galoisien

Hope you all will tolerate me asking another question, because I think someone might be able to give me some peace of mind?

Well, two things happened today.

The first is that I *thought* I was signed up for the AP French exam (which took place today). Apparently, because I wanted to take both French lit and French language, and the school was only ordering one, apparently I miscommunicated to my guidance counselor that I didn't want either... So apparently I'm currently without a source of language credits, except dual-enrollment courses (French phonetics / French conversation) I took this year. Anyone been in this situation before? How has placing out worked for you?

The second is that I just basically bombed my linear algebra final at my local university, which might give me B in terms of a college grade, or worse, a C. Starting out freshman year already with a GPA under 4.0 doesn't seem like a good start to me. When I checked the website, they mentioned credits, but not grades. Can I safely assume that if they do accept my potentially "B" course, if they would accept any at all, that the grade wouldn't be transferred?

I'm aware I should call, and I'm composing an email at this minute, but I just want to see if CC'ers might be able to offer some advice on the matter?

IhateCR

The first one I don't know.

The second one: The credits you earned in schools other than UVa will not be counted toward you GPA. They're transfer credits.

cavalier302

Your grades from the community college will not transfer. They will, however, be part of your overall GPA if you decide to apply to a professional school (medicine, law, business).

hazelorb

You probably have to take a placement test if you didn't do SAT II's or AP's for foreign language placement anyways (every transfer student I know had to do a placement test here regardless of their foreign language credits elsewhere), so it's not a big deal. You'll be placed into the right class so don't sweat it.

galoisien

Uh .... how does this work?

Does the old grade get erased should I decide to retake it?

I actually don't mind if UVA rejects my credit -- I learnt *A LOT* from that class, but there were so many powerful concepts that one semester felt woefully inadequate. Furthermore, I took that class without any real peers (everyone was like 5+ years my elder, sometimes twice as old as me...) and it would be nice to get to discuss concepts with actual people my age. But should my credit by rejected, will the grade not register [for the transcripts to the professional schools, etc?]

Is it an "overall GPA" in the sense that it's a sum of all the tertiary schools you've ever taken, e.g. something that would follow me even after graduation?

cavalier302

It will not be part of the GPA that UVa assigns you. If you apply to law school, you'll probably have to include it in your LSDAS GPA. I wouldn't worry about it. It's just one class.

vistany

You will get the actual credits, but your grade will not be part of your GPA.

galoisien

I just realised I'm potentially missing out 4-5 credits for language though. I'm not sure if this is a big deal (though one of my desired majors is linguistics) -- but you don't gain credit through placement, yes?

hazelorb

You don't gain credit through a placement test. Really it's assumed that you get all 120 credits needed for your degree here at UVA, so don't worry about missing one or two classes worth of credits.

galoisien

Ah yes, of course. But I mean, it wouldn't be bad to start out closer to sophomore standing, wouldn't it? Not so much as for academic reasons but for other privileges that such standing would entail?

I don't think it's a big deal, more like a small pity. I'm just confirming there's no way to recoup the lost credit opportunity?

db123

I have another question(s) similar to galoisien. I will have about 54 credits from AP classes and the website states:

"The University of Virginia awards advanced standing credit (course exemption and academic credit hours) or Advanced Placement (course exemption but no credit hours) to entering students who have qualifying scores on the Advanced Placement (AP) tests. Students may receive credit in any academic discipline in which an AP test is offered so long as they take the test prior to matriculating into U.Va."

Advanced Placement (AP) Exam Credit — College of Arts & Sciences, U.Va.

If I applied all 54 of those (I know 60 is the limit), then would I start out as a second semester freshman? Also, if I do take the credit for those classes, then would I be given some sort of grade or would I just be exempt from introductory courses? I'm really not familiar with this process and the website is somewhat confusing. (to me, anyway) I wanted to double major in two of the more selective majors at UVa so the credit would come in handy.

Also, for bio and chem, it says no laboratory credit is given. Would I fulfill lab requirements with another class altogether or are intro bio/chem lab required? If so, how would I fulfill them without having to take the lecture portion? For a bio major (specifically, neuro) is there a cap on the amount of credit I can get through AP classes to fulfill major requirements?

Yeah so I think that's it for now. Thank you in advance for anyone who tackles my questions.

hazelorb

Class standing is really moot if you're going to graduate in four years anyways. Your registration time might be a bit before other people in your class but that's really it. As for labs, if you need credit for those labs for your major then you'll have to take them, otherwise you don't have to take them. Labs are 3 credits separate from lecture so you just sign up for the lab and not the lecture, since they're graded separately. Specific majors have information about AP credits counting for the major (ie. history doesn't allow any AP credits for its minor and maybe 1 class of the 11 you need for the major, if I remember correctly; math allows 2; etc) in the undergrad registrar site, at University of Virginia - acalog ACMS™