Exempting a course due to AP couldn’t hurt? Could it?

By Sami Ahmed



Students take AP courses in order to make their college application resume look better, to get them more prepared for the level of difficulty of college courses, and to exempt out of college courses so that they may have more time to do other things. Many Universities give students the option of exempting a class and getting full credit hours if they get a high enough score on their AP exam for that particular course. Should students decide to exempt out of the available courses when given the option? Or should students retake the course they previously took in order to get a more grasp understanding of the subject?

In some cases it would be a good idea for a student to exempt out of a class. If the course exempted has little impact on the student’s intended major and is a course that the university requires its students to take, the student should decide to exempt out of the course. This way the student can focus more on the courses that have a significant role on their major. The student can also graduate earlier (if possible) and have a smaller workload.

There are instances when a student shouldn’t exempt out of a course. If the course exempted plays a significant role in the student’s major, the student should retake the course. This doesn’t apply in every situation, due to it varies between each individual student and their respected university. However, students will forget some valuable information from that particular course as time goes on. This will hurt the student when he/she needs the information in the future. Sometimes, the same course taught at the University goes over new valuable information the student will need that he/she did not go over during high school. According to Jay Mathews from the Washington Post, AP courses prevent deep learning due to “with so many topics to cover for the exam, there is little time to linger on in-depth activities.” This means that an AP course taught at high school focuses mainly on the AP exam curriculum, rather the course itself. To sum it all up, students should retake the course they exempted at college in order to be in the safe side if the course is important with their major.