<p>I would not want my kid to exhaust the tuition benefit prematurely if you are counting on that subsidy to help you pay for college. If it’s just a "nice to have’ in your head (and in your budget) than it won’t matter- but if you’re looking towards the subsidy to make some options affordable that otherwise would be off the table, I’d steer her towards the AP.</p>
<p>Just my two cents. The employee benefit seems to valuable to waste on HS given how quickly some of the college fees and other expenses start to add up beyond tuition.</p>
<p>zoosermom, I do agree that this is a common policy for colleges. The way I read it though, it could be used to exempt online courses depending on how “physically” is interpreted and excludes courses taught by instructors who do not hold the title of professor.</p>
<p>I understand that the courses can be part of a more challenging curriculum, but speaking as a person who almost graduated hs with an associate’s degree, the schools are basically saying that a if one did get a college degree in high school, they wouldn’t recognize it. </p>
<p>To the OP, is there a community college in the area that you could afford without using the employee benefit?</p>
<p>I took a mix of AP’s and dual enrollment during hs and it was all on my transcript as per state law. My chosen (OOS) university accepted almost everything and as it had more favorable AP policies than the CC’s I went to, I ended up being a senior by credits after my first semester. There are schools out there that accept dual enrollment credits and I’ll repeat my suggestion of seeing how her desired schools accept each form of credit.</p>
<p>I also want to raise one other point. Many high school counselors try to get kids to take AP courses over that of either honors courses or even college courses. They sadly have a real conflict of interest here. High schools are evaluated, based on US News Rankings, on the number of AP courses taken per student. College courses and honors courses don’t count in the rankings, as stupid as that seems. Thus, many high school counselors try to steer more kids into AP programs even if these kids are not ready for the AP curriculum.</p>
<p>We have a cousin who is a guidance counselor in our county, although not at our local high school. She was specifically told to steer as many kids as possible into AP programs because it helps the school’s ratings and the principal wants to get a national ranking for purposes of becoming a “blue ribbon school” before he retires, and I am not kidding about this.</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but I just wanted to clarify a few things - there are two different types of dual enrollment. In one type, you take a class at a high school that is administered by a particular college. These probably won’t give credit at top colleges, I think mostly because it’s pretty hard to guarantee that the course had the same rigor as the same course taught at the colleges, because the class is mostly populated by high school students.</p>
<p>However, it should be different if you took the course at the actual college. For example, I took multivariable calculus at Ohio State, and this showed up on my high school transcript. However, this class was taught at Ohio State, by an Ohio State professor and most of the students were Ohio State students. And even at MIT, a school that is pretty stingy with AP credit, I was able to get transfer credit for multivariable calculus, even though this class showed up on my transcript. Of course, I gave MIT my Ohio State transcript, but my high school transcript also listed this class (this might be where the confusion comes from).</p>
<p>This probably also depends a lot too on the actual classes taken; if I had taken college algebra instead, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get credit at MIT since this classes isn’t even offered. For humanities classes, this can get pretty subjective too.</p>
Not in our experience.
My daughter took an introductory Logic course at a very highly respected (top 15?) university, and got an A+. It did not appear on her HS transcript, and she got no HS credit for it. She could not get credit for it at her LAC, and had to retake the course (it was a required course for her major).</p>
<p>The advantage of APs is that the policies are very straight forward and are clearly spelled out. Taking college classes during HS can be beneficial in many ways, but if college credit if your goal, APs are a safer route.</p>
<p>SEA_tide wrote:
“To the OP, is there a community college in the area that you could afford without using the employee benefit?”</p>
<p>The nearest cc is pretty far away, so I think really our only choice is my husband’s school.</p>
<p>And, again, I so appreciate the anecdotes and opinions all of you are sharing about this, even when they are contradictory. What it’s showing me is that my daughter really needs to get her tush in gear and think about where she wants to be applying for college so we can get some more concrete answers.</p>
<p>Yes, nngmm, I’m starting to get that impression. Hmmm. It does make the AP courses more attractive. She got a one free course from my husband’s school since she’s a member of CTY’s SET, so she’ll be able to take at least one college course without us dipping into the benefit before she graduates hs. Maybe we really should save it for lab science since that’s a type of course that is clearly better in a classroom setting.</p>
<p>nngmm notes,“Not in our experience.
My daughter took an introductory Logic course at a very highly respected (top 15?) university, and got an A+. It did not appear on her HS transcript, and she got no HS credit for it. She could not get credit for it at her LAC, and had to retake the course (it was a required course for her major).”</p>
<p>Response: This is NOT what I have experienced at all. In fact, I am wondering if her LAC is violating accreditation rules in not accepting college credits for equivalent courses from an accredited university. Check out the accreditation rules. I do believe that there is some requirement about this.</p>
<p>From what I have seen, actual college courses taken at a college and not a high school, tend to have an easier path for transfer credit than that of APs especially with the higher scoring requirements by some colleges. </p>
<p>We can go on ad nauseum. I would suggest that the OP contact an independent college counselor about this issue and/or contact an admission officer at a prospective college about this.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, our different experiences may, indeed, be regional. In the Midwest, I am not seeing any mention of the distinction you make about whether the Dual Credit appears on the high school transcript or not. We are looking, not at tippy-top, but at strong Midwest LACs, all in Princeton’s Top 374.</p>
What it’s showing me is that my daughter really needs to get her tush in gear and think about where she wants to be applying for college so we can get some more concrete answers.</p>