I would advise against skipping any intro courses in a hard science major. APs are great for many things, but not for skipping hard sciences. JMHO
Back in the Stone Age when I was starting my chemical engineering degree I took honors calc first semester despite having taken AP Calc in high school. It was still plenty challenging and definitely not a blow-off class even though I’d seen a lot of the material before. My high school wasn’t very challenging and I didn’t develop great study habits, so the much higher expectations of college were definitely a shock for me. S has much better study habits and time management skills than I had at his age thanks to his school, plus I think he’s also smarter than I am (but don’t tell him I said that!) so I’m probably worried for nothing. Still I’d rather have him find out that intro Calc and CS are easy than have him skip those classes and struggle in the higher level. After the first semester he should be on to new material anyway.
It’s been a long time since I’ve popped in here and I’m trying to catch up! 
First, my son also took the ACT’s last Saturday - though he said they were good. (that always makes me nervous!) He did well when he took them in Feb (33) but he ran out of time and did not finish the reading - Math was really low for him which was unexpected. So, he wanted to give it another shot. But we’ll see soon.
He will definitely be taking 5 AP tests - we are VERY lucky that our school pays for them, but that means you are required to take them. Honestly, he would want to take them anyway.
Does anyone else have a child that applied to the UPenn Early Exploration program? My son did though it’s really geared towards minorities and lower socioeconomic students (of which he is neither) plus they choose a student from his school last year. So, I doubt he’ll get it but he figured it would demonstrate interest. (and that’s his dream school).
So we find out about that on Monday.
Lastly, just curious how many of your kids are in line for Valedictorian/Salutatorian? I have no other place to share my stress about this - my son has been ranked first in his class of 328 since Freshman year. I go back and forth between being supportive (you got this!) and being realistic (the two girls on his heels could easily slide into first and life will go on - even if he is 3rd or 4th in the class it is an amazing accomplishment!) I guess I don’t want to see him disappointed though I also remind him all the time life is filled with disappointments and once he hits college, it won’t matter at all. But I’m a bundle of nerves for him because of course I want to see him get this honor and not sure how I’ll make it until the end of January when it’s locked in. Life has a habit of of pulling the rug out from under him so my emotions are all over the place. Phew ok. I just need to get that out.
Now if I could just get him to finish the Common App…
@bearcatfan we’re located near Stanford and around here you can not only cough and get a VC sick, but you can also get a PhD sick too. So, we were able to find a Stanford student getting his PhD in Physics. We had him come over about 3-4 times during the school year, usually before tests to help D understand the material better. He was Australian so payment was made in Fosters. =))
Maybe there’s the simiar opportunity in your area?
@labegg so if she has enough AP credits she would be considered a transfer student? I guess I don’t really understand how that works? My D with AP and Dual Credit I believe could have around 30 credits and I’ve told her she might be able to knock a year off undergrad, but I just figured we’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure she should use some of her science credits so it might not work anyway, but we figured at least she could have some lighter semesters by using some of the other non science dual credits.
@sushiritto @traveler98 @bearcatfan @LMHS73 @droppedit I think a big part of the issue with physics is the new instructional approach adopted a few years ago. My guess is it will eventually go the way of whole language which was when reading was taught not by breaking down sentences into words into letters and phonetics but kids had whole sentences and paragraphs put in front of them and the theory was it would all gel for them in to knowledge of reading. Was a fail.
With physics, we have found many instructors are no longer teaching the content; they are setting up situations for the students to figure out on their own. They never tell them if they got it or not. They don’t explain how something should have been done. We have had this in 3 different schools now, for 3 different style learners, and it has been a fail for all 3. DD, who took AP Calc BC as a sophomore and scored a 5/5 on the exam,( A in the course, 36 ACT Math, 800 SAT math), started in Physics 3 as a junior and ended up backing down a level. Frustrated me to no end. The lower level course was not much better because the same methodology was being applied-they needed to apply their skills of reasoning and deduction without knowing the principles and facts in play.
Yes, @grandscheme, that is exactly the case. You stated it well. How can you figure out a problem if you don’t know the formulas you need? Or how to tell which formula you need?
@sushiritto the tutoring is a good idea. I googled and my local university has a couple physics professors. I emailed one asking him for suggestions on students capable of occasional tutoring for Physics 101 (what the class is comparable to).
