better off being a bit bored but using the opportunity to get acclimated to college and boosting the freshman GPA.
I really don’t think this is true. I think it’s much more a reflection on the offerings at any given high school that actually offers AP classes. (Many don’t.)
When we attended the engineering session of Bama Bound in 2014, the presentation started off with the professional leading the session calling up four current engineering upperclassmen, who represented a range of students in the CoE. One student (from AL if I recall correctly) came in KNOWING he hadn’t been adequately prepared in HS to start off in Calc I (where most freshman engineers begin their math studies). So he went the remedial route and retook some classes and then proceeded to go through the engineering curriculum with no issues. (I’m not sure if he took summer classes or what.) Another student had taken Algebra 2/Trig in HS and started in Calc. The other I think had taken AP calc and had done well but decided to retake the class to make sure he had a solid foundation for his engineering classes. There was also a student who began at Calc 3 and never looked back, but he was considered the exception to the rule. It was HEAVILY emphasized that you better not go that route unless you are quite sure you are an EXCEPTIONAL math student (students like @Beaudreau’s older sons, I presume).
The CoE strongly recommends all students start in Calc 1, but they’re not going to prevent you from using your AP credits if you want to.
In our case, there was no big decision to make because my son’s private HS did away with AP classes years before, so while my son had taken two years of advanced calculus in high school, he didn’t go through AP curriculum and refused to self-study for the AP exams, so he had to retake both classes at UA. He did very well in both, but mainly because he already knew how to self-teach and could handle the pace of the honors versions of the class. He watched a lot of kids flame out, even those who’d done well on AP tests, and saw others go through the curriculum with no issues whatsoever. And he knows others who did go straight to Calc 3 and did fine. (I think Calc 2 is actually the class that trips a lot of kids up for some reason.)
He also had to take English 103 (the combined English 101 & 102 writing seminar for students with high stats who didn’t AP out). He really enjoyed it, but it was MUCH easier than his HS English classes, even though I know many good students struggle with that seminar. Again, it comes down to previous preparation as much as how “smart” your student is.
I do think some students, especially the Type A kind who are extremely ambitious and want to try to get a master’s degree in four years and participate in all kinds of special programs, sometimes bite off more than they can chew, but any time you have so many students coming into a program from such diverse backgrounds, it’s not gong to be clear where your student falls on the spectrum. There’s no right answer for everyone.
My son will likely graduate with “only” a B.S. in engineering. He just didn’t have the credits in place to allow for him to get the M.S. in four years. Slow and steady is his approach, and so far it’s been a good one. He’s done very well academically and also had a good time at school. Anything else at this point is icing on the cake.
Slow and steady is his approach, and so far it's been a good one. He's done very well academically and also had a good time at school. Anything else at this point is icing on the cake. <<<<<<<<<<
[/QUOTE]
I totally agree with this comment. College is about studying your major and also a time of self discovery as a young adult.
Our HS offers significant AP courses. My feeling was, with all four of my kids, is that they only needed to take a limited number of AP classes. I really wanted them to take only two/year. This year DS2 is taking three because he really wanted to take AP Chem (even though he will not take the AP test).
My thinking is that you should take a couple of classes in HS you would like to try. DD2 is taking AP Psych, Human Anatomy, and Forensics because she wanted to try those subjects. A good chance for some self discovery!
I am a big believer in the “slow and steady” approach for many endeavors in life. Remember the Tortoise and the Hare; Aesop had it right!
@CyclonesGrad, while I certainly think this is the approach the CoE would prefer, and the approach that works best for most kids, there are exceptions. The nice thing about UA is that there is room for both kinds of kids!
I agree that high school kids need to have the opportunity to explore their interests. I also believe that learning to mastery, not racing through content, should be goal.
That said, kids who start their freshman year taking sophomore or junior level courses may have still have maintained those exact same objectives. It may simply mean that their “slow and steady” landed them in upper level classes.
Especially in a thread discussing the Scholars program, which are grad level classes as UG, students with high levels of achievement should be considered pretty much the norm. To directly quote from the courseleaf page: The University Scholars Program is intended for gifted and highly motivated candidates for BA and BS degrees at The University of Alabama whose objectives include degrees at the master’s or doctoral level. http://courseleaf.ua.edu/specialacademicprograms/#universityscholarsprogramtext
I know for my own children, they simply progress at their own rate. That rate may just not be typical of your avg student. (That is the advantage of homeschooling. Progress is not based on a classroom or a school’s courses. They have the ability to take whatever courses they are capable of mastering.)
I understand. This thread is surely for the much more gifted students. I was just commenting on how it seems that so many kids start college at a Sophomore or almost Junior level.
Obviously I have not been as involved in that world because my older two kids, DS1 and DD1, went into Theatre and Child Psychology respectively. The only thing I remember is that DS1 got a 5 on his AP Calc BC test and received 8 credits of math towards his theatre degree @ IU! He never took another math class again!
I also think it’s as much about the variation in high schools as it is about gifted students. My son went to a VERY small, rural high school, which only had 1 AP class available, but they offered a lot of dual credit opportunities. My son took advantage of many of the dual credit options many of which were required courses and I don’t think were more difficult than taking them for high school credit alone. In fact for his 3rd and 4th year of Spanish it was exactly the same class, you could either just take Spanish 3 and 4 for high school credit or pay to have the grades recorded for the 100 and 200 level versions of college Spanish. There were absolutely no differences in the requirements for the students. But yet, he was able to complete 14 credits of college coursework which will enable him to complete his Spanish minor. (and although he could have taken the CLEP test for the same amount of credits, it was a small fee to take the dual credit version and it enabled him to start with a strong overall GPA)
I believe he completed 29 credits of dual coursework in total in high school and was still able to take choir and drama, as well as all the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering courses his high school offered. So, I think he had a pretty well rounded high school experience.
Then having the Spanish credits has enabled him to complete a Spanish minor to accompany his engineering degree, which definitely isn’t an easy task if you don’t bring in credits. With the number of credits he brought in, he has also been able to take a weight lifting course and photography which gave him a break from the engineering load and also helped a bit towards padding the GPA. 
One of the reasons I recommend larger universities to talented students is the ability to take courses at their desired pace. This is not possible at many middle and high schools and is the main reason I support dual enrollment programs and high schools operated by universities.
@jrcsmom did your son get credits that transferred for the PLTW classes? My daughter plans to take them regardless, but we have wondered.
mom2twogirls, my son also was in the PLTW classes. He got the 197 credit. This means that they “count” in his credit count and gpa (gets them a higher status for picking classes) but they did not take the place of any classes an engineering student would need to take.
My son did not transfer any PLTW credits to UA, he could have got community college credit for 1 of the courses, which as kjcphmom noted would not have replaced any of his required engineering courses, so we didn’t pursue that credit. The credits he brought in covered many of his ‘core requirements’.
Thanks! That was what we were expecting. She is taking the classes anyway because 1) she enjoys them and 2) she can get a better idea of whether it’s a major she might enjoy in college/ career.
Knowing the credits won’t actually replace anything specific is good because if she has a choice between an extra PLTW class vs an AP or DE math/ science then she can keep this info in mind.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek <<< but when ds met with one advisor he was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to bc he hadn’t completed his gen ed requirements first. <<<
Is your son an eng’g and physics major? If so, does he have to do the GE req’ts for both colleges?
Can he CLEP out of some of those GE req’ts? or do some online at a cheap CC?
What GE does he still need?
@SEA_tide which OOS CCs have cheap online rates? Nevada? Idaho? South Dakota?
^ Nevada comes to mind, if I recall.