AP English--here is what we learned :

Last year when my daughter went to a preregistration conference at UK, UK advisors told her that she already would go into sophomore English because she scored a 34 on the English portion of the ACT. This was a new thing for them. My daughter was taking AP English at the time but then did not take the AP exam because she did not need to.

AP calculus---

UK accepted my daughter's AP credit and she did not have to take any more calculus. She is a biology major.

CWB---good info on the AP calc and engineering. My son wants to go into engineering and is planning on AP Calc for his senior year. But we may have to look into that.

On the other hand, even if it does not count, St Henry's calculus teacher, Claire Grosser, is one of the best around. She gets about a 100% pass rate on the AP calc exam and she won teacher if the year last year. So it still would be time well spent to in her class to prep for college.

 

How about AP physics? Same issue on the college engineering physics?

 

I'm not sure, but I can ask for you.

Depends on the college. NKU accepts it. UC, at least when I was considering going there, accepted it. UofL also accepted it.

 

For what it's worth, I believe all of the situations were specific to the majors that were selected. In other words, NKU would accept the AP Calculus credit, however, the computer science major required a more specific calculus course, and thereby wouldn't accept it. The same with my wife's AP Biology credit...U of L will accept it as a science credit when fulfilling gen eds, but when my wife declared a biology major, that changed the situation because the biology department wouldn't accept the AP Biology credit as part of their course-specific requirements.

For what it's worth, I believe all of the situations were specific to the majors that were selected. In other words, NKU would accept the AP Calculus credit, however, the computer science major required a more specific calculus course, and thereby wouldn't accept it. The same with my wife's AP Biology credit...U of L will accept it as a science credit when fulfilling gen eds, but when my wife declared a biology major, that changed the situation because the biology department wouldn't accept the AP Biology credit as part of their course-specific requirements.

 

Sounds like a lot of self-important wanking to me.

Sounds like a lot of self-important wanking to me.

 

Yup! That's how they get ya!

CWB, Only explanation I can think of is that colleges are just getting greedy. Since they get paid by the credit hour, they want you to take all their courses.

 

Given it was more than a decade ago that I first enrolled, but the University of Dayton gave me no problems with any of mine.

I had zero issues with any of mine. Actually, my AP European History credit got me 6 hours at UK!

I had zero issues with any of mine. Actually, my AP European History credit got me 6 hours at UK!

 

I liked history classes too much to ever want to facilitate skipping one of them. My college advisor literally told me, "Dude, you HAVE to stop taking history classes unless you want to declare is as your second major."

Here is the only problem I have with AP classes.

It all comes down to the GPA and Class Rank.

My kids have all taken AP classes from Freshman year through senior year, the problem is their class ranking doesn't always reflect that fact and many colleges do give weight to class rank and GPA etc.

 

When a student is taking AP classes and still maintains AB honor roll etc. yet they are ranked in the 40's, 50's or 60's etc. because other students that do not take any AP courses or even take any advanced classes at all and just take their basic courses are ranked higher seems to skew the rankings in my opinion. When you are taking Chemistry and Calculus as well as a couple AP courses and someone else is taking general science and algebra I is ranked higher seems pretty silly to me. Others may not agree with me, but I just don't like how the rankings are.

Here is the only problem I have with AP classes.

It all comes down to the GPA and Class Rank.

My kids have all taken AP classes from Freshman year through senior year, the problem is their class ranking doesn't always reflect that fact and many colleges do give weight to class rank and GPA etc.

 

When a student is taking AP classes and still maintains AB honor roll etc. yet they are ranked in the 40's, 50's or 60's etc. because other students that do not take any AP courses or even take any advanced classes at all and just take their basic courses are ranked higher seems to skew the rankings in my opinion. When you are taking Chemistry and Calculus as well as a couple AP courses and someone else is taking general science and algebra I is ranked higher seems pretty silly to me. Others may not agree with me, but I just don't like how the rankings are.

I get what you are saying, HB. I think about that all the time. Counselors always told my kids to take the accelerated and AP classes, even though I would question the affect on class rank.

 

However, we did find that the colleges DO look at the classes and how much the student challenged themselves. That in itself could help the student get into honors programs and get more academic scholarship.

Here is the only problem I have with AP classes.

It all comes down to the GPA and Class Rank.

