<p>If your student has a choice between college concurrent credit - or taking the AP test - which is better and why? Any thoughts, experience?</p>
<p>Anyone? Bump?</p>
<p>A lot depends on the circumstances and kid. At our kids’ HS, you had to take summer, night, or weekend courses if you wanted to take college courses as periods would rotate every day. You can miss out on a lot of the acitivities that are occurring in HS if you’re constantly shuttling off to college (unless that’s one of your goals).</p>
<p>Colleges vary about whether they award credit & advanced placement based on prior college coursework or scores on AP exams. Many have a maxiimum cap on how many credits you can earn in this manner. For our S, he got equal credit from USC for both the summer college course he took while in HS and the AP exams, maxing out at 32 credits.</p>
<p>The value of the course depends on how well it’s taught and what is actually covered in the course. S took many AP courses and self-studied for several AP exams. He preferred them over the one summer college course he took, which he found did not cover the material as deeply as he felt it should have. Experiences vary, as two of his friends found the concurrent credit to work well for them in getting a headstart at flagship public U (which is NOT where he took the course).</p>
<p>My kids did both. Concurrent which was taught in a zero period at their high school and AP. The benefit of the concurrent was that the private schools they attended for college automatically took the concurrent credit. No AP test requirement, etc. They also took CC classes over the summer. I loved the experience of that for them. They were with adult students, and students from all walks of life. My son started studying with an active military guy who was taking classes at night. Gave him a different perspective when he went off to a four year private college.<br>
For my oldest his combo of concurrent and AP means an early undergrad graduation…for the youngest who is an elementary ed major who will get a degree and credential in four years it means she can take a few electives which her classmates can’t due to tough requirements for completion of both in four years.</p>
<p>Our school has several classes - that also count as concurrent credit if you register and pay the fees with the college the school works with. A couple - you can also take the AP test and try to get AP credit. Just wondering if anyone had input on which was a better choice - for the same class - AP Calc test - or register for the concurrent credit?</p>
<p>The concurrent class that S took did not transfer to his chosen college because it was taught on the HS campus. I’ve heard the same issue being true with other colleges. He liked the class and I’m sure it was a positive in his applications, but it didn’t “count” at the end of the day.</p>
<p>He could have easily skipped AP Calc and gone on to college level math, but took the AP class to have some breather room in his 11th grade schedule. That did work out well because, along with AP Statistics, he placed out of all his math prerequisites. </p>
<p>My nephew took the college class and also took the AP exam – maybe the best of both worlds in covering your bases? </p>
<p>(And HImom: Fight On! The 32 unit max made the concurrent enrollment issue moot.)</p>
<p>Thanks SoCalGal …so maybe the best approach is to talk to admissions at his top choices and see if they accept the course before we pay for it … thanks. He’s down to three, so that shouldn’t be too hard!</p>
<p>Another thing you should ask them is whether the grades he gets in his concurrent classes will affect his college GPA. I’m applying to med school this spring and just found out that the B I got in calc 2 during high school (concurrent enrollment) affects my med school GPA. It’s a little bit like splitting hairs (I mean, it’s only about .02 of a grade point different) but I definitely would not have taken credit for calc 2 (which was never required for me and is just counted as elective hours) had I known it would negatively affect my GPA.</p>
<p>I took two high school classes for college credit, and I didn’t get credit for them at my college because they were taught at the high school. (But the college issuing the credit did refund most of the money because I couldn’t transfer the credit.) After my experience, my younger sister didn’t bother with the concurrent credit because chances were good that the college she would eventually attend wouldn’t take the credit either.</p>
<p>My college only used AP scores for placement, and only issued college credit for AP classes if you petitioned (you usually petitioned because you were short credits to graduate or wanted to graduate early), so I didn’t really get anything from the AP tests either (other than the harder classes that went with the tests, which benefited me in high school).</p>
<p>kristin makes a good point. In my kids cases the credits transferred but not the grades. Every school is different. Obviously that is the case with the issue of the credits transferring. If you find out the credits will transfer at your kids top choices and the grade doesn’t I would go with concurrent because there is no test to pass in order to get the credits. Plus the AP tests are expensive and come at a time of the year when senioritis is in full swing.</p>
<p>Good point. May of senior year - won’t be the best time to do yet something else in high school! Good point on the GPA as well. Glad I asked and thanks!</p>
<p>AP credits are much easier to figure out - the rules are usually very clear and easy to find on colleges’ web sites. It is much more complicated with college classes taken during HS.</p>
<p>And yes, all grades earned in college classes will count for Law School (and, apparently, for Med School) GPA.</p>
<p>This may not be relevant to the discussion here, but I thought I’d share.
S’s college would not give credit for any college class taken while in high school (including at that very college). Period. It did give credit for 5s on APs.
S took Intro-Bio instead of AP-Bio, because of scheduling conflict. He took the AP test as well as the Intro-Bio final He received a B+, I think in the Intro-Bio course, but scored a 5 on the AP, which he considered easier than his Intro-Bio exam. Since the college did not recognize college classes, the B+ did not appear on his transcript, but he got credit for the 5 on the AP.</p>
<p>Mine did both.
He took College Physics in HS _ his teacher had a whatever credential’s necessary for that and we paid a fee and the credit was gained through a University. It ended up being a transfer credit on his transcripts at his current college.</p>
<p>The difference IMO is that the AP courses are taught in HS and then they have to get a certain score on the AP test to get the credit. The concurrent classes, if passed, would yield a transferable credit. But check with the schools you think your child might want to apply to to see if they accept transfer credits.</p>
<p>Great to know that the “A” S earned in his college statistics course taken the summer after 10th grade will count in his GPA (tho it seems very odd). His college never counted the grade & all we know is that he maxed on the credit but it only helped him register earlier. EE has so many required courses, it didn’t help him much with those. </p>
<p>If he had gone to another U, he probably would have exempted out of a lot of classes, graduated in 3 years & gotten his masters in the 4th, like some others he knew. Oh well, this semester, he’s taking SAILING for 4 credits, building a speaker, building something else, and directed research, I think; should be a GREAT final term of his UG experience!</p>