It’s in Environmental Sustainability. It’s a pretty cool certificate but it does require AP Stats.
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What are you all thinking about AP credit? The schools C26 is looking at that I’ve checked so far will give calc & physics credit, BUT I’ve heard of a case where the grad school (this is specifically for MArch) required calc & wouldn’t accept the AP credit that the undergrad college had granted, so the student had to take it again at college.
Honestly my current thinking is that C26 will just do them again at college (there will be required calc & physics classes) and hopefully find them easy. They may be able to use AP macro for a gen ed.
My cousin’s one kid (I don’t remember now what she studied but she went to SLO) graduated in 3 years from using a bunch of APs. I also know one person who got credit for calc 1 and found the class she got placed into really tough and said in general, the students who had done calc 1 at college had done it more indepth and were better able to handle the advanced courses.
D19 didn’t end up using any of her APs for credit because of some policy about not getting AP credit for particular core courses/in the major (I don’t recall the exact details now).
So I guess it’s all “it depends”!
My kid is definitely ready to be done with Physics. She has a good GPA, but her grade in Physics for Trimester 1 & 2 have been C’s. I’ll consider it a success if she can get a B- for the year. So really hoping that she gets her preferred science class next year instead of the ‘Modern Physics’ course.
Re: the AP exam changing the final grade for the class:
At D26’s high school, at the end of the school year, they send out final grades, but an updated transcript gets sent out to families in August at the start of the following school year, and it reflects the updated grades which factor in what score you got on the AP exams that you took.
The chart they use looks like this:
D24 got burned by this in her AP French class because although she had a B- in the class at the end of the year, she got a 2 on the AP French exam. So she ended up with a C+ on her transcript for 11th grade in that class.
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Yeah, I think it definitely depends on both the school and the major for AP credit. D23’s school in theory would accept all of her AP credits, but some could only be used for placement because they were requirements for her major (e.g., she was able to skip over Intro to Psych to access upper-level courses more quickly, but her AP Psych credit doesn’t count toward the required number of courses for her major). They also can’t use AP credits to satisfy core requirements. She did go directly from Calc BC senior year of high school to Multivariable Calc and Linear Algebra freshman year, and no issues there for her.
I’m a big fan of using AP credits to reduce course load vs. graduating early. I attended a school that used a quarter system, where 4 classes per quarter was considered a full load. I was able to use my AP credits going in to reduce to 3 classes for a number of quarters, and it made things significantly easier for me.
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Some schools that accept AP tests will post old exams so your child can get a good sense if they are ready to move on to the next class or not. My D used every AP she could. It left room in her schedule for her concentration, a certification, research, and some extra electives (or she could have graduated a semester early).
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Oy. I don’t love that system.
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Yeah, it really depends. My D22 had to fulfill “distribution” requirements in three different areas for general ed requirement at her school, and some of the AP credits counted toward that, and some didn’t.
She will actually have enough credits to graduate this May, at the end of her junior year – but she doesn’t want to, LOL. Instead, she’s hoping to do an honors thesis senior year, finish a second major in classics (if she graduated now, it would be a minor) plus take a couple fun electives that she wasn’t able to get previously. Oh, and apply to grad schools – maybe? We need to have a chat about her future plans, but the kid stays so busy that it’s hard to pin her down.
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Did the student in question not take higher level math courses in college? If not, that could have raised a red flag.
We are not worrying about potential grad school issues at this point. S24’s school accepted all of his AP credits. Some of the credits are for courses not pertinent to his major, so simply count as extra electives. Others allowed him to move on to upper level courses. He went from Calc AB to Calc 3 and on to Differential Equations without difficulty.
One thing to bear in mind if your student has numerous AP credits is that if the school grants credit for the courses it may change your student’s status from freshman to sophomore. My child’s school charges a higher tuition rate for upperclassmen than for freshmen. We had to pay the higher rate starting second semester. That could sting a bit, particularly if your child opts not to use the AP credits.
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My understanding is that typically for undergrad architecture you only need one unit of calculus. For colleges that have a BArch, for example cal poly slo, they recommend APs in calc, physics and English to reduce the workload (so no, they don’t get replaced with higher level courses, they are simply used to fulfil requirements). I can see for a STEM degree why that would be a red flag, but it looks like most architecture courses only require one course of college level calculus and most MArch programs only require that for entry.
(Again - my understanding- there are parents here who know more about the arch programs as they have had kids go through them already)
(We have to look ahead to grad school if C26 stays on the architecture path as chances of them doing a BArch rather than a BS Arch-MArch pathway are slim. If they do somehow end up in a BArch program we can reassess using APs.)
Re: AP credits – I have two older kids who attended/are attending mid-sized private universities. My experience with private universities is that only scores of 4 and 5 will count for credit AND that credit is almost always general (i.e., cannot be counted towards major requirement and/or core requirements). For my kids, AP credits have been far more useful in getting them an earlier course registration time slot, then in helping them graduate early. But honestly, I am not someone who wants my kids to graduate early anyway. There is more than enough time in life for adulting, and my kids need the full four years (and then some) to acquire life skills, confidence, experience, etc. Anyway, D26 takes AP classes primarily to show rigor and prepare for a college level curriculum – and not to get college credit down the road.
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This was similar to D19’s college (selective private). Looking at some of the ones C26 is applying to (which are mostly publics), there is some variability. Some will accept a 3 for any AP. Some will only accept a 3 as a gen ed in that subject but require a 4 or 5 if it is in the pathway, etc. Some will accept a 3 in some subjects but only 4 or 5 in others.
