What Are Credit Hours and How Do AP Scores Affect It?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>So I took the AP World History Exam and scored a 3. I'm interested in going to Virginia Tech and according to their website, if you score a 3 on the WH Exam, you get 3 credit hours. What exactly are credit hours and what did I just save? When I looked it up, I saw that 1 college class lecture is 3 credit hours. Does that mean I just saved myself ONE LECTURE? I'm really confused.</p>

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<p>That means, I think, that if you have to take a history course for a general requirement, or if you have to take it for your major, then you can send them your score instead and you won’t have to take that class. Especially for sciences and math, you might even be freed up to take a higher level class.</p>

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<p>But what’s the difference between getting 3 credit hours and 6 credit hours?</p>

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<p>6 credit hours is usually 2 courses… you will get to skip 2 courses</p>

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<p>College graduation in semester based school requires about 120 hours at most schools.</p>

<p>If they are giving you credit hours for an AP, then you are closer to graduation by 3 hours out of 120.</p>

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<p>6 credit hours will be 2 classes (when you see an AP that is worth 6 it isuall Calc BC or a science which will get you credit for the class and the lab). You are basically skiping one class…</p>

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<p>Alright, to clarify: by 1 class, do you mean 1 whole course or just 1 lecture for a course?</p>

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<p>You’ll be saved from one whole course. On VTs website they should tell you what class(es) your AP exam replaces. If you see the word lecture in it, I think that means that was all the course was, just lectures. There may be other classes with the same content but formatted differently. </p>

<p>Btw, I love VT and I’m applying this fall :D</p>

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<p>Not sure why you are having a problem figuring this out. Have you checked the AP credit list? They are very clear about which class they are giving you a credit for. It is for course 1214 Hist, history of the modern world.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.registrar.vt.edu/documents/ap_equivalency_1314.pdf[/url]”>http://www.registrar.vt.edu/documents/ap_equivalency_1314.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>SUBJ TITLE COMMENTS Advanced
Placement
Score
SUBJ COURSE
NO
COURSE TITLE CREDIT
HOURS</p>

<p>HIST WORLD HISTORY 3 HIST 1214 HISTORY OF THE MODERN
WORLD
3</p>

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<p>Hey I saw your earlier thread and now I read this one. Congrats on that 3! I have to wait till tomoro to find out what I got, I hope I do as well as you!</p>

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<p>1 credit hour means 1 hour of a class for each week of the semester/quarter. So a 3 credit hour class would mean that you take 3 hours of that class a week for one semester. Some classes are worth more than others --1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5.
In other words, a “credit hour” is called a “unit,” if that clarifies anything. It works like high school where you have to have such and such number of credits in certain areas to graduate.</p>

<p>An average pace at college is 15 units a semester to graduate in 4 years. So say you have 10 of those AP tests (if you come from an AP heavy school), you can basically take a year off of college if it applies directly to GE / your major.</p>

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<p>Okay, I know I’m going to irritate some people, but I really don’t know much about college stuff. I checked the Virginia Tech website and I found the freshman year’s schedule if you’re planning on a computer science major (I wish I saved it so I could post it here but I didn’t) and there are no history courses in the schedule. Like, all there is is calculus and introductory programming courses. So what good does the AP WH Exam do?</p>

<p>Thanks, @jesilis. I hope you do BETTER than me, considering not many colleges give credit for 3s.</p>

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<p>Well the exam credits can get rid of the General Education (GE) requirements. Almost every uni has a set of mandatory classes. VT has 6 Areas you need to fullfill. If you look back to the credit transfer table for AP they might have a column saying Area and underneath are #s 1 to 6 or have parentheses with a number. I can’tremember them all but they cover all kinds of courses like art, writing, and stuff. They’re basically a pool of electives that you choose from to graduate. They give everyone a rounded education so that way Math majors aren’t overt loaded with technical things and a Humanities major can still do algebra. You may not have to take a GE your <em>first</em> semester, but you will have to take them eventually. At VT, you only 90 credits (on average) to get your Major courses out the way, but about 30 or so more are assigned as GE. Get some out the way now and you don’t have to worry about those ones at all. I may be mistaken about the number of credits (I’ve only looked at the bio major) so it might be better to go check the website.</p>

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<p>[Curriculum</a> for Liberal Education Guides | Curriculum for Liberal Education | Virginia Tech](<a href=“http://www.cle.prov.vt.edu/guides/]Curriculum”>http://www.cle.prov.vt.edu/guides/)</p>

<p>I looked at the transfer table and didn’t see the Area listed so here’s a link to the Area descriptions. All these requirements together make the Curriculum of Liberal Education at Tech. The list has the Area Titles as links to more detailed descriptions and courses that fulfill the area requirement.</p>

<p>Hope this helps some.</p>

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<p>That does help. Thanks a lot!!</p>