Bulldogs, Bulldogs, bow wow wow. EliiiiiiiiiYaaaaaale.

If you want to go to Yale, you need to get into the school spirit. You will also need an awesome academic record, including great grades in a few Advanced Placement classes – this way the admissions officers have no doubt that you can do the work at Yale. But, once you’ve taken the AP® test and have your scores, what are you supposed to do with them? Well, wonder no more because we at Albert.io have all the information about Yale AP® credits that you will ever need.

This blog will walk you through all the things you should be aware of when discussing Yale’s AP® credit policy. We will go over what kinds of classes Yale requires freshman students to take, if your AP® scores transfer in, as well as well as how to apply them to your course of study. Of course, we will also give you the run down on what Yale is like, so you can make the choices that best fit your needs.

Ready to go?

Fast Facts about Yale

•  Yale University is located in New Haven, Connecticut, which is only about an hour away from New York City on the train. While New Haven isn’t the most cosmopolitan city, its proximity to NYC makes up for it. Day trips, anyone?

•  Yale is a private university, a member of highly selective Ivy League, and was founded in 1701, making it one of the oldest universities in America.

•  The school’s colors are navy blue and white.

•  Yale’s mascot is a bulldog named Handsome Dan – allegedly the most handsome bulldog to exist, ever.

Image Souce: Wikimedia Commons

•  Students and alumni are affectionately referred to as Yalies.

The Numbers

 According to the CollegeBoard as of 2015, Yale has… 

•  6,859 undergraduates

•  2,736 postgraduate students

•  1,363 first-time freshmen

Yale also has a$25.57 billion dollar endowment fund (one of the largest of any American university) and super competitive 6.3% admission rate.

In 2015, 30,236 students applied for 2,034 spots.

As you could probably guess by those numbers, it is really difficult to earn a spot at Yale. You will need to craft an interesting application that really makes you stand out from the thousands of other students vying for spots. To do so, you will need the typical components: near-perfect standardized test scores, glowing teacher recommendations, and an amazing academic record. For this record to be amazing, it needs to include quite a few AP® classes.

To be admitted to Yale, you obviously need to ace both the AP® classes and their corresponding tests. But what should you do with your results once you matriculate? Keep reading to find out how.

Advanced Standing at Yale

Before we cover the little details of the policy surrounding Yale AP® credits, we need to make sure you understand how to apply these credits once you arrive in New Haven.

If you do well in your high school AP® courses, you are eligible for something called Advanced Standing. When you start at Yale, you enter as a 0-credit freshman, no matter your record, however, depending on your educational goals, you might be able to “activate” prior credits to do any of the following things:

•  Qualify as a junior by your second year of college.

•  Take a semester off and still graduate on time.

•  Graduate a semester or even an entire academic year early.

•  Skip lower-level classes to take more interesting ones.

If you end up at Yale and find yourself wanting to accelerate, you will be able to petition the Dean’s office as early as the end of your sophomore year. If you just want to skip a lower-level course, you will need to contact the instructor – but more on that later.

An acceleration credit, the equivalent of one course credit, may be used to complete the bachelor’s degree in fewer than eight terms. Acceleration credits can be awarded on the basis of AP® test scores.

You will forfeit acceleration credit in a subject if, in any term at Yale, you take a course that is the equivalent of the work for which you received that credit. In general, taking a course numbered lower than the lowest-numbered course awarding acceleration credit will result in the forfeit of acceleration credit in that subject.

Yale’s AP® Credits Policy

There are a few ways you can qualify for Advanced Standing while at Yale. While a high score earning a 4 or a 5 on an Advanced Placement test is the most obvious, Yale also considers the following alternatives:

•  International Baccalaureate (IB) higher level exams

•  British A-Level exams

•  SAT® subject tests

•  Placement tests offered by some academic departments

So as you can see, even if your school did not offer APs, or an AP® course in the subject you wish to test out of, you are not out of luck just yet.

