There are only two situations where I wouldn’t want to accept course credit:
The course is in the student’s likely major and the AP/DE class wasn’t sufficient to meet the school’s expectations for a strong foundation in the subject; or
The total HS credits push the incoming student into Sophomore status, which at some schools can render them ineligible for various academic/social/housing/dining options offered to Freshmen.
It sounds like #1 may be a consideration for Calculus and possibly Biology. But if not, having credits in your pocket can make a considerable difference. Many years ago, I came to college from a rural school that didn’t offer any college credit at all, and I had to take 16-17 hrs per semester plus a few summer classes to finish in 4 years. I thought this was just how college goes…until I got to grad school and started meeting people who earned tons of AP credit and never took even 15 hrs in a semester. D22 started with 32 hrs of AP credit and thus only needs 12 hrs/semester, and the difference in her workload and mine from back in the day is incredible.
Re: item #2 above, there definitely can be some variation from 1 school to another on this. Some colleges will still consider a student to have ‘first year’ status in terms of academic/social/housing/dining options offered to freshmen even if you have sophomore-level AP/DE/IB/CLEP credits.
For example, at ASU and U of A (Arizona, not Alabama), you could come in with 4’s or 5’s on AP Lit and AP English Language and get course credit for that, but they still require you to take some kind of freshman english class anyway. Other colleges often have a ‘first year experience’ or ‘first year seminar’ class which can be the equivalent of a writing course. And the student could have sophomore status in terms of credits, but the college still considers them a first year student, and maybe the student even earned some ‘freshman/first year’ merit scholarships, too.
Congrats to everyone with good test results and earning some credits/good placement!
Very happy with our S24s AP results, too, especially AP Lang. There was a new teacher at the school this year and she and my son got off on the wrong foot. To paraphrase, on the first day of school, she told the entire class that her class would be so much work that they should drop it if they were in multiple other APs, played sports, had a job, and/or had a social life (S24 probably exaggerates, but I did hear similar descriptions from other parents). My son raised his hand and said he was taking 5 APs, was Student Body President, and Captain of his sports team, should he take the class? Teacher told him there was no way he could do it. Well, guess what . . . he got a 5 on the AP exam. He feels justified.
He also did well enough on all others that he will enter with 36 credit hours and have all of his core requirements completed except for foreign language and fine art, so we are thrilled this should give him more flexibility to take classes that interest him.
Agreed, the way this is handled depends a lot on the specific college. In D22’s case, she was considered a freshman for most purposes, but when it came time to apply for a government student loan, she received the sophomore amount, not the freshman amount.
S22 came in with 50+ credits from AP and IB. Some eliminated general ed classes, which thrilled him. But, he started engineering classes at the basics and went from there.
The extra credits did get him much earlier registration, which was very helpful. He has always been able to get the classes and times he prefers.
Another downside to taking them if they are just for credit, is some colleges charge more when you hit a threshold of credit. U of Michigan charges more at 55 credits (at least in engineering). AP credits there don’t let you register any earlier, but they do count for the total for extra cost. A double whammy!
D24’s college doesn’t really give credit for AP’s, though some can serve to partly inform placement. Still, she was pleased finally to be able to see her exam results.
I know quite a few kids who did engineering at Penn State. They advise even the kids with 5s in AP Calc to take Calc 1.
There are lots and lots of kids there who got 5s, and standard practice among the kids I know was to take Calc 1.
It’s partly about ensuring that you have a strong base in math, of course. But also getting a sense of how college classes work—in a course where you already have a decent sense of what’s going on, rather than one in which almost everything is new.
This was common when I was in college. Kids who had like 4 years of HS Spanish took Spanish 1. I mean some of them were pretty close to fluent. But it was an easy A.
Granted, this was at a college where we paid a flat tuition rate rather than by the credit, which changed they dynamic a lot.
Does the school where your D is matriculating have old calc exams online? If so, have her take a couple and see what she thinks. Purdue had that option along with AP scores and it was very helpful. Based on exams my D (engineering) should have skipped to Calc III but was hesitant and started in II. In retrospect, she says she should have skipped to III.
After talking it over, my D24 has decided to send the report. She will bank some GenEd credits with the Bio and opt to forgo credit for Calc I and take it there.
So we are recovering from the hurricane. D24’s summer job is working at the summer camps at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and she had work today so I drove her in and oh my goodness it looks like a bomb went off in this city, but like, everywhere. Traffic lights missing, detouring around flooded roads, only one lane cleared of debris. It’ll take a long time to get everything cleaned up.
