I want to be an engineer and I passed the AP World test. Would the credits be useless since World History is not a required class for engineering?
It depends on the college you attend. All colleges have their own rules, both public and private. Some accept no AP credits regardless of how well you did. “Passing” the AP test probably means you got a 3. For some schools it may help you with general education requirements, but a 4 or 5 is usually required for specific course credit. Engineers need breadth as well as depth, just like any other field.
The AP credits are never “useless”. While they may not help you with your college credits they can help you get admitted to the college you want to attend. They show colleges that you are taking the most rigorous classes offered by your HS and can do okay in them (higher test scores show up better, btw). You are a multifaceted person, not just a STEM one. The knowledge gained makes you a better person.
Often students are admitted to the whole college/university regardless of the proposed major. Sometimes the admission is school/college division within the university. Your entire HS career counts, not just your math and science classes. Look at your state flagship U’s engineering requirements. Along with the obvious STEM courses you will likely find other required classes.
I may work for some of the electives required by schools that are ABET accredited. I agree it is never a waste to learn something.
It depends on the college completely. My kid had AP and dual credit courses that did not apply to,her degree requirements…in any way. The college “accepted them” but they didn’t reduce her courseload obligations…not even for electives.
It may count toward humanities and social studies general education requirements, depending on the college.
Even if it does not count as credit, it may count as a prerequisite for some other higher level course you would rather take than a lower level course.
The University of Chicago (and perhaps other colleges) do their own placement exams in summer or orientation week, in subjects such as calculus. Such exams help not mainly to “place students out” of a subject but instead to determine the appropriate level of the course that they may take. See, for example: https://orientation.uchicago.edu/page/placement-tests
In some subjects the prior AP exam scores may allow a student to “place out” of a requirement, for example a language requirement. But the college may still have it’s own placement exams. See here: http://languages.uchicago.edu/Students/students_proficiency.php
Columbia University has a similar approach regarding placement. https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/placementexams
AP is crazy…what’s accepted for credit can vary…not only at different Universities…but even at different schools within the same college!
For instance:
Getting a four on AP Calc AB gets you credit for Calc One at University of Michigan’s college of engineering…but it gets you nothing at their college of LSA. In LSA the requirement for credit is a five. I think this is very weird. LOL.
AP rules differ so much place to place. Only thing to do is to check how scores translate to credit and if that credit can be applied to your major at each different institution. Good luck!
Each school has their own AP and transfer credit policy. My D got 33 credits from AP when she enrolled CoE at UMich including US History. Some are useful for fulfilling pre-req courses, others for non-engineering elective requirements. At the end she took some more electives and made some of the credit useless. Otherwise, they are all useful in her case. If not, she would have dropped some of the AP credits within the first semester to avoid paying upperclassmen tuition earlier. Anyway, she started paying at upperclassmen rate after freshmen year.
My favorite class (and one that ended up being quite useful) in college was one that did not fulfill any requirement. It was a logic class, and it did teach me how to think through an argument.
AP courses may be considered college level but that is only for average schools. The better schools cover more material and skills in courses. UW (Madison) often recommends students who took AP calculus (and “passed” the exam) start with first semester calculus because they won’t be sufficiently prepared for the second semester course. Honors calculus is an entirely different course- son got a 5 in his HS AP calc and the max college AP credits but did the honors math sequence (4 math semesters in 3, theory instead of problem based et al).
You take AP courses because they offer more than other available HS options. Getting college credits frees up your schedule for other classes sometimes. If no credit is given you still have better prepared yourself for your college classes. Your HS AP class taught you something. Never useless to know more even if you take a college version later. Remember- engineers, like everyone else, are so much more than their major.
The credits may be useless depending on the college, but the AP course may help you get into the school because it shows course rigor.
None of the following recommends retaking (non-honors) first semester calculus (Math 221) for students with a 4 or 5 on the AP calculus AB or BC exam:
https://www.math.wisc.edu/undergraduate/math-placement-tech-algorithm-uw-madison
https://www.math.wisc.edu/wiki/index.php/Overview_of_the_calculus_courses
https://www.math.wisc.edu/undergraduate/ap-creditshigh-school-coursestransfer
@ucbalumnus I asked professors at each university whether students should retake classes that they got AP credit for. Almost universally, the professors said to take the credits and start at the higher level courses. I’m not sure what UW Madison calculus looks like, but I’m guessing calculus textbooks are fairly standard across the country. I don’t know why the advice for UW would be different than the colleges I visited.
