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Scam by colleges to try to collect tuition from kids for a full 4yrs
Much like lib arts/foreign lang distribution requirements for engineering or finance kids are a scam to keep the useless lib arts depts alive...and, horrors, avoiding actually reducing tuition costs for focused kids seeking job-relevant skills from their college degrees
Forms of scams change, but smartest kids have figured out this game for decades and finished colleges like Wharton in 2yrs, saving immense costs
In fact, recall in mid-'90s at Wharton undergrad, some shrewd kids lived off-campus in suburban NJ and drove to classes in daytime to avoid crime-infested Phila, irritating the Penn housing office which hated to see kids avoiding their scam of absurdly high room&board costs to "study" in the slums of Phila
Elite colleges being stingy with the credits is nothing new. Makes some sense though for colleges with a higher student caliber--the university has to support its departments and it wouldn't be doing so if AP/IB credits are putting a big dent in certain departments' enrollment.
AP classes do not always adequately prepare students for top colleges. Berkeley had policies where AP calc didn't count for engineers, because they'd found kids drowning in second year calculus who had gotten 5's on the AP calc exam.
Nothing new. I started my undergrad education in the late 90s. At that time, most first tier schools were only giving credit hours for those who scored 4 or 5 on an AP test. Few, if any, schools allowed students to avoid pre-requisites and distribution requirements through AP testing.
AP credit is not all it cracked up to be. My oldest son was awarded 15 credit hours for his AP test scores, plus took 2 hour college course one semester of his senior year, which as the time we thought was great. It would save us a full semester of expensive tuition. Then during the first semester of his second year in college (this past fall) he decided he wanted to change majors. No big deal plenty of kids change majors during their first year or two. The major he wanted to move to has a couple of required courses (from that major) that you must take and pass with a certain GPA before you can change into that major. This must be done before you have 75 hours. The problem is, by having so many AP credit hours to begin with, he now has too many hours. Had he not placed out of those classes, he would be in great shape, becuase he would only have about 60 hours. Plenty of time to take the courses he needed and still be under the required number of hours. AP credit is great if you know what you want to do, and don't change your mind. But it doesn't give you any room for flexiblity.
Last edited by debzkidz; 05-21-2010 at 12:46 PM..
Reason: correction in wording
hmmm... DD did not get awarded any credits from her AP classes, but we did not expect her to get any.
AP stands for advanced placement.
She scored 5s, and was placed in sophomore level courses her freshman year.
That is what we thought should happen with 'advanced placement'.
My high school had a program where instead of even having to take the AP Test, you could sign up so basically the AP Course gave you credit like you were taking it at a community college. No crazy AP tests, and still got 14 college credits (which meant I didn't have to take a couple general requirement courses) for 2 high school classes. Not a bad deal.
Back when we took them, the kids who got all '5' on their tests also got full rides to their colleges, so it didn't matter if they placed out a few creds.
hmmm... DD did not get awarded any credits from her AP classes, but we did not expect her to get any.
AP stands for advanced placement.
She scored 5s, and was placed in sophomore level courses her freshman year.
That is what we thought should happen with 'advanced placement'.
If that's what happened she did get the credit.
Both of my daughters got exemptions and credit, one at Slippery Rock the other at Towson, for the AP scores. Son did not since he went into Engineering and the 2 Calc courses and the Physics course were in that major.
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