She feels much better now. She breezed through her AP Calculus (proving to herself that she’s not dumb) and worked on physics with my husband. She has questions to bring in to the guy, at least. I don’t know if I’m still going to keep the appointment with the vice principal … we will have to talk later.
Absolutely this, @traveler98. I am plenty fine with D18 taking a couple “gimme” classes while she gets used to the pace of college, dorm life, doing her own laundry, etc. Personally, I don’t see the benefit (other than $$) to come in basically as a sophomore. My friend’s daughter basically finished college in two years barely at 20 because of dual enrollment credits. Not something I would encourage for my own kids, but whatever works for you I guess.
OK; I saw this today and it was just too perfect not to share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayb_2qbZHm4
Cute @amominaz!
I agree with what all of you said about STEM majors not using their STEM AP credits to place out of classes (like calculus). So if that’s the case, unless your HS makes you take the exam, why would a Senior who plans to major in something STEM take a STEM APexam?
@melvin123 - my guess would be to show colleges your proficiency in those subject areas and to eliminate any potential question about whether you had taken the exam and done poorly so not submitting those scores. My daughter’s school doesn’t have AP; if you want to take the AP test you study for it on your own and take it. I have heard (though no concrete evidence) that some colleges are suspicious when you submit no scores for AP classes you obviously took.
@katstat1…I guess I sort of combined my thoughts, lol, sorry. 1. She could cut off one year with her AP credits at several of her schools (LSU, TAMU, UT, SFA, UW), others will only take something between 12 - 21 credits (like Auburn only 12, Clemson 18). 2. She could consider getting in to A&M or UT, as a transfer student quicker and with a better chance of acceptance as a transfer student. Right now she would be a review admit for those schools with around a 10% chance of acceptance, the odds of acceptance as a transfer student are higher at around 50% and she could start that process for Spring 2019. It makes no real sense and really just illustrates how messed up the admissions process is in Texas.
Honestly, at this point LSU is looking better and better. And due to some other personal considerations the transfer option would possibly be very attractive to her, but she probably would not be willing/able to make that type of decision until next spring.
Do not under estimate the value of a light semester, DD2016 just called me on Tuesday extolling the virtues of her. current light 13 credit semester. She had carried a 17 and 18 credit load semesters as a freshman and will have 17 credit load semesters from next semester until she graduates. She was trying to convince me to pay for her to take a j term class at winter break and some summer classes next year so she could have a few more lighter semesters. I am not sure I am buying her arguments because those will cost some extra $$$$.
Another thing to be careful of; at some schools if you come in with so many credits to technically be a “transfer” student, you lose priority for housing. This happened to my friend’s daughter and because housing is impacted she ended up having to live off campus alone in an apartment. As an 18 year old - yikes (at least I wouldn’t want that!). So be sure to double check the school policy.
So other than the spot on the common app and coalition app where you self report your AP scores, where on other apps are you able to self report AP scores? I don’t recall there being a spot on many of the individual apps to report AP scores.
Does anybody here have an idea as to how much weight is given to SAT writing of 18 with above 700’s in both sections.
Well, STEM is a pretty huge designation. For my kid majoring in CS he’ll need a ton of math and CS classes. He won’t need as much depth in statistics or physics, and might not need any chem or bio at all except as part of gen ed requirements for life sciences. So plenty of his STEM AP credit will be used toward his gen ed requirement in college. Even different types of engineering will have different subjects that are emphasized. Some are heavy in chem and/or bio, others really require a lot of physics, etc. Many (most?) kids don’t know exactly what they want to major in even if they know they’re STEM kids or humanities kids or whatever. Why not take the AP exams just to have that flexibility later?
^^^^your AVI made me giggle
@amominaz, I’ve heard of that happening with dual enrollment credits but not for AP. Good to know.
An acquaintance had one of her kids graduate from a special “hybrid” high school at the local community college. All the classes were at the college but were dual enrollment and the students graduated with both a high school diploma and an associates degree at the normal high school graduation age. It was a bit of a rough transition to UT Austin afterward, because this 18 year old was considered a transferring junior and didn’t have any of the normal freshman support. It was much harder to get into on-campus housing as well, and I can’t remember if they had to go with an apartment or if they were able to secure a dorm room. It worked out fine in the end but it was definitely a bit of a rough start. This was several years ago when the hybrid program was new, so they may have improved the transition by now at least with some of the Texas universities.