As for why professors said to take all the AP credits, the main reason was that students who scored high on AP tests would be bored with relearning the same material in college. I can see the point that learning basic integrals and derivatives for a second straight year may be discouraging for a high-achieving student. If an honors class covers different material, then that’s a different argument.
When I was in HS, 27 years ago, my school did not offer AP classes. We had an agreement with St. Louis University to offer college credit for approved classes. Looking back, I think those college credits I got were a little suspect. I don’t remember any comprehensive test at the end to confirm we covered the proper material and learned it. The AP exams my D is taking are different. They compare all students across the country and have a set curriculum that needs to be taught in order to be successful.
I won’t know enough about this until my D starts college in the Fall and maybe starts a semester or two ahead in calculus. So far, I haven’t heard the convincing argument that would make me suggest to my daughter to retake Calc I. I would love to hear from a student with some experience taking the AP credits and starting ahead of the other freshmen.
As can be found on the web pages of Wisconsin’s math department, there does not appear to be a recommendation for students with AP calculus scores that allow skipping calculus 1 (4 or 5 in Wisconsin’s case) to retake regular calculus 1 (Math 221). So Wisconsin does not appear to be different from many other schools in this respect.
About the closest thing to suggesting retaking regular calculus 1 after a creditable AP score can be found here:
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/ap-exams
However, it only suggests that students with a score of 3 or 4 *may/i find it better to retake regular calculus 1 (Math 1A). This is quite different from the unconditional “always retake your AP credit” advice that seems to be common on these forums.
My suggestion is that students who are not sure can try the college’s old final exams for the courses that are allowed to be skipped to check their knowledge of the material against the college’s expectations before deciding whether to skip or retake. Examples from the same schools mentioned in this post:
https://www.library.wisc.edu/math/services/course-reserves/
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/archives/exams
A few schools have “calculus 1” courses that are much heavier into proofs and theory, so they do not accept AP scores to place ahead of them. Indeed, they (Caltech and Harvey Mudd) expect that entering frosh have had regular high school or college calculus before arriving.
It may turn out that World History credit may be more useful for college credit. It’s very possible you’ll end up at a school that won’t give you credit for STEM classes because they want you to take their classes for your major, but will give you credit for general ed requirements.
Of course, every school is different and has different requirements for each class, AP test and may depend on what your major is.
@jerzmaster: “I’m not sure what UW Madison calculus looks like, but I’m guessing calculus textbooks are fairly standard across the country.”
Sure, but there are some calc sequences where they cover the same material in 1/2 or 1/3rd the time of other calc sequences elsewhere.
@PurpleTitan Yes, agreed but if you learned the material in high school then why take it again in college? Even high schools have different AP calculus courses. There is a AP Calculus AB and an AP Calculus BC at my daughter’s school that are taught at a different pace. AP Calculus BC is suppose to be taught at a faster pace and should cover the curriculum of college calculus 1 and 2 courses. My D is going to OU, which will give Calc 1 credit for a score of of 3 or higher and Calc 1&2 credit for a score of 5 on the AP BC test. We are trying to guess what her AP score will be and then decide which calc course to take…so this post is very timely for us.
@ucbalumnus I have first hand experience with colleges teaching calculus different. As a freshman, I signed up for the honors calculus class. As the professor went into proving theorems, I quickly realized I was overmatched. It was also a 3 semester in 2 semester class like @PurpleTitan described above, but the pace wasn’t my issue, it was that I wasn’t prepared to learn math in that way (needed to stick with doing short practice problems instead of 10 page proofs!). After a couple of lectures, I asked to be moved to regular calculus classes. Theoretically, I was in the honors calculus I class, but in reality everyone in that class already had significantly more calculus knowledge than me even though I took a year of HS calculus.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Using credits for calculus is beyond the scope of the original poster’s question, so let’s move on from that debate.
@tutumom2001 I liked logic too…especially since it counted as a Humanities Philosophy course (I majored in Engineering)