Admitted student here! I read that Harvard only accepts AP exam scores as credit if a student invokes Advanced Standing, or if the credit is for foreign language. I’ve also read that students (who don’t invoke Advanced Standing) can use AP exams to skip intro-level classes and move onto more difficult courses without receiving credit, but I haven’t been able to find which AP exams this applies to. Harvard’s website only has charts for Advanced Standing.
Does someone know or can someone direct me to a page where I can find out whether AP Physics, Macro & Microeconomics, Government, BC Calculus, and English Literature exam scores are eligible to skip intro-level courses? I’m not keen on spending hundreds of dollars on AP exams if Harvard will not look at them at all.
Congratulations. Does your high school allow you to skip the AP exams? Some don’t, or they won’t, for instance, label your courses AP without the exam. Harvard accepted you based on many factors, but rigor of courses was one.
Many students who do well on AP exams nevertheless take the intro courses once at college. Partly because every school has its own curriculum and sequence, and intro courses are foundational, and also partly to help with acclimation to a new school (less stress).
I believe Harvard requires freshman composition of everyone.
^^^ Yes, freshman composition (Expos) is a requirement for every freshman – there are no exceptions. The rest of the information you can find by searching the course catalog and looking to see if an AP exam satisfies the pre-requirements for a specific course. For example, the pre-requirement for MATH 1B (Calculus, Series, and Differential Equations) are
Congratulations on your acceptance. Of the list above, you can bypass the intro courses in Calc and Econ. For some reason, the page that listed the equivalent Harvard courses no longer exists.
As @compmom states, expos is required for everyone - there is no way to get out of it.
Once you get to campus, advisors can help you sort through the nitty gritty of this all.
Thank you so much for your responses!
My school doesn’t require that students take the exam for the course to be labelled AP. I will definitely take some intro classes regardless, and will look into the course catalog. Thanks again!