<p>Why take AP and have the chance of scores not accepted when you could take post secondary option? Daughter is considering both and I am pushing for the free college credits. Pros and cons????</p>
<p>I think you need to know what colleges she is considering and whether they will accept those PSEO credits toward their degree, thus allowing her to graduate faster and pay less tuition overall.</p>
<p>Ditto with AP. You can generally get very specific information on school's AP policies (of course, you have to guess what her AP test scores will be) - credit/advanced standing/ability to graduate sooner via AP.</p>
<p>Some are pretty restrictive about using credit from pre-matriculation work, I believe, especially some of the "top LACs."</p>
<p>My son took a lot of AP classes, which of course went on his high school transcript; he had 5s in all of them. He chose a school that did accept all of them, but that would not have been the case with some other schools. </p>
<p>However, he also took 18 credits during his senior year at the state flagship public university. Because he already had enough high school credits to graduate, he did not have the grades reported to his high school, and the classes did not appear as part of the high school transcript. They also were accepted by his university. HOWEVER, if the college courses had appeared on the hs transcript for hs credit, they would NOT have been accepted.</p>
<p>BTW, we had to pay for those college courses. I gather you do not have to?</p>
<p>Classes are free and accepted at most colleges within the state and at Madison. She has no idea where she wants to go but probably will be a small LAC in state or in a neighboring state. I am pushing her to at least take English as PSEO and then come back to hs for rest of classes and extra curriculars.</p>
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<li><p>Just a few questions re: your PSEO option: Do you have transportation to offer her to get from her h.s. building to the college daily? In Minnesota, are you concerned about icy roads if she's driving herself? Will she be less able to involve herself in EC's if she's not always under the h.s. roof at day's end? (crossposted! I see OP's answered this one).</p></li>
<li><p>If the college doesn't honor the h.s. AP credits towards college credits, there is still great joy in being able to enrol in a 200 level course and skip the Introductory course in a department. If one gets sophomore standing sooner, it could make one eligible to register earlier for second term freshman year courses, if there are enough AP's to add up to an entire term (as was true for my youngest). In this way, he could choose to graduate a semester earlier as a college senior if he wishes, which is big savings of a semester's tuition, room and board and an early jump on the job market midwinter. Perhaps these advantages are identical for PSEO, I do not know.</p></li>
<li><p>Some colleges might respect an AP course more than a college course taken at a local community college, depending on eligibility criteria for each situation. Perhaps student classroom discussion or teaching is better in one place or the other, only you know.</p></li>
<li><p>Older 2 were in a h.s. that offered no AP's, so some students went over to the local community college. They enjoyed it because they were at a real college where students played billiards, had lounges and so on. Just a good change from the h.s. hallways. Ours didn't do that, but instead took Syracuse U. Project Advance courses taught at the h.s. Those were costly and honored in precious few colleges, but at least the h.s. teachers and students electing to take it were motivated. The big advantage was they were very involved in h.s. activities, during and after school hours, which helped their college applications for extra-curricular activities.</p></li>
<li><p>Reflection: the difference between the honoring of AP credits was quite different between my two S's schools. One went to a top LAC that only used AP's to let one jump over Intro courses and enrol early. The younger S went to a different h.s. (we moved in-between their h.s. years) that offered many AP's. When he went to a lower tier university for its excellent major program, he was proud to tell the older brother that they would generously honor a semester's worth of AP credits, so that by second term freshman year he was registering as a sophomore, which helped him get into desirable courses. In a way, this leveled the playing field between the two boys in bragging rights about their chosen schools. Again, if the colleges honor the PSEO's equally<br>
as well as the AP's, then it's not a real difference as your oriignal question asked. My point is that getting many AP's (or PSEO's) honored readily by a college/uni REALLY makes some kids feel great about their choice of that college/uni and takes the bite out of not going to a more """prestigious""" school. I put prestigious in triple-quotation marks because I do not want to buy into the differences as a CC vet who believes in good fit.</p></li>
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<p>My S is also making a decision between PSEO and AP paths. As a result, we have researched this topic quite thoroughly:</p>
<p>-- If your D is applying to MN state U's (and probably WI), you are correct, PSEO will be honored. (That is, of course, if the courses taken are academically and not vocationally oriented.)</p>
<p>-- But if she applies to public U's outside of MN/WI and most selective private schools it is more likely the AP courses will be recognized for credit but the PSEO courses will not be. Many selective schools <em>will not</em> grant credit for classes earned as part of a HS curriculum even if they are college-level classes - with the exception of AP and IB classes. Most <em>will</em> extend some kind of credit for these courses (but some will designate it "AP credit" without crediting an equivalent offered class, and some will not accept any such credit).</p>
<p>-- However, accelerated placement (skipping intro courses) without course credit is quite possible (but not certain) under either track.</p>
<p>-- As far as I can tell, both tracks appear to be given equal respect with regard to admissability evaluations. That is, all other factors being equal (i.e., GPA's earned) the anecdotal evidence I have suggests admissions commitees consider either track a good means of obtaining academic challenge. I would dearly love to see some good statistical studies on this, but hard evidence appears to be absent.</p>
<p>Of course it might be possible to take the PSEO courses and follow them up in May with corresponding AP tests (which are administered about the time college courses end in the spring). Then you would be covering all bases.</p>
<p>This is a Frequently Asked Question here in Minnesota. The answer depends partly on where your daughter wants to go to college. All of the highly selective private colleges, for example the colleges in the Ivy League, generally will not accept transfer credits from any previous post-secondary institution for freshman applicants. On the other hand, having previous "college-level" study, whether through PSEO or through rigorous AP courses in high school, is always a good idea when applying to such colleges. MIT has a few exceptional circumstances in which it will recognize transfer credit. Several Ivy League colleges offer advanced standing (which is distinct from credit toward graduation) for defined AP scores or IB scores in defined courses. See, for example, </p>
<p><a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Eadvising/docs/advancedStanding0708.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~advising/docs/advancedStanding0708.pdf</a> </p>
<p>Minnesota colleges have statewide rules for accepting transfer credit. </p>
<p>MN</a> Transfer, Home Page </p>
<p>Usually Minnesota public four-year colleges have a list of community college courses that they will accept as equivalent to their own courses (in most cases the syllabuses are coordinated among the colleges, and even the course numbers match). Minnesota private colleges get to set their own rules about what transfer credits to accept. </p>
<p>Having "college credit" while still a high-school student is increasingly common nationwide </p>
<p>Dual</a> Enrollment of High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2002-03 </p>
<p>and is especially common in Minnesota because of the long history of the PSEO program here. But don't expect to get two years of transferable credit to Harvard or to Princeton from PSEO. Doing PSEO study (or a challenging program of AP study) is a good way to prepare for an elite undergraduate education, but it isn't a substitute for that. </p>
<p>Please ask follow-up questions as needed.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the info! I have made an appointment with a school counselor and will meet with her tomorrow to discuss these options further. D will stay close to home and is looking at mainly MIAC and IIAC LACs. Carleton has been talking with her for sports so I want to check with them and see what their policies are. I think that would be the most selective school she would apply to.</p>
<p>I see in your other thread you mentioned soccer. I know a local friend whose son was recruited HEAVILY by the Carleton mens soccer team (I saw the recruiting letters from the coach) although he ultimately enrolled at another college. His high school's counselor, I'm told by his mom, was quite surprised that soccer helped him get into Carleton. I think you know Carleton's academic reputation, but evidently it's trying to beef up its sports teams while maintaining the academics.</p>
<p>Yes...sports and strong academics open lots of doors.</p>
<p>I prefer PSEO over AP.</p>