Did any of you take hardcore AP science classes in highschool? as in year of chem/physics/bio/calc and aced AP exams with 4-5? That way it was easier during your college career to make As because it was the second time for you to take the class? Kind of like a GPA booster. I just want an honest opinion, if I would have done things differently this would have probably been the route I would have taken. Although my highschool only offered AP Bio.
Did any 3.8+ Science GPA take pre reqs in highschool?
- Thread starter GRod18
- Start date
Yes, I did. I got a 5 on the AP bio test and opted NOT to retake it in college. Given, I'm a biology major so I have plenty of higher level courses. Thanks to that, I'm able to graduate early so it's probably the best choice I've made. I got a 4 on AP Chem but my school required a 5 to take Organic so I had to repeat intro chem. I never went to lecture and still got one of the highest grades in the class.
I got a 4 on AB Calc and 3 and BC calc so I retook calc 2 in college. Again, really easy class since it was all review. I'm glad I busted my butt senior year of highschool (took 5 AP classes total), it made freshman year wayyyyy easier.
I've got a 3.91 cumulative GPA and a 3.88 science GPA.
One thing to keep in mind is that most med schools don't like AP classes. If you're going to substitute any AP classes for premed requirements, you need to take a higher level class to prove you still know what you're talking about.
I got a 4 on AB Calc and 3 and BC calc so I retook calc 2 in college. Again, really easy class since it was all review. I'm glad I busted my butt senior year of highschool (took 5 AP classes total), it made freshman year wayyyyy easier.
I've got a 3.91 cumulative GPA and a 3.88 science GPA.
One thing to keep in mind is that most med schools don't like AP classes. If you're going to substitute any AP classes for premed requirements, you need to take a higher level class to prove you still know what you're talking about.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2010
- Messages
- 955
- Reaction score
- 7
Our calculus class was offered to take the AP test even though technically it wasn't an AP course. I never bothered to do it, but I did take two calculus courses again in first year and did extremely well on them. I've got a 3.91 cGPA and a 3.94 sGPA.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 196
- Reaction score
- 0
.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2010
- Messages
- 238
- Reaction score
- 0
I didn't take any of those AP classes and my sGPA is 3.98. Totally not necessary.
You guys both go to UC (Berkeley)? That is not an easy school to get into. If you did not take AP classes, did you have a solid foundation science courses? For example, taking the SAT 2 subject tests etc. At my school a 4.0 freshman year pretty much means smooth sailing for the next several semesters, because students are able to have the first crack at the best (easiest) professors for the next semester. One of the biology courses pretty much assumes that you've had significant biology knowledge coming into it. Believe me a B was a great grade in that Intro bio course. To this day I still feel that Bio 1 course was harder than Ochem I and 2 and some of my 3000,4000 level biology courses.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 22, 2008
- Messages
- 17,394
- Reaction score
- 9,146
I had credit for both semesters of calc, intro bio, intro physics, and chem. I ended up retaking all of them. Quite frankly, I don't trust AP at all and think it's nothing more than a black hole of money.
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2009
- Messages
- 1,054
- Reaction score
- 30
I took AP Bio and AP Calc BC in high school, 5's on both. If anything it hurt my college BCPM because I didn't have those classes factored into my college GPA. Fewer college BCPM classes=bigger hit to the GPA when ochem turns out to be harder than expected.
If you go to a school that doesn't accept AP credit, or accepts it as elective credit but makes you retake, I think the experience with the subject material would be marginally useful.
If you go to a school that doesn't accept AP credit, or accepts it as elective credit but makes you retake, I think the experience with the subject material would be marginally useful.
rhesuspieces/coleontheroll
Thanks for the input.
I think that a good foundation throughout highschool is important for example, my chemistry professor gave out all his previous tests from every single semester that he has taught the material 30+ per test. I often found myself not having time to go over all those before my test because I had to do a lot of other prep work such as reading the book, understanding the basic vocabulary etc. I think one of the main things that AP classes would help is to show you what topics are the most important. These topics are the ones that are usually stressed in college courses as well as on future standardized tests such as the MCAT. For bio if you already understand the basic vocabulary then it makes things a lot easier, you are able to spend more time getting through the nitty gritty info than having to spend time looking up/ memorizing vocabulary words. That being said I felt that there is a big difference on your professors are well, some who will teach you from the scratch, while others expects you to know some material coming out of high school. This was definitely the case between my Bio 1/ Bio 2 professors.
