There is also the question of whether to place out of the college’s mechanics course using AP credit, or to decline the credit. This depends a whole lot on the college. (At one extreme, I imagine that most of the Caltech freshmen have AP Mechanics, but still start in the first physics course there.)
Caltech does not use AP scores for advanced placement, but does have its own placement tests.
For colleges that do use AP scores for advanced placement, a student whose AP score allows advanced placement may want to try the college’s old final exams for the courses that can be skipped, to verify his/her knowledge of those courses by the college’s standards.
Thanks for those specific recommendations, @QuantMech. As engineers ourselves, we are cautious about recommending an engineering student place out of physics; agree it depends on the school, and the recommendation to look at sample final exams from the school as available is a good one. She should be “ahead” in the math sequence for most schools (assuming she does as well on the AP test as she believes she did, and that continues to hold for Calc BC), so should have the exposure to the multivariable calc before hitting E&M if she takes it in college. Her AP Chem class did cover thermo, and she seemed to be quite comfortable with it … just judging from the birds eye view of listening to her talk about it as she worked on problems and how she did on tests in her class (which were all based on AP test problems).
“There is part of her that is annoyed because she knows her class rank will “suffer” compared to her classmates that played those games with their schedules, but big picture, she’s happy with how HS has gone and is not looking forward to it being over yet.”
This is why S17’s High School does not rank. The games some of the kids would play to try and one up each other aren’t really helpful. When there are so many top scoring kids in the school.
(I can’t figure out yet how to make those nice quote boxes everyone else seems to include.)
@ailinsh1 Just reading this late. What did your daughter decide? My STEM son son just finished his senior year in HS, and I was going to recommend the folllowing:
–AP Bio (She’s more interested in that than the next AP Physics class - No need to do both at the same time, I don’t think)
–AP Calc BC
–AP English (The AP English courses are different between junior and senior year - one is English Language and the other is English Literature- Since Honors English will require reading and writing anyway, why not do the AP?)
–AP Spanish 5 (if she likes Spanish) or something fun like AP Psych
–Lab Asst
–Intern/Mentor
Double check whether Lehigh or Bucknell Engineering Schools require courses in a foreign language. I don’t think so, but can’t remember. (The IBE program at Lehigh does, but not sure that would interest to her.) Do AP Spanish if the schools require a language, so she doesn’t get rusty in Spanish. If no language course is required, then she should just do what she wants for that AP… Unless you think she might decide to switch out of engineering at some point, in which case she would need to take a language for Arts & Sciences or Business…unless she had AP credit.
From what I can tell, the schedule above is really just four hard academic courses, which seems manageable, because she sounds pretty bright - Unless the lab asst and intern/mentor are difficult with homework?
Look at Lehigh’s admissions brochures. How many APs do they say the average kid has? Use that as a general barometer. My son got into honors engineering programs at both Bucknell and Lehigh. He did 11 APs and two college courses.
Lehigh and Bucknell are two of my favorite engineering colleges. I hope she gets into both. I have read your issues about VA Tech, and I think your daughter would get a lot more attention at the smaller schools. The profs will know who she is.