Will elite colleges look for AP/CC courses taken before 9th grade?

[SculptorDad]

@ucbalumnus,
Maybe so. But mine took mostly major requirements for studio art and general education, as she once considered getting early college degree in fine art. Many, actually majority of a few kids I know focused on the long Calculus and Calculus based Physics sequence as it was their passion. Another one took Chemistry - Organic Chemistry sequence because organic chemistry is the most easy and fun thing for him.

And some stay in community college years and years, as mine could have done if she didn’t want to go to high school, and accumulate 100++ units in many general education and major areas.

I am coming from (gifted) homeschooling community, and my experience isn’t normal.

[ucbalumnus]

It is likely that public schools are more generous with transfer credit units than private schools due to financing differences. Private schools prefer that the student stays and pays tuition for a full 8 semesters, rather than graduating early. Public schools subsidize most of their students (in-state reduced tuition), so the faster students graduate, the less subsidy is consumed.

[Pentaprism]

@ucbalumnus in post #37 wrote:

What may be more relevant for many students is whether college courses completed before high school graduation is counted for subject credit or advanced placement. For example, it can be extremely wasteful of a student’s time and tuition if s/he takes college math courses like calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, etc. while in high school, but the current college does not allow them to fulfill math requirements for majors that need those courses, so s/he must retake them at the current college, even though the previously taken courses cover the same material similarly to the current college’s courses.

That is correct - “extremely wasteful.”

But most schools, at least UCB, allow students to take more advanced classes in place of the basic ones. This IMO turned out to be a good thing for our D. I posted in another thread:

"While in HS, my D took a numbers of college-level courses in math and in physics at a private university (she ran out of math/physics classes at local community colleges). There units were listed in her college applications, but were not part of her HS transcript.

She was admitted to several universities as freshman and ended up at UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Math and Physics departments at UCB evaluated these units to the equivalent classes at UCB, but CoE didn’t allow them as transferable. CoE, however, allowed her to take more advanced classes to fulfill the basic math/physics requirements (e.g. Numerical Analysis instead of MultiVariable Calculus and Quantum Mechanics instead of Physics for Scientists and Engineers)."

More details:

• UCB CoE allowed her 21 semester units from AP tests.
• 28 semester units of college-level math & physics (taken at Stanford) were evaluated by UCB Math & Physics departments, but were not allowed to be applied toward the degree.