My kids have all taken AP classes from Freshman year through senior year, the problem is their class ranking doesn't always reflect that fact and many colleges do give weight to class rank and GPA etc.

 

When a student is taking AP classes and still maintains AB honor roll etc. yet they are ranked in the 40's, 50's or 60's etc. because other students that do not take any AP courses or even take any advanced classes at all and just take their basic courses are ranked higher seems to skew the rankings in my opinion. When you are taking Chemistry and Calculus as well as a couple AP courses and someone else is taking general science and algebra I is ranked higher seems pretty silly to me. Others may not agree with me, but I just don't like how the rankings are.

 

Sounds like something needs to be done about that school's ranking system. Trinity weighted courses based on their academic level. If a student was taking all advanced classes, it was all but impossible for someone not taking advanced classes to be ranked ahead of him.

I get what you are saying, HB. I think about that all the time. Counselors always told my kids to take the accelerated and AP classes, even though I would question the affect on class rank.

 

However, we did find that the colleges DO look at the classes and how much the student challenged themselves. That in itself could help the student get into honors programs and get more academic scholarship.

True, but it depends on the counselors at the college the student is attending.

 

A quick story. My oldest took AP classes all through HS, was always on A and AB honor roll etc. Made National Honor Society etc. Her senior year the AP course she took on the final test to see if they will get credit for that class in college she didn't get the score required. For some reason the college counselor she had that helped get her classes needed for her major thought she needed to take some remedial (basic high school courses) to get to where she needed to be before pursuing the other classes needed for her 5 year major. To make a long story short, her entire freshman year was the core classes that every one has to take and also 2 additional remedial classes which she said was like a basic high school classes she could of gotten straight A's in 3 years ago. she was pretty embarrassed and upset that it slowed her studies down that freshman year of college. To let you know how she did in College. She was on the Deans list every semester until she graduated with her Astro Physics degree.

 

Sometimes the way some schools (Colleges) look at AP classes is like a normal class and for some reason basically made her take a lower level course within the same subject because as my daughter says, "They thought I was dumb"

 

Needless to say she transferred to a new College the next year and got back on pace for her major.

Say a kid is able to start college with 20 credit hours in hand because of the AP high school stuff. Does that mean he/she only needs 100 more hours to graduate (assuming 120 is the magic number)? Are those 20 hours part of the calculation when compiling the kid's college GPA? If so, what grade is assigned to them? Or, are they not considered at all? Finally, if a kid has 30 hours going in, it seems the family could save on a year's tuition, correct?

It's my experience that not all AP class's are equal in terms of work load, and I imagine that varies depending on the school. When I was in school there were a few AP classes that were "blow off" classes and there were a few others that you'd never pull your head out of a book if you took two or more.

 

The college credit thing is pretty nice, but depending on your situation - how quickly you want to graduate, if you're paying tuition per class, if you want to balance your work load, etc. - the credit's can be a touch overrated.

 

A college course is often way more interesting/educational than the AP high school course. If you're undecided on a major then taking courses you're interested in can be better than opting for your AP credit and taking something dull just because it's there.

 

Similarly, if you're interested in, say, Psychology and you use the AP credit to get out of an introductory course you're probably going to miss out on a lot of things you find interesting, getting to know faculty, learning about opportunities, etc.

 

If you're interested in a specific graduate program or are interested in a difficult major, relying on the AP credit to advance can be a bad strategy. It might be better to take the introductory class to bolster your GPA and to make sure you're completely ready for the advanced classes. Med schools, for instance, are going to look at your GPA in specific slate of courses. This, at least, might be something to think about if you scored a three versus a five on the credit exam.

 

And if you are interested in an intense or competitive major, getting to skip a lot of elective courses and jumping into a full slate of advanced or major-specific courses can make things unnecessarily hard on yourself.

 

At any rate, AP credit is great, but I wouldn't overload myself with the classes on the hopes of skipping a few college courses, either, especially if that meant crippling myself with work my senior year of high school.

Say a kid is able to start college with 20 credit hours in hand because of the AP high school stuff. Does that mean he/she only needs 100 more hours to graduate (assuming 120 is the magic number)? Are those 20 hours part of the calculation when compiling the kid's college GPA? If so, what grade is assigned to them? Or, are they not considered at all? Finally, if a kid has 30 hours going in, it seems the family could save on a year's tuition, correct?

All good questions , tcjkbt!

I would also like to know those answers.