It’s going to vary somewhat by school but accurate. Schools that are more technical in nature will likely layer in more math (i.e. Virginia Tech wants 9 credits of Math/Computational). The more design heavy programs are more likley to be a single semester of Calculus.
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College Board has a pretty good tool to see what scores qualify for what waivers at the different schools. Select the AP course or select the school for the full list.
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D24 could have gotten a 1 semester credit for a biology class at her college, but she opted to not send the AP score to the school because she’s a pre-health kid, hoping to go to PA school after college…and none of the PA schools accept AP credit for their prereq courses.
I think this is a topic where the phrase “your mileage may vary” applies. It totally depends on your major, the college, whether or not you think you want to go to grad school, etc., etc.
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At UCLA, my daughter went in with 54 units from AP credits, making her a sophomore by standing. However, basically none of these units helped her other than add to the number of units needed to graduate. And many of her classmates showed up with a similar amount of AP credits—as she said to me: “mom, this is what people who got in here did to get in. It’s literally not a thing that matters.”
Anyway, it excused her from Writing 1 requirements but not Writing 2. And she got a 4 on the AP Calc AB test and only a 5 excused her from Calc 1. So… she took Calc 1 and got a 100 in the class without trying. It was literally a repeat of her AP class.
My takeaway is that AP is a racket if it’s trying to bill itself as a way to get useful college credit. These days, it’s just tablestakes for a competitive student—the cost of admissions consideration.
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The common app prompts for our kids are out 
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With D26, though, with her AP exams + the Spanish CLEP exam she’ll take at end of May, if she decides to attend U of A, she’ll get out of the following general ed requirements:
- 2 semesters of a foreign language
- 1 Humanities class
- 1 Natural Scientist class
- 1 Social Scientist class
- 1 3-unit GE General Math Strand class
- possibly 1 english class, depending on how she does on the AP English Lit exam
…leaving her with the following GEs left:
- 1 English class (because they require 2). She got a 3 on AP English Language, but to get English course credit, you need a 4 or 5.
- 1 1-unit “Intro to General Education” class
- 1 Art class
- 3 ‘Building Connections’ classes
- 1 1-unit "General Ed Portfolio’ class (you take this when you’re done w/your GEs)
Plus for the 2 majors she’s interested in, the 3 she got last year on AP Precalculus eliminates 1 of the required math classes. And if she gets a 3 on AP Calculus AB exam, then she’ll get out of having to take the other required math class. (We looked it all up on the U of A website + compared it to required courses for the 2 majors she’s considering).
Or, for example, consider Univ of Tulsa:
Based on the info on their website (re: AP & CLEP credits) + the required coursework & prereqs for the Cybersecurity major, D26 would likely get out of having to take:
- 1 freshman English class
- 6 credit hr of “Block I” GEs
- 7 credit hr of “Block III” GEs
- completing 2nd semester of a foreign language
- plus she’d get out of 2 of the required math courses for the major
We’re going to tour Embry Riddle in Prescott, AZ in April. At that school, AP & CLEP credits would get her out of:
- 9 units in the Communication Skills & Theory category GE
- 6 units in Math GE
- 6 units in Physical & Life Sciences GE
- 12 units in Humanities & Social Sciences GE
Whereas for D24, based on where she chose to attend college + the scores she got on AP & CLEP exams, she got out of about 4 GE classes.
At yet other schools, even if you score 5’s on AP exams, you won’t get course credit for anything. There’s a lot of variety from 1 college to another on this. So just because it works 1 way at 1 college doesn’t mean it’s handled the same way elsewhere.
more thoughts on this…
D24 is in the midst of semester #2 of college. I do think that the AP classes she took in high school prepped her well for college. So even though she didn’t get much course credit for her AP exams, I don’t see it as a waste of time. For example, just going through the process of having a single rigorous cumulative exam at the end of the course…going through that was a useful learning experience. So when she encountered that in college, it wasn’t a reaction of “OMG what am I going to do? How am I going to prepare for this?” She reacted with “Oh, ok. I’m familiar with the process of this type of thing.”
Different topic:
‘International Night’ is at school tonight. This is my FAVORITE school event of the year! 
It’s like getting a free 2 hour progressive international dinner at school. Any family can set up a table/booth. You have to bring a food dish to share with a few hundred people and an activity to do at the booth that’s relevant to your culture/country/ethnic group.
It’s really fantastic. Every year, there’s booths from all over the world like:
- South Korea
- China
- Taiwan
- Japan
- Vietnam
- India
- Bangladesh
- Pakistan
- Ukraine
- Poland
- Ecuador
- Mexico
- Ethiopia
- Kenya
- France
- Italy
- Portugal
- Russia
- UK
- Finland
- Philippines
- Colombia
- usually a couple of Native American tribes
etc., etc.
The different language clubs on campus take turns singing songs. The K-Pop Dance Club performs a few dance numbers. Everybody dresses up in their favorite traditional clothing from their area of origin.
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Our school also has an International Days!! In fact, that’s the “performance-based club” I previously mentioned regarding my D26 in an earlier post. At our school, it is an amazing show (30 international clubs in beautiful costumes performing cultural dances in 3 shows over two days). It’s a very cool cultural (and social) experience for the kids involved.
On a college admissions note, because of the aforementioned International Days, my D has decided to cancel her March SAT and is rescheduled for May.
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