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Anyone do this while in High School?

A

amol

Lifer
Basically, has anyone here taken a non-AP class and then taken the AP test at the end of the year? Example . . . take the REGULAR Chemistry class and then take the AP Chemistry test?

I know it's allowed, but do colleges like that a lot?
 
colleges only care about your ap tests scores, so if you ace the test, you might as well take it without taking the class
 
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
Originally posted by: amdfanboy
I'm taking the CS test like that.

Edit: Well sort of, I'm only in part of the class.
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Make sure you've gone over the case study a lot
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Thanks for the advice 😀

Actually, one smart thing our school does is require teachers to provide study sessions if the class ends before the year is over - they start next week.
 
In college, self-placement seems to be a powerful tool. If you feel like you don't need a particular intro class, you can skip over it. It helps if it's backed by an AP score. As an example, I took a freshman biology class that covered about 70% of the AP Bio curriculum. Senior year, I still retained a good amount of that information, so I picked up Princeton Review's AP Bio book, read it twice, and took the AP Bio test. Now I have credit for intro Bio, so I'm in a Cell Bio class instead 🙂
 
If you think you can actually get a decent grade without taking an advanced course, then go for it. Colleges don't care how you get the grade. I probably wouldn't have gotten a "passing" grade (usually a 4 or 5, but occasionally even a 3) without my AP CS class. And definitely not without my BC Calc class.
 
AP class is useless in college, you might get credit for the class, but its not worth taking. I suggest you have fun in high school while you can
 
Originally posted by: iversonyin
AP class is useless in college, you might get credit for the class, but its not worth taking. I suggest you have fun in high school while you can
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Its not totally worthless. Saved me from taking bio and some calc. Also it helps you get in to college, a AP kid looks better then a kid without them. College admissions are getting more and more competative....do what u can to get in.
 
Originally posted by: iversonyin
AP class is useless in college, you might get credit for the class, but its not worth taking. I suggest you have fun in high school while you can
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Getting rid of core reqs = save thousands of $$ per a course
 
Colleges dont care what you do as long as you get a good score on the AP test. Although not taking an AP course will affect your "courseload difficulty" thing, but i assuming you school has no AP classes it's nothing you can do anything about.

However you should be careful about doing this because most HS regular chem classes dont cover even half the material that is on the AP test. You'll have tp put in a lot of time outside of class doing your own studying with an AP prep book.
 
Originally posted by: iversonyin
AP class is useless in college, you might get credit for the class, but its not worth taking. I suggest you have fun in high school while you can
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Care to explain? I know plenty of people that have gone in with anywhere from 4-48 credits, saving them a lot of money in the process.

EDIT:

And as far as taking AP Chem coming from a regular chem class, I wouldn't suggest it. I'd advise you to buy the AP Chem review book now, and study extensively every night, because they don't go over jack in regular chem compared to AP Chem.
 
AP credits is helping me graduate a yr early from college so it helps in some ways.

the AP credits just filled up random credits needed to graduate from college, it didn't really help in many of my core classes in the major
 
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Colleges dont care what you do as long as you get a good score on the AP test. Although not taking an AP course will affect your "courseload difficulty" thing, but i assuming you school has no AP classes it's nothing you can do anything about.

However you should be careful about doing this because most HS regular chem classes dont cover even half the material that is on the AP test. You'll have tp put in a lot of time outside of class doing your own studying with an AP prep book.
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No, my school has AP classes, the only problem is, for Biology and Chemistry, you have to take the regular class first . . .
 
Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
WTF is an AP test? I understand that times change, but this concept is foreign to me. 😕
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AP = Advanced Placement

If you take, say, AP calculus, then get a 4 (out of 5) on the AP test, you can test out of first semester calculus with a 4.0 in that class. If you get a 5 on the test you test out of the first 2 calc classes with a 4.0, so you just started college with 8 credit hours and a 4.0 GPA 🙂

this is how it worked at my high school / AP test / college, may not be that way now
 
Originally posted by: Amol
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Colleges dont care what you do as long as you get a good score on the AP test. Although not taking an AP course will affect your "courseload difficulty" thing, but i assuming you school has no AP classes it's nothing you can do anything about.

However you should be careful about doing this because most HS regular chem classes dont cover even half the material that is on the AP test. You'll have tp put in a lot of time outside of class doing your own studying with an AP prep book.
Click to expand...

No, my school has AP classes, the only problem is, for Biology and Chemistry, you have to take the regular class first . . .
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Well you're more than welcome to take it. I can't remember if you're allowed to not release certain scores. If you can contrl that, you can just atke the test and if it doesn't look good, just dont release it.
 
AP credits also help you get the classes you want to take in college. Most colleges give you registration dates by the amount of units you have, having incoming AP units lets you pick classes earlyer then those who dont have them, this applys through your whole college career.

Each AP test cost me around 80 bucks, thats a hell of a lot cheaper then a college class.
 
Yep, you can take a test, and if you do really bad, you can just choose to hide it. But the thing is you would have to write AP a letter requesting that they release certain scores while withholding others. I think there is a $15 fee per test per school if you withhold a score. But come to think of it, a credit can be much more helpful than $15 x # of schools you apply to.

In any case, I'd recommend starting off by visiting the bookstore and browsing the Princeton Review AP book for a bit. If you're still interested in taking the test, then you could buy the book and study it.
 
Originally posted by: Ionizer86
Yep, you can take a test, and if you do really bad, you can just choose to hide it. But the thing is you would have to write AP a letter requesting that they release certain scores while withholding others. I think there is a $15 fee per test per school if you withhold a score. But come to think of it, a credit can be much more helpful than $15 x # of schools you apply to.

In any case, I'd recommend starting off by visiting the bookstore and browsing the Princeton Review AP book for a bit. If you're still interested in taking the test, then you could buy the book and study it.
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The fee varies from school to school. At my school, it's $82 per a test.
 
Originally posted by: iversonyin
AP class is useless in college, you might get credit for the class, but its not worth taking. I suggest you have fun in high school while you can
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Lol, thats so not true. Getting college credit out of the way in high school = smart.

I messed up big time in high school. I took about 6 AP classes and 0 AP tests because I was lazy. Got all A's and B's in those classes too so I know I could have passed some of the tests.
 
Yea, you can but it's not recomended. AP classes normally go much more in depth than standard classes. For example my AP US history course, I had a pretty good knowledge of US history from freshman year, but now I have no clue about half the stuff thats going on. Only do it if you have a level of experties in that field, for example a lot of HS ATers could probably pass the AP CS test, but if you're not 100% sure you know everything that could be taught, save yourself the 85$
 
AP test usually cover the college level equivalant of that class.

I took 1 semester of chemistry in high school, and when I took chemistry again in college, they went through all the stuff we did in high school, in 3 weeks. the rest of the semester, we went deeper and deeper. So if you want to take an ap test w/out an ap class, you really need to study more then you need to, given your situation.
 
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