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Comment by Sileni | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't quite convey the full meaning though. It's meant to be a college level introductory class that high school students who get ahead in other classes are allowed to take. Most AP courses also have the option to take a placement test at the end, and if you do well enough, you can receive college credit from the college or university backing the program.

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In theory. In practice a college can freely decided if they want to accept them or not. My school loled at AP Computer Science classes and didn't accept them for any sort of credit for anyone.

It's accredited by a specific school, usually a nearby community college or university. If they reject AP credits they probably would have rejected any credits from that school. Some schools also require that your major credits be received from the school.

That's not necessarily a bad thing if those credits are in your chosen major. If you are a CS student, you'll want the university-quality CS education.

Indeed, I didn't think it was a bad thing.

However, College Board (the company who administers these exams) sells it as "university-quality CS education" and people pay money to take them. So they sell AP CS as a college level class but my school looked at it and said "this isn't college level."

In general, I'm very skeptical of the quality of these AP exams and if AP classes are truly are college level (I didn't take any myself, my school didn't offer AP classes and I was a huge slacker in high school anyway)

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