Colleges...

[Xylitol]

Kind of gay that APs help your GPA for getting into college a lot, but the AP test scores don't matter. I mean my school's AP classes are harder than others and even though I got 5's on my tests, I didn't do as well in my AP class as some other people at different schools who got 3's/4's

Honestly, APs are really retarded and I wish that there were just honors/regular classes (but there are no classes that are more in-depth than honors classes that aren't called 'AP')

Dunno if you followed me through my whole statement, but I just read someone's thread about APs and it made me think about this

 

[Toastedlightly]

My school didn't have weighted grades. My AP courses were taken merely as a way to learn more, not to make myself look better.

 

[enwar3]

My school bumped our grades retroactively if we score high enough on the AP test. I feel your pain though, and I think that's lame. But there's always a grade disparity between schools, even in non-AP classes. But when it comes to the college admissions office, I think the admissions officer would trust the AP score more than a grade, seeing as how the score is nationally standardized. You can be sure it won't count for nothing.

 

[Blurring]

Most all colleges I know of look at your unweighted GPA, meaning an AP course doesn't count for more or less. As far as your courses also being more difficult, most schools where it would matter take into consideration the difficulty and average GPA of your school as a whole.

AP classes are great, they're an easy way to show extra motivation to colleges without a lot of extra effort.

 

[Dumac]

I don't really get what you want.

First you say that your AP course was too in depth, causing you to do well on the AP test but have a not-so-great grade in the class.

Next, you say that you wish AP were like honors.

Finally, you finish by saying that you wish there were classes more in depth than honors, but not AP?

I don't really get your problem with AP classes. Sure, you did better on the test than others who got better grades in the class, but isn't that more due to their responsibility with homework and their participation? I mean, if you score a 5 on the AP test, then that's all you can really ask for. You create your own grade for the class.

Just for those wondering, yes I got a 5 on the AP test and an A in the actual class. And yes, AP classes helped me out a lot schedule wise in college.

 

[Itchrelief]

The grade in the class kind of shows them if you're willing to put in the work through the whole year.

Anyways, who the admissions people are really interested in are the people who were able to both get the grade in the course and the 5 on the test. Yeah, they exist.

 

[DrPizza]

I agree that APs are pretty silly. I think my school only has one AP course remaining. I spent about 6 hours last week revising my resume, course outline, syllabus, etc., in anticipation of becoming an adjunct professor to a different school; we were trying to get all the teachers uniformly associated with the same college. My calculus students simply sign up for my class, earn their grade, and automatically receive the exact same college credit as if they had attended the other school. No high stakes exam to prepare for. Their college transcripts are identical to the students who actually attended classes on that campus.

Dumac - not really sure how the AP classes helped out your college schedule; usually they make it more of a pain in the neck (if you're still challenging yourself). Reason: upper classmen generally get to schedule their classes before freshmen. Thus your schedule is subject to the whims of the rest of the students on campus. i.e. the 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock sessions of, say, Calc II, are going to fill up a lot quicker than an 8 o'clock session (or god forbid, a T/Th 6-8 class or something similarly horrible.) Then again, if you have enough credit hours (24) going into college, then I believe you get to register ahead of the freshmen, so you have a better choice of the crappy intro courses to fulfill your electives.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Dumac - not really sure how the AP classes helped out your college schedule; usually they make it more of a pain in the neck (if you're still challenging yourself). Reason: upper classmen generally get to schedule their classes before freshmen. Thus your schedule is subject to the whims of the rest of the students on campus. i.e. the 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock sessions of, say, Calc II, are going to fill up a lot quicker than an 8 o'clock session (or god forbid, a T/Th 6-8 class or something similarly horrible.) Then again, if you have enough credit hours (24) going into college, then I believe you get to register ahead of the freshmen, so you have a better choice of the crappy intro courses to fulfill your electives.

This wasn't the case for me. I was able to land a 10 o'clock Calc II class. I could have gotten a decent Calc III class if I had the balls to take the Calculus BC AP exam senior year.

About freshmen registration, I think freshmen, at the college I entered, actually got to register first, or at least at the same time, during the middle of the summer. However, there were usually enough courses available for everyone. The only exception to this was G.E. and Writing courses, which always filled upi quickly

As far as AP classes helping my schedule, I just meant that I was able to fit in some extra classes that I wouldn't have been able to if I had not taken AP classes.

Of course when referring to college, almost everything varies campus to campus.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: Xylitol
Kind of gay that APs help your GPA for getting into college a lot, but the AP test scores don't matter. I mean my school's AP classes are harder than others and even though I got 5's on my tests, I didn't do as well in my AP class as some other people at different schools who got 3's/4's

Honestly, APs are really retarded and I wish that there were just honors/regular classes (but there are no classes that are more in-depth than honors classes that aren't called 'AP')

Dunno if you followed me through my whole statement, but I just read someone's thread about APs and it made me think about this

Hope you didn't get a 5 on the AP English...holy crap, man.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Originally posted by: johnjohn320

Originally posted by: Xylitol
Kind of gay that APs help your GPA for getting into college a lot, but the AP test scores don't matter. I mean my school's AP classes are harder than others and even though I got 5's on my tests, I didn't do as well in my AP class as some other people at different schools who got 3's/4's

Honestly, APs are really retarded and I wish that there were just honors/regular classes (but there are no classes that are more in-depth than honors classes that aren't called 'AP')

Dunno if you followed me through my whole statement, but I just read someone's thread about APs and it made me think about this

Hope you didn't get a 5 on the AP English...holy crap, man.

