They receive units that are applied towards the 180 units that are needed to graduate.
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So, for example, they can count toward lower division electives, right?
Are you talking about lower division requirements for your major?
Depends on the major and what your student wants to do after undergrad. Some health professions do not want students to use AP credit in lieu of pre-req courses. That applies to any undergrad institution, not just Davis.
Yes, understood. Definitely can depend on major and future plans.
But for example, if you need 60 units of lower division credits, but your major only has 48 of them specified by class or subject category, then you take 12 units of student-choice electives. Can AP be applied to those 12 units?
I don’t know, that’s how it was in my dinosaur day as an engineering major, but not sure if that still holds.
Interesting, thanks! I guess I thought I was reading it wrong. I was hoping they counted!
From UC Davis website:
Courses for which AP credit has been granted may not substitute coursework required as part of the UC Davis General Education Requirement.
From UC website:
AP credit cannot be used to satisfy the campus general education (GE) requirements, except as they may be applied to the English Composition component of the Literacy with Words and Images requirement.
Deleting my question. Too confusing!
Give it a try. Happy to help.
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Ha. I thought your question was great before you deleted it. 
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Oops. Sorry! I found my way to the Davis website where I was looking at the various graduation requirements. These are specific to the College of Letters and Science. There are four categories of required courses, not just GE and major. That’s why I deleted my question. I didn’t want to confuse anyone!
Your student may be able to fulfill their lower div writing requirement before arriving at Davis. They can do this via SAT/ACT score, AP Lang/AP Lit score, or the AWPE exam. Fulfilling ELWR before UC Davis
For the foreign language requirement:
If you have successfully completed the second or third year of a language in the tenth or higher grade in high school, you may receive unit credit for course 1 of that language when taken at UC Davis, but the grading mode will be P/NP only. Although a Passed or Not Passed grade will be charged to your P/NP option, no petition is required.
What you should focus on are the major requirements and GE requirements. What major did your student choose? Some of their classes will apply towards GE requirements.
Edit: This grad check list might be easier.
For GEs, there are three categories called “Topical Breadth.” Most classes are 4 units so students need to take 3-5 classes in each Topical Breadth category. Some classes fulfill more than one category. If that is the case, you can apply it to whichever TB category you want but only one.
They also need to take classes in six “Core Literacies” The same class can fulfill both a core literacy AND a topical breadth requirement
Many classes that are required for a major fulfill GEs. For example, BIS 2B (first year bio class) fulfills VL and BIS 2C fulfills OL. Chem fulfills QL and math fulfills SL. If a student is a STEM major, four of their “core literacies” are fulfilled by courses required for their major.
I can plot it out more easily if I know your student’s major. 
Political Science… and thank you!
Edit to add: she also took 7 community college classes, so hoping some of those fulfill some GE?
Great place to study Poli Sci! So close to Sacramento and lots of opportunities!
If you look at the course catalog, it lists each class with a description and a series of letters at the end (ex. POL 1 has ACGH, SE and WE). Those are abbreviations for either a Topical Breadth category or a Core Literacy category.
Go to the Poli Sci website and scroll to the bottom where there is a 4 year plan and a 3 year plan. The four year plan has this check list of major requirements.
If I look at what is required for their major, they will likely fulfill the following in Topical Breadth:
4 units in Arts & Humanities (AH) so need to take 2 more classes
8 units in Science & Engineering (SE)(stats & POL 51) so need one more class
20+ units in Social Sciences (SS) so no additional classes needed
In Core Literacies, it looks like everything will be fulfilled but they need one class in Scientific Literacy (SL), one in Domestic Diversity (DD). They can likely find a class that would be both SE and SL and fulfill both with one class.
They will need to take an upper division writing class but Davis offers many profession specific upper div writing classes. For example, UWP 104J is Writing for Social Justice. UWP 104B is Writing in the Professions: Law. You can view the writing courses here. Anything over 100 is considered upper division.
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I’ll have to look all this over and try to figure it out too.; My D is a Design Major but is hoping she will get some AP/IB credits (she took 12 classes & 1 DE Calc class) to apply since she’d like to double major in Cognitive Science or add a Comp Sci minor (she wants to be a UX/UI Designer.). Luckily they are all in the College of Letters & Science which should make it more “doable”.
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My oldest majored in Cognitive Science at UCD. Cog Sci is interdisciplinary so just about every GE is fulfilled by major requirements. I think mine only had one ACGH and one DD that weren’t fulfilled by his major requirements. I will look at Design tomorrow and see if I can plot it out for you.
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You are wonderful for this - thank you! This has been an overwhelmingly sad admissions cycle for her so I am hoping this is her perfect match 
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Design major website
Design major checklist
Design classes in course catalog
Taking a quick glance, the vast majority of design classes are in the Topical Breadth category of Arts & Humanities (AH) and in the Core Literacy category of Visual Learner (VL). There is a 40 series (40A, 40B, 40C, 40D) and some of those classes fulfill WC, ACGH and DD but she is only required to take one of the classes so won’t get all of those GEs checked off. One class (40C) looks like it might change for 2022.
I didn’t go through the many upper div classes that she can take but it looks like the coding classes may fulfill SE and maybe QL and SL.
Look at the Cognitive Science. The computational emphasis requires a year of math, along with psych, linguistics and philosophy. The psychology emphasis is a little lighter in math and sciences.
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Same situation here. S22 OOS(NJ) accepted into Bio but so far no loans no scholarships. 70K. Accepted at UMD, UCSB, Brandeis(20K). So tough to decide.
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So helpful! Thank you!!!
@lkg4answers Do you have any thoughts on the value of adding a minor? Or double-majoring?