So, without further ado, here is what you can do with your AP® scores while at Yale.

English

Language

 Math 

 Science 

 Social Studies 

Yale does not offer credit for the following AP® courses:

•  AP® Biology

•  AP® Chemistry

•  AP® Chinese Language and Culture

•  AP® Comparative Government and Politics

•  AP® Computer Science: A and Principles

•  AP® Environmental Science

•  AP® European History

•  AP® Human Geography

•  AP® Italian Language and Culture

•  AP® Japanese Language and Culture

•  AP® Macroeconomics

•  AP® Microeconomics

•  AP® Physics 1 or 2

•  AP® Psychology

•  AP® Spanish Literature and Culture

•  AP® Statistics

•  AP® Studio Art: 2D, 2D, or Drawing

•  AP® United States Government and Politics

•  AP® United States History

•  AP® World History

This doesn’t mean that you should not take any of these courses in high school, as their completion will likely boost your application. It only means that if you end up at Yale, you can’t transfer them in for credit.

We found all of this information right here on the Yale website, so if you would like to check it out for yourself – go right ahead. The Office of Advanced Standing also has information about how to apply your SAT® II subject tests, IB Diploma, and more!

So, as you can see, Yale’s AP® Credits policy is a little different than most places. You can use your high AP® scores to accelerate your Yale education, but you will lose them if you take a class that you could’ve skipped.

You can also use your AP® scores to place out of basic level courses and take more challenging classes sooner, but still graduate in the recommended eight semesters. To do this, Yale recommends that you talk to both the professor of the course, and your academic advisor.

Yale’s Undergraduate Academic Requirements

Yale wants its students to take a variety of classes from many different fields. To ensure this, the university has set up distributional requirements AKA classes that everyone has to take. According to Yale’s website, they are as follows:

•  2 humanities and arts classes

•  2 science classes

•  2 social science classes

•  2 quantitate reasoning classes

•  2 writing classes

•  1-3 foreign language classes

So, as you can see, taking an AP® language course in high school will really help you once you get to Yale. And, similarly to other schools, you can’t opt out of these requirements using your AP® scores, but you can skip the lower level classes, with instructor permission, to take ones that are more interesting to you in the subjects you like.

Yale’s Campus Vibe

Yale is known for keeping its students busy. There is always something to do on campus: a talk to attend, a concert to see, a meal to grab, or a game to play. You will never be bored at Yale.

Most undergraduates also live on-campus in one of the school’s 12 residential colleges. These communities serve as a smaller slice of the greater Yale community and make it easier to make and maintain friendships. You live in the same one for all four years and all the basic necessities (dining hall, library, gym, even a Dean) are never more than 5 minutes away!

Every single tenured professor at Yale teaches. So, even as a freshman, you might end up with a Nobel Prize winner as an instructor.

For more information about life on Yale’s campus, you can watch a really fun video put together by the admissions office here.

A Quick Review

Remember the following key things when reviewing Yale’s AP® Credit policy: 

•  Yale accepts scores of 4 and 5 on the AP® exams for credit.

•  The score requirements vary by department.

•  You can use your AP® credits to “accelerate” your Yale education.

•  With the professor’s permission, you can use your AP® credits to take higher-level classes sooner.

The final most important thing to remember is that even if you can’t apply your AP® credits towards your Yale degree, you will likely not be admitted in the first place if you don’t take them at all.

What are the next steps?

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of taking and acing a bunching of AP® courses, you shouldn’t be. Because all of us at Albert.io are here to help.
You should start by reading our lists of the hardest AP® classes and tests here, and the easiest ones here.

Then, take a look at when to start studying for the AP® exams here. After you’ve done that, head on over to read all about the weighted GPA, so you can be sure to understand how AP® classes affect your class rank and grades.

Best of luck on your AP® journey – and remember to check in with us whenever you need help.

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