<p>Charlesives:
The Bio course that my S took was through the Extension School. His class used exactly the same text as the high school (but we had to pay for it, whereas his classmates got their copy free!). I am assuming that, should he want to concentrate in Bio, he would have to retake the introductory sequence. I was told that the Extension School class is more geared toward pre-professionals, in particular toward premeds and that HC introductory Bio is more geared toward prospective Bio majors.
The two course sequence my S took covered cellular and molecular biology and organismic and evolutionary biology. They seemed to me to be very similar in description to the HC introductory sequence.</p>
<p>The NRC study criticized the AP-Bio curriculum for overemphasizing older biology (organismic and evolutionary biology) and not giving enough coverage to modern biology (cellular and molecular biology). </p>
<p>I was told by the prof that the new sequence replaced an old one that was more similar to the AP curriculum. But he also commented that he had had dealt with many students with AP-Bio credit and had found their preparation insufficient, especially in terms of their ability to analyze. This is not something that I could evaluate (one would need to take both the HC introductory sequence, the Extension courses and an AP-Bio course in order to make any meaningful comparison.</p>
<p>In looking at other college catalogs, other schools do not seem to have similar reservations about the AP-Bio curriculum. Some give AP Bio two credits, while awarding AP-Chem only one. There definitely is no consensus among colleges about how to handle AP credit or placement after AP.</p>
<p>I don't think grad schools care very much where intro type courses are taken since they have a very good idea of one's college work by all the upper level courses a student will take in order to graduate. AP credits would subsitute for intro level courses.</p>
<p>I think that grad schools would look only at the level of preparation of the student in the proposed and related fields. If graduating early meant that the student had taken only the minimal level in the appropriate language, or the minimum number of courses in the major, the student would be at a disadvantage against competing applicants with a more thorough preparation. But a student who proposed to do graduate studies in, say, anthropology, and had placed out of math and science requirements through the use of AP credits would be at no disadvantage whatsoever if that meant that s/he could take more courses in anthropology.</p>
<p>I was told that the Extension School class is more geared toward pre-professionals, in particular toward premeds and that HC introductory Bio is more geared toward prospective Bio majors.<</p>
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<p>I'm a little confused Marite, although it doesn't really matter, Harvard College pre-meds take the extension course?? Or just the ones who don't plan on majoring in biology? I'm curious because one strategy proposed to my daughter (as a pre-med) is to take physics or calculus at an in-state university here at home over a summer, if either class is required only for med school, and not for a major, to free up more class slots at D'mouth for other courses that might interest her. This is all somewhat alien to me, I'm used to the "pay as you go" method of college financing, rather than having a finite number of courses you can take without significant extra cost.</p>
<p>My S is a high schooler, so he took Bio in the Extension School rather than in the College. Quite a few of his schoolmates make use of the Extension SChool to supplement the offerings at the high school. In my S's case, he took the Extension School classes because of a scheduling conflict. A regular undergrad wishing to prepare for med school would be expected to take the regular introductory Bio course, irrespective of AP. And of course, s/he would not be preparing for the AP. My S did take the AP after taking the Extension School Bio classes.</p>
<p>The main thing for your D to be concerned about is whether the summer classes will be recognized not only by Dartmouth but by her department(s). College administrations tend to be more concerned with numerical and distribution requirements (you need x number of courses in y number of areas) but departments are more concerned with level of preparation and course content. If Dartmouth is willing to go along with the summer course (and it is cheaper at the state university), then by all means, she should consider it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the really good suggestions and info - this is a great board. I like particularly the idea of consulting an academic advisor, which I will suggest. </p>
<p>This actually leads to another question: how much math is involved in an Economics degree? I have heard that high level math is critical but any economics text I have ever looked at had, at most, ordinary diff eqns.</p>
<p>My S took a mathematical probability course; many of the undergrads in his class were economics majors. Economics has become more and more math-based, but it's more applied math than pure math.</p>
<p>Many Dartmouth departments in the social sciences will not allow credit from many schools at all (History being the most noteworthy example, will only accept credit from colleges with which Dartmouth has an official exchange program). The sciences are somewhat easier; many premeds take their organic chemistry requirements at state schools to get better grades for their transcripts.</p>
<p>Wisconsinguy, they take organic away?! Whoa. Having taken organic, I would think one of the hardest things about it at Dartmouth would be the compression - all that terminology and rules to learn and those long labs, taking it over the summer would still be some serious time compression, too. Not as big an advantage. I'm also a little surprised that the med schools don't look at that a little askance, med school admissions must be even more numbers driven than they were 20 years ago. Take math away, yes, physics, hmm, yes - bio, chem and organic, no.</p>
<p>That wouldn't be the case in our area. My daughter is a biology major but she is required to take a year of organic chem ( at her school the average GPA is already 2.7 WITHOUT OChem!). anyway, because of a combination of various unfortunate factors, she didn't pass her spring ochem final and failed the course.
