I can't imagine graduating college owing $900 a month

[exboyfil]

34. AP can be a good route but it does not work too well in my daughter's case

For example I am paying about $1300 this summer for her to take Chemistry I. She could take AP Chemistry at the High School next year, but she would cover a year's worth of Chemistry (equivalent to Chemistry I and II) and get a 5 on the AP test to get credit for Chemistry I (not Chemistry II). Only 17% of the nation gets a 5 so I thought high risk with low probability of reward. Her time is more valuable. She ony needs Chemistry I for her major (Electrical Engineering). She also does not like Chemistry very much, and she will really only have to learn it once (this year in her High School Honors Chemistry - she will be tested over much of the same material this summer without forgetting it during the summer and starting over again in the Fall).

She is slated to take AP Calculus as a senior in two years (next year she has Honors Precalculus - a course which pretty much repeats her Honors Algebra/Trig). She has a very good shot at testing into community college Calculus I for the Fall. She is currently registered for Precalculus for the summer so she is getting Calculus I one way or the other in the Fall. Calculus I is key for taking higher level math that you cannot get credit for on AP (her selected college only gives credit for one semester of Calculus if you get a 4 or better on the test). By taking Calculus I in the Fall she has a shot at completing nearly her entire math sequence before going to college (Calculus I-III, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra). All of these courses except Calculus I fall under PSEO. By paying $600 (Calculus I) she has the chance of geting 1 1/2 years of engineering math in. I will probably also pay for $450 for a summer course in math (Differential Equations) but that will allow her another course during the school year.

Having Calculus I means she can take Engineering Physics I and II while still in High School. She also has the opportunity if she elects to take two Sophomore engineering classes (Thermodynamics and Statics). All of these are PSEO eligible courses.

Another AP class is AP English Language - You get absolutely nothing for passing AP English Language at the school my daughter plans to attend. I am having her take a semester of college Composition and a semester of college Speech to fulfill the Rhetoric requirement. She would otherwise invest a year in High School and get nothing. This will cost me about $1,000.

She may take AP Psychology as a senior if we can fit it into her schedule. Again I would be willing to pay $450 to get this course done in a semester instead of a year at the High School. She would get a semester of social studies credit.

AP Biology, AP Physics B (not offered), and AP Statistics (not offered) do not apply in engineering. The high school does have dual enroll community college equivalents for Physics B and Statistics, but they do not apply either.

You can get Humanities credit via AP English Lit (need a 4) or AP U.S. History, but my daughter plans to minor in Film Studies - she will get plenty of opportunities for humanities credits. In engineering you only have to get 15 hours of humanites/social studies credit, and the max you will have will be 9 hours from AP.

Going the AP route my daughter would arrive at college with the first semester of math, the first semester of a Intro to Engineering course (taken dual enrolled), Chemistry, a social studies, and one or two humanities. Because many engineering and science courses are only offered once a year she will only have the chance to lower her courseload by about 1 course every other semester, but otherwise not benefit herself much. She will take 4 years.

At a minimum I expect that she will have her first two semesters completed which is critical because she is then looking at 3 versus 4 years. This would be by only giving up her summer between her sophomore and junior year to Chemistry. If she wants to dig a little deeper (sacrifice her junior to senior year summer) then she could wrap up three semesters (still will take 3 years but will be able to take several more Film Studies classes).

I do think it is criminal how the public university in our state applies the AP credit. I see that as breaking faith with the High Schools in the state, many which still emphasize these classes. Of course they may still go into the determination for scholarships, but determining how they make those decisions is like going to Vegas - I would rather bet on a sure thing. When you have to live away from home the cost of every public university semester hour at least doubles.

Learning for its own sake is also beneficial, but my daughter is tired of the rules and mutli test days at the High School. Instead of Honors Precalculus and AP Chemistry next year, she will have Calculus I/II, C++ Programming, and Engineering Physics I - all four of these courses taken online with the ability to take the tests at any time within a two day window (which beats having to take 4 finals in a day like this year). She will only have two classes at the High School with testable material.