Thanks for the input.
I think that a good foundation throughout highschool is important for example, my chemistry professor gave out all his previous tests from every single semester that he has taught the material 30+ per test. I often found myself not having time to go over all those before my test because I had to do a lot of other prep work such as reading the book, understanding the basic vocabulary etc. I think one of the main things that AP classes would help is to show you what topics are the most important. These topics are the ones that are usually stressed in college courses as well as on future standardized tests such as the MCAT. For bio if you already understand the basic vocabulary then it makes things a lot easier, you are able to spend more time getting through the nitty gritty info than having to spend time looking up/ memorizing vocabulary words. That being said I felt that there is a big difference on your professors are well, some who will teach you from the scratch, while others expects you to know some material coming out of high school. This was definitely the case between my Bio 1/ Bio 2 professors.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 22, 2008
- Messages
- 17,394
- Reaction score
- 9,146
AP is absolutely useless. The only way it's good is because (as you mentioned) you've been exposed to the material before. If you're going to be taking more advanced subjects in those areas, however, I would absolutely retake the courses.
Also keep in mind that a small number of schools won't accept AP credit for their pre-reqs. Just something to keep in mind.
Also keep in mind that a small number of schools won't accept AP credit for their pre-reqs. Just something to keep in mind.
- Joined
- May 31, 2010
- Messages
- 50
- Reaction score
- 1
If you're sure you want to be premed, take the classes but skip the tests except for calc. I took all those tests because I didn't think I wanted to go to medical school when going into college, but had to retake all except calc (I took calc 3 and Stat) because med schools want grades, which explains why I'm taking physics my senior year even after I already took the MCAT 😕.
Basic Idea: AP classes are fine, but I agree with Cole, don't waste the money on the tests
Basic Idea: AP classes are fine, but I agree with Cole, don't waste the money on the tests
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2010
- Messages
- 497
- Reaction score
- 236
My school paid for our AP exams if we had a B+ or higher in the class. I took Chemistry, Physics C and Calculus BC with 4's and 5's. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but if you're willing to pay (or have your school pay like mine did) I would take them.
I think it helped me to be exposed to *some* of the material before college and I also got a lot of credit from the classes. I went to college with 33 credits already, did well in all of my math/science classes and get to register a lot earlier than all of my friends for courses.
That being said, I wouldn't opt out of the med school pre req's because you have AP credit. Definitely take the courses again to prep for the MCAT and show the adcoms that you can do well in science courses at a college level.
I think it helped me to be exposed to *some* of the material before college and I also got a lot of credit from the classes. I went to college with 33 credits already, did well in all of my math/science classes and get to register a lot earlier than all of my friends for courses.
That being said, I wouldn't opt out of the med school pre req's because you have AP credit. Definitely take the courses again to prep for the MCAT and show the adcoms that you can do well in science courses at a college level.
Ya I agree with this 100%. I just felt that this was an advantage into securing up to 8x science courses of As. For me I really had to bust my butt on upper level science courses such as Ochem , Physio, Mol Gen etc in order to bring my Sci GPA up to lower tier med school average, and I felt that lack of prep in highschool really contributed to my initial setbacks. I remember studying a lot for intro tests, but still not able to get high grades on some of my intro classes. Even for the As I made, many of them were pretty borderline, at the time I was pretty confused on how some students could go and make 100 + bonus question on every single test and not have to take the final, or only have to score below 50% on their final. There just seem to be so much information for anyone to understand 100%
My school paid for tests too, and they even paid us to do well on them like $100 - $200 per test back in our pockets if we score 3 or higher on test. Although many of the course in our school were pretty useless for pre-meds. US history, Government/Economics, Spanish, English Lit, and English lang. These things are generally easier and easy GPA boosters if one takes it in college imo. Although Spanish is probably useful, classes at my highschool were not adequate to prep students. We had more fiestas than actual studying time.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2010
- Messages
- 131
- Reaction score
- 0
+1. Some might prefer actual pre-reqs over AP credit, even if they won't dismiss AP credit outright.
I used AP credit to fulfill a lot of the non-science requirements at my school (foreign language, humanities, history) but started off with the intro sciences. The best course I took in high school, preparation-wise, was biochemistry. It wasn't an AP class or anything, but it definitely made organic chemistry, biology, genetics, etc. much easier.