Yeah really. You should tell University recruiters that you thought your AP classes were gay and retarded, you'll be a shoe in!

No maybe you can even write your whole entrance essay about how "gay" and "retarded" AP classes are.

 

[MrCodeDude]

AP classes were weighed when I applied to the UC and CSU systems. My high-school didn't weigh grades, but you were allowed to type in your weighed GPA during the application process.

Each AP class is different, for Calculus AB/BC, I had to phenomenal teachers, only 1 person out of 70 got a score lower than 3 in my AB class and everyone in my BC class (36 people) got a 4 or higher. I got 5's all the way through (AB, BC w/ AB sub-score) and thought it was a ridiculously easy test. In both classes, I ended up getting a B and C+ (with weighed grades, A and B+).

I also took US History, got an A- in the class, but a 1 on the AP exam, only 14 people (out of 60) received a 3 or higher on this test.

I can agree that your grade in a class does not necessarily directly correlate with how much you learned compared to a national average, but that's why your admission to colleges aren't based solely on your GPA.

BTW, I graduated HS in 2005 w/ a 3.5 (3.8 weighed) GPA, 1360 SAT and got into the Electrical Engineering programs at Cal Poly SLO (early admission), UC Davis and UC San Diego. Not elite schools (compared to Stanford, UCLA and Berkeley), but decent colleges in a competitive field.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Freshmen, Soph's and Juniors - AP/Honors classes are worthless if you don't get A's in them. If the 'regular' class is an easy A, opt for the regular class and spend that time picking up an extra-curricular that will look good on your college application.

If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time. You're better off enrolling co-currently at a local community college and taking the courses there.
-AE

 

[MrCodeDude]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
Freshmen, Soph's and Juniors - AP/Honors classes are worthless if you don't get A's in them. If the 'regular' class is an easy A, opt for the regular class and spend that time picking up an extra-curricular that will look good on your college application.

If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time.
-AE

Horrible information. Taking English Lit AP and Calculus AB/BC got me full credits for three classes (two of which I heard were weeder classes) and put me nearly a full quarter ahead of schedule before entering college.

I also got 18 or so units of elective credit for the classes, which if I weren't an Engineer, would have gotten me out of 3-4 more classes.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
Freshmen, Soph's and Juniors - AP/Honors classes are worthless if you don't get A's in them. If the 'regular' class is an easy A, opt for the regular class and spend that time picking up an extra-curricular that will look good on your college application.

If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time.
-AE

Horrible information. Taking English Lit AP and Calculus AB/BC got me full credits for three classes (two of which I heard were weeder classes) and put me nearly a full quarter ahead of schedule before entering college.

I also got 18 or so units of elective credit for the classes, which if I weren't an Engineer, would have gotten me out of 3-4 more classes.

You can knock out more GE's with less stress by enrolling in a Community college co-currently while in H.S... That happens to be what I did and it put me at sophomore level during my freshman year in 'real' college.
-AE

 

[MrCodeDude]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
You can knock out more GE's with less stress by enrolling in a Community college co-currently while in H.S... That happens to be what I did and it put me at sophomore level during my freshman year in 'real' college.
-AE

I knocked out most of my GE's in college by taking them online at local community colleges while I was carrying a full 16-unit schedule at Cal Poly. Of the 6-7 GE's I've taken online, I've learned literally nothing from any of them. You don't want to do that with core Physics and Calculus classes.

And as far as I know, you can't take Calculus or Physics online at CC's. The commute on/off campus would be enough for me to just take the AP classes at HS.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
You can knock out more GE's with less stress by enrolling in a Community college co-currently while in H.S... That happens to be what I did and it put me at sophomore level during my freshman year in 'real' college.
-AE

I knocked out most of my GE's in college by taking them online at local community colleges while I was carrying a full 16-unit schedule at Cal Poly. Of the 6-7 GE's I've taken online, I've learned literally nothing from any of them. You don't want to do that with core Physics and Calculus classes.

And as far as I know, you can't take Calculus or Physics online at CC's. The commute on/off campus would be enough for me to just take the AP classes at HS.

There wasn't much online learning when I was going to H.S (wow that makes me sound old) but I learned nothing from my in person GE's too .

 

[MrCodeDude]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
There wasn't much online learning when I was going to H.S (wow that makes me sound old) but I learned nothing from my in person GE's too .

Some of these online classes are a joke. I didn't take this one, but my friend took a Macro Econ class online at a feeder CC for our college. The entire class was 10 tests, of which you could take infinite times, and from those tests, you got a grade. Also, when you took the test, it would give you the answers to every question.

