How do people who didn't do the HSC figure out what units to take in first year? (1 Viewer)

[yjhere]

How do people know what units to take first year in uni (especially for subjects such as maths or chem) if they did something other than the HSC (such as A levels, IB, American high school diploma)?

My ATAR equivalent is somewhere around 99.85~99.95. I don't think anyone here would be familiar with the American system, but I did AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, and AP Biology for sciences and got 5s on all except Chem (4). This would give me credit for 1st year university courses in the U.S.

 

[USYDjessa]

i would probably suggest contacting the university that you get into and asking them what would be best (their admissions office should be familiar with international systems and the science faculty will be able to tell you what units would be best for you with your history

 

[erckle999]

I cannot help with Chemistry or Biology, but looking through a Calculus BC textbook, it seems roughly equivalent to the pure parts of the NSW 4 unit course. The AP course has stuff on polar functions, convergence and the Taylor series, but certainly not nearly enough to be exempt from any first year maths course of a reasonable level. I can speak primarily for UNSW, at which you would maybe know about 2 weeks of material more than if you had done 4 unit in the HSC - and that is only the calculus component, which makes up half of MATH1141/51. The algebra component would be, I think, as unfamiliar to you as to an HSC graduate.

 

[isildurrrr1]

How do people know what units to take first year in uni (especially for subjects such as maths or chem) if they did something other than the HSC (such as A levels, IB, American high school diploma)?

My ATAR equivalent is somewhere around 99.85~99.95. I don't think anyone here would be familiar with the American system, but I did AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, and AP Biology for sciences and got 5s on all except Chem (4). This would give me credit for 1st year university courses in the U.S.

Lots of upper end US uni's don't really give out AP creds anymore. Even if you got AP creds, you should still take intro courses because the content is quite different. I do not believe any aussie uni's give out AP credits at all. Just take the courses like everybody else is the best bet.

 

[will_]

dw pre-reqs in terms of high schooling knowledge is not important

 

[isildurrrr1]

dw pre-reqs in terms of high schooling knowledge is not important

He's not talking about HS knowledge, he's wondering if he can get course credit for doing well on AP subjects (uni level coursework) for HS.

 

[brighamcalvert]

Thanks for sharing information.

 

[pHyRe]

i doubt you can get credit for AP courses. they are similar to HSC level, sometimes more 'pure' maths or chem while hsc focuses on things relevant to the world, like environmental or whatever.

i know they usually take a few weeks to cover the majority of the 4U course if you're doing maths/engineering at uni. Probably similar for sciences.