"For many high school students, using Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate credits to skip 100-level college courses and move straight to the heart of major-specific studies is a no-brainer. After all, why take a class in college that you have already passed in high school, spending time and other valuable resources for no reason?
However, college is about more than simply checking off a list of prerequisites. Some students may lose out on meaningful learning opportunities by rushing through their college experience in the name of efficiency.
In addition to acquiring a degree, college students can expect to grow via interaction with their peers. They can also expect courses that are taught at potentially higher levels than their corresponding AP or IB classes, as well as networking opportunities with instructors.
As such, it is important to weigh what you might lose against the potential benefits of spending less money and graduating sooner. Here are three scenarios when you may be better off not testing out of an AP or IB course." …
Also important is what are your post graduate plans? Some health graduate programs such as DPT programs and Medical school require that you have taken certain chemistry and biology courses in college. AP courses will not count. My D had to have at least 1 Chemistry course with a lab taken at college even though she was given credit because of her AP scores.
So far, despite obviously seeing the benefits of it and having taken 9 AP classes, only my Chemistry teacher has voiced this as an effective option. To add to that, said Chemistry teacher (from Auburn, one of the consistently harder schools to get an A by many sources) added that if you don’t skip a class that you are very good at, you’ll have the added benefit of probably getting an A in it on retake, which would count well towards your college GPA.
UCB business is poor example here. Students are not admitted to the major until junior year after a competitive admission process. Pre-business students taking the lower level prerequisite courses (some of which can be exempted with AP credit and most of which are shared with students of other majors) are unlikely to be organizing themselves into cohorts to take them together (and may look at each other as competitors more than people to work with).
Odd that the author leaves out a sensible way of determining what the proper placement should be if the college allows AP credit to skip a frosh level course that is a prerequisite to some other course that you will take: Try the college’s old final exams of the frosh level course that can be skipped. If they are easy, skip it. If they are extremely difficult, retake it. If they are mostly easy with a few difficult topics, consider reviewing just those parts before skipping it.
Skipping a lower level course that you know well effectively gives you the opportunity to take a free elective (possibly later, when you are able to take higher level courses in your major). That can be a better use of your time and tuition in college.