<p>I plan on taking AP Chem and Calculus. Should I test out intro classes for these subjects by scoring well on them, or should I just go ahead and take it because It will be review and I could get an easy A possibly??? Plan on going to pre med route as undergraduate.</p>
<p>I think it’s well worth it to test out of them. It will free up your schedule to take other classes you may want to take. An exception may be if you qualify for and are interested in the Honors sections of these courses. For example I hear that honors calculus takes a theoretical approach which would be challenging even if you had taken Calc before.</p>
<p>actually if you’re planning on going pre-med your advisor is probably going to tell you not to test out of them because of requirements.</p>
<p>There’s a couple of different ways to look at it. DS is a Freshman Pre-Pharmacy so basically same courses you would be taking. He took AP Bio, Chem, Calc AB and got 5 on all three in high school. He opted out of Chem 1, took Chem 2 first semester, and is now taking Organic Chem 1 second semester. For Bio, he took Honors Bio 1 first semester, and Honors Bio 2 second. He really likes the honors professor, he did well, but it was very challenging. Basically what you studied in AP Bio but much more in depth on each subject. If you think you’d be bored, you can take the honors version and it’s a great fresher for future classes. Or you can opt out and be a little ahead. But like danicaliforniax1 said…your advisor will guide you at Pittstart.</p>
<p>In most instances I would say yes, go for the AP credit. Some programs, such as nursing and engineering, make using AP credits more difficult. My daughter, who is currently in A&S, will graduate in six semesters due to AP and CHS classes. Unless you have been awarded full tuition scholarship, it is most definitely worth pursuing.</p>
<p>I personally recommend taking the classes again in college if you are pre-med. Not all med schools accept AP credits as replacement for their pre-reqs. Also, in my experience I found the college classes to be more intensive and in-depth than the APs I took in high school. I am no longer pre-med, but after taking Bio at Pitt I am certain that my 10th-grade experience with AP Bio would have been insufficient for the MCAT.</p>
<p>I do think APs are totally worth taking though. They provide an excellent background for the science classes. If you take non-science APs, they will likely get you out of some of your gen-eds.</p>
<p>I’ll chime in with my experience as an undergrad at GaTech. I took AP Chem in HS and passed the AP test. GaTech did not want to give any AP credit to anyone back then. I pleaded with the Chem dept head and he agreed to give me credit for the 1st quarter of chemistry at Tech (chem is a 2 quarter sequence 5 hrs/week and lab).<br>
My Fall quarter at Tech I took the 2nd half of the chem sequence. Easy,easy, easy A. It was even the same text as I used in HS. Then came Winter quarter. After chem I should be taking Physics as my 5 hr core science. But guess what? Because I’m a quarter ahead of the other freshmen I haven’t taken enough Calculus yet so they won’t let me register for Physics. Now I have a big 5hr hole in my schedule. What to do? The only solution was to take two more 3 hr humanities classes (in addition to the one I’d normally take). So now I have 9 hrs of humanities, 5 hrs of calculus, 3 hrs of engineering and 1 hr of PE. I hate humanities classes (yes, I’m a geek) and at the time I felt more like a liberal arts major than an engineer. In short, my most unhappy quarter ever out of my entire undergraduate and my worse grades that quarter also. Everything would have been better if I had just kept on the established track and taken another easy A in Chem.</p>