Good news is we had a tree take some damage, but it’s otherwise fine and we never had an extended power outage. It would go out and just when I would say I didn’t think it was coming back it would start up again. The transformer at the back of our lot blew in April and we had a day without power then waiting for them to fix it, but the dozen or houses on that one transformer are the only ones in our entire neighborhood that have power. It was a pain at the time, and was thisclose to getting a hotel then, but I’ll gladly trade a day without power in Houston in April for one in July.
Between this and the derecho that took out power right before graduation, D’s class has had a rough couple of months.
Two people from our company were in Houston yesterday (arrived Sunday night) for the Texas FFA convention. From my understanding, all of downtown Houston and the surrounding 'burbs were without power until yesterday evening. Good luck with the clean up.
Just submitted a request for payment for S24’s Fall tuition and housing to our 529 manager and it was a weirdly satisfying experience! While he has worked hard in school and activities to make college happen, as parents, we have worked hard to set aside the funds to make it happen and there have been few moments in my life when I have felt quite so proud of us as parents. Is that totally weird?
(Edit to add: I also acknowledge that we had a lot of lucky breaks that enabled us to start saving early, and recognize that many wonderful parents do not have the ability to do so, through no fault of their own, and I am just grateful that we had the opportunity to save and that we were able to follow through with our plan)
Summer is going reasonably well, but I can tell both D24 and S24 are getting increasingly anxious to fly the nest. I’m getting along better with D24, whereas her dad seems to be constantly getting on her news for doing incredibly annoying things, like doing her laundry or, heaven forbid, setting foot in her room to hang a curtain. S24 is getting along slightly better with his father, and I am driving him crazy by my requests that he please check his school email and do things like reserve a rented fridge or, worse still, requests from me that he pick out a comforter for his dorm room. Still, relatively minor complaints, and they both are working hard in their summer jobs and definitely still seem excited and happy about their choices, so all is very well.
Not weird, at all. I feel the same way. We were unable to save in earnest for our kids’ education until pretty late in the game, so it has taken a huge amount of planning and sacrifice on our end to be able to launch them into the world debt-free. The day I sent off D20’s final tuition payment last December was hugely momentous ( I even posted about it on CC). I feel immensely proud and relieved that I’ll be able to do the same for D24.
If you’re weird, I’m weird too. Putting our kids through college debt-free was a core value/goal my husband and I set before we were married, and now that all of that work and saving is paying off, I’m feeling pretty darned proud (even as, like you, I acknowledge how lucky we have been to be able to both set and meet that goal).
I just realized yesterday that a month from then I would be driving home from dropping D24 off at college by myself.
We get the bill from her school on Monday, so I am eagerly awaiting that sense of satisfaction.
D24s 529 is well funded, especially since she chose the by a large margin cheapest option for school, with her future masters/Ph.D. as a factor. This year instead of making my annual contribution to the 529, I opened a joint brokerage account with D. We went with the lesser meal plan, and were trying to figure out a budget for things, and ultimately I am letting her just transfer what she needs to her account, and then her putting that on her mobile student ID that is used for cash basically everywhere in the town, including the nearby grocery store.
She is so conservative with spending money and won’t have a car, I keep trying to get her things and she keeps telling me what he has is fine. I have no doubt she will treat that account like her own. (This arrangement would absolutely not work for S27 because he’d blow it all in a month.)
I mean I try not to take excessive pride in my parenting when what you are looking at is really the kid’s accomplishment. I do tell my kids I am proud of THEM, but normally I am not proud of myself.
But in this case, you providing for your kid’s education, that is in fact your accomplishment. And yes, you are right to acknowledge that a lot of good fortune was involved, but you also needed to use that good fortune wisely to get to this point.
So good for you! And I don’t believe it is wrong to reward yourself with some good feelings when you have done good.
Are you worried that these two items might not be an ideal combination:
and
We are debating if having the full meal plan, even though many meals will be wasted, is the best way to ensure D24 eats well enough often enough. Of course decisions can change one way or the other after eating in the cafeteria the first week…
Oh, S24 finally got to his registration slot and got exactly the schedule he wanted. Apparently they added sections for anything he wanted that was temporarily filled.
He really put a lot of work into this so I am happy for him. I also think he is taking a good mix of classes, and apparently his advisor thought so too, so I am happy about that as well.
@NiceUnparticularMan I’m so glad your son’s work planning his schedule came to fruition and he and his advisor are happy! Getting that first semester schedule is so exciting!
Speaking of classes, my S24 initially was registered for 17 credits - Econ, Accounting, a University 101 requirement, Spanish, and Calculus. Calc has a lab and is 5 credits. He now has AP credit for that exact Calc class, and it satisfies all of his calc requirements (he will have a Business Stat requirement).
I am considering advising him to just take 12 credits. He is entering with 37 credit hours from APs, so he would not be behind. I wonder if a lighter courseload might be better to help him adjust to college and really knock his business classes out of the park? Group thoughts?
