College freshman schedule and high school AP classes
So what are the exact courses that are required for a college freshman? I think it is said that most colleges require you to take the regular core classes (english, math, science) during this year and will allow you to take courses based on majors and minors only starting at sophomore or even junior year. So that leaves out the answer "depending on your major" right?
I have passed APUSH and AP English Lang and will study extremely hard AND WELL (the thing I lacked the past two years of AP testing) for:
AP Physics
AP Calc
AP English Lit
AP Gov't
AP Econ
So let's say I get 5s on all of them. I'll probably get one or two 4s but to keep it simple, 5s. What are the other required classes that I must take in college despite having successfully passed all these high school AP classes?
Scoring a 5 on the French, German, or Spanish Language AP will exempt you from 3 terms of a Language at Yale, but you still have to take one term of that same language. See: Foreign Language Requirement | Yale College
So what your links mean (I read the first two and skimmed the last two) is that despite 5s on AP exams you will only be given one or two credits for that class. Does that mean one semester? One quarter?
And basically that means AP exams are worthless for Ivy colleges? Because I hear people have skipped an entire freshman year from AP exams or people who have saved like $20-$30k the first year.
And basically that means AP exams are worthless for Ivy colleges?
Depends on your perspective. If you only took them to graduate early and miss out on the complete college experience, then yes. If you took them to allow you to bypass some introductory classes allowing you to take more interesting upper level classes, then no.
Here's a few examples of classes you could take:
HSAR 115 Introduction to the History of Art: Renaissance to the Present
ANTH 172 Great Hoaxes and Fantasies in Archaeology
PHIL 181 Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature
PSYC 171 Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature
If you are taking AP's to save $$$ on college tuition, then yes, most AP's at Yale are worthless -- unless AP's are used for Language exemption, additional credits, or, as Kdog suggested, used to place out of basic intro classes, allowing you to take more interesting classes.
BTW: At most colleges, students need 32 credits (or classes) to graduate -- four credits per semester, times 2 semesters per year, times 4 years. At Yale, students need 36 credits to graduate, so those 2 additional credits from AP courses often come in handy, so you don't have to take 5 courses per semester half of your time on campus.
At other Ivy League schools, such as Harvard, you can use AP's to skip a full year, but you must declare "Advanced Standing" during your freshman year and graduate in three years instead of four years. See: Advanced Standing. As far as I know, Yale does not have this option.
You can use acceleration credit to graduate in fewer terms (minimum of 6) but there are restrictions on using them and not many students opt to finish early.
BTW: At most colleges, students need 32 credits (or classes) to graduate -- four credits per semester, times 2 semesters per year, times 4 years. At Yale, students need 36 credits to graduate, so those 2 additional credits from AP courses often come in handy, so you don't have to take 5 courses per semester half of your time on campus.
I don't believe you can use APs to reduce your course load unless you accelerate and graduate in fewer than 8 terms.
I have to say that if your plan is to graduate in three years (or fewer), Yale is probably not the best place to go. It isn't really set up for that.
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Josh05 - about your original question: there isn't a typical freshman schedule at Yale, nor at many other colleges. Students design a freshman schedule to achieve a number of diverse (sometimes incompatible) goals --
1) to balance workload
2) out of interest
3) to satisfy pre-reqs for classes they want to take in subsequent semesters, in fields that may end up being their major
4) to help clarify whether they want to choose a particular major
5) to satisfy breadth requirements
6) to make themselves more marketable, or help them acquire useful skills
Students can and regularly do take classes in their freshman year 'in their major'. A little time spent browsing the online Yale College Catalog will help you see the overall picture better, I think.
Your second issue seems to be the question of whether one can graduate Yale in fewer than 8 semesters by virtue of taking AP classes in high school (and maybe taking 5-6 classes every single semester). The short answer to that is, 'sort-of, but very very few people who have that choice do it that way'. Almost everyone who matriculates at Yale has taken a lot of AP classes in high school (or gone to high schools so snooty that they don't even offer APs because their regular classes are regarded as being superior to APs), and done well in them. Your history classes, for example, are not going to be full of people who took regular American History in high schools where APUSH was offered.
Your implied 3rd question seems to be, 'in that case, why take APs and struggle to do well on them in high school'. Basically, for most applicants, the way to take a 'most rigorous' high school courseload is by taking many APs, and that counts for a lot in admissions to Yale and it's peers.
Basically, for most applicants, the way to take a 'most rigorous' high school courseload is by taking many APs, and that counts for a lot in admissions to Yale and it's peers.
Not to mention taking mostly AP classes will probably be the best preparation for college classes.
What Kdog044 said is spot-on. I really don't like when people say that APs are, at best, at community college level (one highly esteemed CC poster whom I won't mention by name has said this before). That just isn't true. It is true, I'd wager, that classes at the absolute top colleges tend to be harder than AP classes. However, if AP classes were THAT easy compared to real college classes, no colleges would accept them.
