Originally Posted by Val
I want to make one thing very clear: I'm talking about places like Harvard, not about a community college or a local state U. CCs and state universities should definitely accept AP credits.

Harvard is supposed to be an elite college with very high standards. IMO, AP classes don't meet those standards (except for SV Calculus and Physics C, providing you can pass Harvard's final for each equivalent course).

Points all well-taken. We're talking about the same kinds of institutions. Where our perspectives may differ is in fields of study.

My non-U.S. undergrad school had an outstanding economics program that consistently placed a large proportion of its graduates in the Harvard PhD program, and most of my third and fourth year professors had taught at Harvard or Princeton previously. My professors for third year microeconomics and fourth year econometrics said that they used their first year PhD syllabuses from Harvard for our courses. Even in that environment, there was nothing special about our freshman economics classes. First year economics is largely a canned course in basic concepts and can easily be re-produced in an IB/AP setting, even at terrific schools.

Now, I grant you that other subjects--particularly in the humanities-- have more variability in teaching standards that are specific to programs or professors. In those cases, departmental standards trump any external indicators. I buy that. smile


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