She tried to take it over by itself at our local university, but although they have 36 sections, they all were full immediately, AND since she was not transferring to that school, they wouldn't let her take it anyway.( non matric get last choice registering for classes at which time not many choices left) Even the local private schools, she would have needed to transfer, so she ended up taking it at a community college, which we weren't too thrilled about, but her school approved it( She does have a good teacher, but the intensity is much less so far- but then I wager she would say that if she was taking it at UW also). I don't think they would have approved it if she had been a chem major, although she does like it enough to consider taking biochem when she returns to her college.</p>
<p>"She does have a good teacher, but the intensity is much less so far- but then I wager she would say that if she was taking it at UW also:-E'kity4</p>
<p>I wouldn't be so sure about that. Our friend's son attends JHU, achieving a 4.0 gpa after two semesters. That summer he took Physics I at Rutgers in order to clear his schedule for an additional course in his major. Bingo, his first B!</p>
<p>Wisconsinguy, most universities do not post transfer grades on the transcript. They just note the credits.</p>
<p>I can say with some pride that I got a C in ochem!!!! However pchem was also considered a weed out course in the department too. I didnt need to take that.</p>
<p>I can't find info about the text that the UW uses,( the ISBN comes up with nothing on the web, how frustrating, how are you supposed to get it cheaper?)
I was going by comments that friends have made that are professors in the UW medical school who did their undergrad at Reed and said that compared to Reed, med school was easy. Hyperbole, perhaps but since Reed makes things more difficult than they need to be just because, it seems, not unbelieveable.</p>
<p>E'kity4, I dod not mean to imply that Reed was in any way easy!!! They have quite a reputation of offering its students a great education. However, I have found that the difficulty of a specific class is often dependent on the professor teaching it. A good prof can make a student feel like he is in heaven or in hell. And certainly that can be the case in a course like O-chem. My son uses a web site to screen his profs and made a late schedule change when 2 profs switched sections after registration. I know during regristration for first semester classed last summer, he went to the library in the rain the night before to screen his section choices and he ended up liking all his profs that first semester.</p>
<p>However you have to love Reed College!!! Where else would the Administration have the guts to thumb there nose at USNews and its rediculous college ratings!! And of couse an unbelievably high percentage of its graduates go on to earn a PhD. Yeah, it must be quite a place. Your daughter is lucky despite her O-chem experience!!</p>
<p>She did have a great Ochem prof, at least he is very supportive of her, and is encouraging her to major in biochem. One difficulty was that first semester she had a visiting prof from Swarthmore that she liked, but I think he had a different style of teaching than she did of learning, and probably she wasn't understanding as much as she thought she was, then push came to shove spring semester with the 2nd semester.
I am not sure why they didn't have same prof all semester, it seems in a class that depends so much on what came before, they would. It doesn't help that you don't find out your grades until you are in trouble or ask for them. I suspect my daughter was skating the line but wouldn't admit it.
Oh well she certainly is getting more sleep this year at home than she would at Reed, I hope ( I go to bed before her!)</p>
<p>Ekitty, glad your daughter is doing better - I shuddered at the idea of taking organic at a school with a reputation for being difficult, then having 2 different teachers on top of that!
Organic and microbiology were my 2 favorite classes in college (yeah, a nerd from way back when) - my organic teacher was a "maiden lady" of a ceratin age with a reputation for being terrible. What she actually was was demanding, meticulous and exacting. She had worked for several years at the agency that names new compunds, and was a stickler for nomenclature, she was also a great teacher.</p>