There was probably a question bank of 100 or so questions per test, but 7-8 runs through, you have a good majority of the answers. My friend literally did an entire Macro Econ class in one Saturday, while watching college football with me.

 

[TuxDave]

I think I fell into the boat where my H.S. went far more into the subject than what the AP test covered because the teachers wanted to teach it. Sadly I believe there was a strong interest from the parents/students to have an official AP class so the year after I graduated they changed our Adv. Chem and Adv. Physics courses into AP.

I preferred the old way where the teacher had the freedom to go into any subject regardless if it was on the AP test. I still ended up self-studying for the AP tests and getting my 5s

 

[DanDaManJC]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
Freshmen, Soph's and Juniors - AP/Honors classes are worthless if you don't get A's in them. If the 'regular' class is an easy A, opt for the regular class and spend that time picking up an extra-curricular that will look good on your college application.

If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time.
-AE

Horrible information. Taking English Lit AP and Calculus AB/BC got me full credits for three classes (two of which I heard were weeder classes) and put me nearly a full quarter ahead of schedule before entering college.

I also got 18 or so units of elective credit for the classes, which if I weren't an Engineer, would have gotten me out of 3-4 more classes.

You can knock out more GE's with less stress by enrolling in a Community college co-currently while in H.S... That happens to be what I did and it put me at sophomore level during my freshman year in 'real' college.
-AE

It really depends on the major too. I'm going for EE and many of the pre-reqs for EE happen to require calculus. Furthermore, my EE major doesn't require many gen ed classes, only a couple composition courses and a couple more 'history' style courses. So AP or running start, in my case, were both completely equal options. In the end I was able to deliver on the AP tests too and got credit for them at my school... so I am about a quarter ahead. I'm just glad I got to hang out at school more... some people didn't like hs, but I didn't mind it, and in fact I enjoyed it. So the AP tests were nice alternatives to going to a cc.

 

[TecHNooB]

APs can potentially save you an outrageous amount of money.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: Xylitol
Kind of gay that APs help your GPA for getting into college a lot, but the AP test scores don't matter.

Well they matter in determining whether or not you get course credit for them. And some schools offer more credit for higher scores on certain tests (usually calculus).

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Dumac - not really sure how the AP classes helped out your college schedule; usually they make it more of a pain in the neck (if you're still challenging yourself). Reason: upper classmen generally get to schedule their classes before freshmen.

I had enough credit that I was eventually able to schedule classes with people a year "ahead" of me, which led to me getting pretty much whatever classes I wanted for a while. Like Dumac, I was also able to take more electives than would normally be true.

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time. You're better off enrolling co-currently at a local community college and taking the courses there.
-AE

Counterpoint: AP credit information is published by most schools on their website. CC credit transfer is a roll of the dice.

 

[Whisper]

Originally posted by: Aluvus

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
If you're a Senior taking more than 1 AP class you're really wasting your time. You're better off enrolling co-currently at a local community college and taking the courses there.
-AE

Counterpoint: AP credit information is published by most schools on their website. CC credit transfer is a roll of the dice.

I'd say the CC vs. AP debate might largely depend on whether you plan on staying in-state for college. If so, then community college could be an equally-viable option, given that all universities I've attended or talked with in the past accepted course credit from local CC's. However, if you're planning on heading half-way across the country for undergrad, then AP classes might be a better choice.

Be that as it may, AP classes still do quite a bit to "beef up" your college application. I'd imagine that showing some initiative and earning a few CC credits would be similarly beneficial, but I don't know whether or not it'd carry the same weight.

Edited for deficient quoting ability.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Xylitol
APs are stupid

We are? God dammit, I wish someone would have told me.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: Xylitol
APs are stupid

We are? God dammit, I wish someone would have told me.

You didn't get the memo? We sent it several times....

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
AP classes were weighed when I applied to the UC and CSU systems. My high-school didn't weigh grades, but you were allowed to type in your weighed GPA during the application process.

Each AP class is different, for Calculus AB/BC, I had to phenomenal teachers, only 1 person out of 70 got a score lower than 3 in my AB class and everyone in my BC class (36 people) got a 4 or higher. I got 5's all the way through (AB, BC w/ AB sub-score) and thought it was a ridiculously easy test. In both classes, I ended up getting a B and C+ (with weighed grades, A and B+).

I also took US History, got an A- in the class, but a 1 on the AP exam, only 14 people (out of 60) received a 3 or higher on this test.

I can agree that your grade in a class does not necessarily directly correlate with how much you learned compared to a national average, but that's why your admission to colleges aren't based solely on your GPA.

BTW, I graduated HS in 2005 w/ a 3.5 (3.8 weighed) GPA, 1360 SAT and got into the Electrical Engineering programs at Cal Poly SLO (early admission), UC Davis and UC San Diego. Not elite schools (compared to Stanford, UCLA and Berkeley), but decent colleges in a competitive field.

Which high school do you go to?