Klarinet Archive - Posting 000299.txt from 2003/03

From: "Leslie Schultz" <mewsic-ls@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] AP Music Theory
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 01:57:54 -0500

Angelina,
While I don't know where you live or where you plan to go to school, I
would suggest that you be careful about this. I entered college two years
ago with 26 hours in AP credits, and I absolutely love the AP system. It
got me out of so many gen eds (freshman comp., psychology, physics, etc.),
and now I have much more freedom to take what I enjoy. However, if you want
to major in music, it might be a bad idea to test out of too much theory (if
you take this advanced theory course at a school other than where you'll
actually end up after you graduate from high school). Testing out of the
first semester is just fine, but (at least at my school), once you get past
that point, things are a little more open to interpretation, and one
professor may teach things very differently from another. I don't think it
would have been in my best interest to test out of more than one semester.
Also, I don't know if you have separate courses for aural skills and written
theory, but if you ended up testing out of several semesters worth of aural
skills, you could really set yourself up for failure later on. Different
schools approach ear training in a variety of ways (moveable do and fixed
do, for example), and to suddenly be thrown into third or fourth semester
aural skills would be a pretty big shock if there was a discrepancy between
the different schools' methods.
This is all pretty general advice, since I don't know your situation.
The point of all my rambling above can basically be boiled down to this: do
your research before you make a decision.
For one final point, (which probably addresses your actual question
better than all that stuff I wrote above) I know that some schools won't
accept other schools' credit. I have a friend who went to the University of
Arkansas for three or four semesters, then transferred here to the
University of Oklahoma. I know for certain that none of her music ed
courses transferred, and I believe that she had to retake at least some of
her theory. I hope this is helpful and good luck with your college search!
Leslie

> I took the AP Music Theory exam last spring and received a 5 grade and am
> now considering taking advanced music theory at our local university next
> year while finishing my senior year in high school. I have been looking
> into several universities to see if this would apply as credit upon
> entering, and have received several vague responses. I've heard that some
> schools only grant credit if the course is taken at their university.
Does
> anyone have experience with AP exams and college course credits when
> applying for school?
>
> Thank You.
>
> Angelina Lopez-Frank

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