I can see how that would be a great class to have. Biochem is a pretty informative class and at a highschool level I'm sure it covered a lot of basics for many pre-reqs.
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2010
- Messages
- 238
- Reaction score
- 0
I'm a bit of an unusual case, because I didn't enter college (UC Berkeley) knowing I wanted to go to medical school so I didn't begin any of my pre-reqs until the start of my junior year. At the time I didn't remember ANYTHING from high school, but on the other hand I was already used to taking university level courses. My point is that it is possible to just take the courses without much prior knowledge and do well, but I admittedly worked my butt off.
Ah I agree 100%, I took freshman level pre-reqs as a junior general chemistry lab (3 credit lab + lecture class), many freshman classmates had trouble even making Bs for this course, and I didn't have any trouble getting an A in it. I think by this time I was pretty accustomed to college level courses.
My point is that it is pretty important to get As in those freshman level pre-reqs because no one can guarantee that you can make As in 3000-4000 level courses. A friend of mine had a 4.0 before he applied to medical school ( he graduated early) and the semester during his interviews he scored like 3x Bs in upper level biology courses, but that didn't really affect him since he had a 4.0 on his application and a 34 MCAT.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2010
- Messages
- 2,197
- Reaction score
- 19
I almost feel like AP classes made college harder for me. The only applicable one that I took was Calc, and I got a 5 on the AB portion and a 4 on the BC portion. I then jumped straight into Lin Algebra & Dif Eqs in freshman year of college and boy was that ever a terrible idea. Maybe the fact that I'm sitting on almost 30 credits of liberal education (from AP Euro, U.S, Econ, Poli Sci, etc.) over what I took in college was helpful. Overall, though, I feel like AP classes emphasize doing a lot of work while college classes emphasize understanding. Not quite the same thing.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2009
- Messages
- 115
- Reaction score
- 0
My AP classes helped me enormously. Although the high school class itself wasn't difficult (except for AP English) the material presented was college level, we used college level textbooks... I took 13 AP classes in total and the only ones I'm not using for credit are AP Chem and AP Bio. Without those, I got 45 credits from doing AP (social sciences, humanities, english, calculus (I and II), statistics, etc.). This makes me eligible for scholarships that first-year college students aren't ordinarily eligible for. It was worth it and I learned a ton, a lot of it because of my own reading of the texts but I definitely think it was a good educational experience.
I will be retaking all science prereqs, however, I'm not retaking calc or english as my AP credit covers this.
I will be retaking all science prereqs, however, I'm not retaking calc or english as my AP credit covers this.
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 2,099
- Reaction score
- 8
I took a bunch of APs in high school and got 5's on all of them. I opted out of as many classes as I could for college. From my experience, whether or not to opt out is not a clear choice. For physics, I did not take Calc based AP and could not opt out in college, and I felt that having taken the AP made it a bit easier. However, I've also heard from classmates who took AP's and retook certain classes in college hoping it'd be an easy A and ended up having to work quite hard for their grade.
Also watch out for hubris. I got a 5 in BC calc and thought I was pretty good at math. I took an honors multivariable lin alg class as a Freshman and basically pulled all nighters EVERY single Wednesday night for the entire freshman year. Just know that getting 5's on AP does not necessarily mean you know the material.
In the end, take the AP classes in high school if you're able to do well in them. Never back down from a challenge, especially one that you can benefit from. However, realize that the standard for getting a 5 on AP is quite low: I never took AP bio, but I read the cliffnotes and got a 5 on the AP test. A 5 on AP will not translate into an easy A. If you feel strong in the subject, skip it and save yourself the grief of introductory weed-out classes. If you don't feel strong in the subject, regardless of your AP score, retake it in college and expect to work hard.
Also watch out for hubris. I got a 5 in BC calc and thought I was pretty good at math. I took an honors multivariable lin alg class as a Freshman and basically pulled all nighters EVERY single Wednesday night for the entire freshman year. Just know that getting 5's on AP does not necessarily mean you know the material.
In the end, take the AP classes in high school if you're able to do well in them. Never back down from a challenge, especially one that you can benefit from. However, realize that the standard for getting a 5 on AP is quite low: I never took AP bio, but I read the cliffnotes and got a 5 on the AP test. A 5 on AP will not translate into an easy A. If you feel strong in the subject, skip it and save yourself the grief of introductory weed-out classes. If you don't feel strong in the subject, regardless of your AP score, retake it in college and expect to work hard.
Last edited:
