My Junior year son(25) is homeschooling this year after attending a private high school for 2 years (transcript is 4.2 GPA). In that time he took 3 APs: AP Calc AB (scored 4) AP Euro History (scored 4) and AP BC Calc (B+ but no AP exam). He is planning to take Multivariable Calc then Differential Calc online (through a dual enrollment college class online- probably West Texas AM), and Astronomy through Outlier. For History and Physics, does anyone have opinions about him taking AP vs another online college course? I donāt think heāll sit for the AP exam as he doesnāt want to go into a high school heās not attending. He will do a course of some sort so that he has an objective grade in these subject areas for college apps. Thank you in advance.
AP course content and grading standards can be all over the place. Some get an A in the class but a 3 on the exam, some get a B but a 5 on the exam (not the same school/teacher).
Seems like the AP exam would be more objective (or at least able to be compared to others) than a grade for an AP class, so if he doesnāt want to take the exam, then why not just take the college class?
I homeschool my two oldest kids. Our experience has been that, for the dual enrollment classes we have access to, they are much easier/lower expectations than the AP classes my kids have taken online. Unfortunately, I feel like the AP classes my kids were able to take online were relatively poorly taught, or not taught at all. So it really depends on what you were looking for and what you have access to, as well as what your kid needs. My kids both really needed the experience of being in an actual classroom setting and managing the thousands of little things that go along with that, so I switched them to dual enrollment their senior year. Even though the classes were easier, I thought they got more out of the class because of the setting.
If your son has been in school in the past, maybe he doesnāt need that as much as my kids did, so may be taking online classes where heās able to really dive in and do independent learning is more what he needs.
I do recommend that if you are doing online classes for upper level work that you try to find a site thatās pretty reputable and/or uses a well-known curriculum or curriculum framework (like the AP classes).
ETA: sorry, Iām tired and missed some of what you said in your original post! If youāre choosing between online DE classes or online AP classes, and he will not be taking the AP test, you should probably just go with the DE classes. If you do them through an accredited school, they might have a chance of transfer. I am honestly not sure how it looks to admissions officers. I have had some people tell me that they prefer to see AP classes to dual enrollment classes, but Iām not sure if thatās 100% true. And, if you can clearly explain your reasoning in your school profile or your counselor letter that you write for his college applications, either is probably fine.
If at all possible, I suggest in person college classes at your nearby 4 yr colleges, as dual enrollment. Most colleges will allow a high school student to take one class a semester for free, as dual enrollment. He could do one at each of several colleges. That way he can have a relatively rigorous class, earn college credit, and not incur transfer status, as opposed to applying as a freshman.
My own kid is homeschooled and has done a mix of classes - at home, outsourced, AP, DE. Iām surprised that any college is letting you take Calc 3 without seeing an AP score for BC - before my student could register for any class with a prerequisite, our CC required us to submit AP scores.
I donāt think colleges care whether the grade that your student has is from an online high school provider or a home-done class. So, without an AP test score to confirm the grade, I donāt know that thereās any advantage to taking an AP course vs any well-designed class that a homeschooler might choose.
We have found DE to be mixed. For the softer classes - humanities and English - my student has found them to be easier than our admittedly rigorous co-op classes or home-done classes. They are of the āintro to psychā type, which are often not over challenging at most schools. Most of the co-op kids that we know say that they were very well prepared for college classes, wherever they end up going.
Kid is currently taking Calc 3 and Physics with Calc, both online, and says that they are well done. In our state, online courses for those are through a state-wide ecampus system. I think that whether you take the class at a CC or some of the public Us itās the same class online, and the level of challenge and amount of work seems appropriate to what I remember from those classes.
I donāt know many people that live in an area where there are several nearby colleges that kid could get to and Iāve never heard of colleges allowing a free dual enrollment course. In our state high schoolers can take a certain number of DE free, but itās a state program that covers some DE and some free CC and has several different parts to it with different qualifications. I do know many homeschoolers who take the maximum number of free classes and then pay for any additional classes because the credits from our 2 nearby CCs are accepted at most Us in the region and it is less expensive for kids to graduate early, or allows them to have a job or internship while in college.
Before taking more advanced math courses or calculus-based physics, he may want to try the calculus 1 and 2 final exams from the college to ensure that he knows the material well from the collegeās point of view.
If such are not available, he can try the āare you ready forā calculus II, calculus III, and ordinary differential equations quizzes at Web-Based Are You Ready quiz/reviews as well as final exams from other collegeās course archives (e.g. those for Math 1A and 1B at Mathematics Courses - Tau Beta Pi, California Alpha Chapter ).
The combo of a 4 on Calc AP and a B+ with no exam on BC suggests that UCB is giving you wise advice. Yes, a 4 is fine, and yes, a B+ is fine. But math is cumulative-- so a little haziness on any single concept in the intro calc classes is likely to become problematic.
At my kids HS (strong in math and science) you could not take both AB or BC- it was one or the other (BC covered off the entire AB curriculum AND the BC curriculum) and you were required to take the AP exam. Multivariable is going to be a struggle without a really solid foundationā¦
Iām in an inner ring suburb of a small (120k) city, and yet there are two private and one public 4 yr college, plus a branch of the flagship state U, all easily reached by public transportation or a 15 minute drive, not to mention two community colleges. Plus thereās another private college a 25 min drive away. So there were lots of opportunities for my kids. Of course very different if one is in a remote, rural area.
I always suggest dual enrollment as it is the best value and you get the credit without one test determining it!
Itās only the best value if the format (online, in person, combination) works for the individual student AND the student completely masters the material before moving ahead. Itās a lousy value if the professor is weak, the student thinks they know the material, but gets to college and discovers they are floundering.
One valuable aspect of dual enrollment courses taken in-person at the actual college (not ācollege in the high schoolā) is that the student gets to see how college courses are run differently from the more highly supervised environment of high school, where the student has to do their own time management and self scheduling of course work. This means that when they actually matriculate to a college as a college frosh, they will already be familiar with that aspect of the change from high school to college, which can trip up some students when they have to do that change all at once along with all of the other changes one sees going from high school to college.
I am seeing that this is not the case with many of the online offerings. Students arenāt getting the full college experience of āif you donāt go to lecture, nobody cares; but youāll fall behind and wonāt even realize itā or āif you donāt submit a draft of a research paper, or a proposal for a project- it wonāt matter because the professor isnāt going to chase you for it- but youāll waste two months of research time if you go off on a non-fruitful tangentā.
Iām seeing kids engage in the same behaviors with online college classes as they did in their online HS classesā¦ often without repercussions. I guess those will come when they get to an actual college campusā¦
By āat the actual collegeā, I did not intend to include online or distance format courses.
I live in a city that is much larger when you include the city/county area. There is a major State U in town and 1 CC, with another CC in an adjacent town. There are many small private colleges within an hour, but it wouldnāt be easy for a high schooler to commute to any of them . Before moving here, we lived in a large city in a western state. Again there was the large State U and a fantastic community college system with multiple campuses. The same is true of both of the college towns that I was in for college and grad school - college and CC in town, other small privates within 20-40 minutes. I think it really depends on the part of the country that you are in and how the college system developed. The south is dotted with small private colleges that were initially started by religions groups, while parts of the southwest, that grew up later, have branches of the State U or community colleges all over the place. I wouldnāt argue against the idea that there are students who have access to multiple colleges, but there are plenty of students who live in small cities who donāt have access to that.
I do have one other thought as you consider what to do with science. Having taken calculus, your student could choose to take physics with calculus and then take astronomy at a college. Your college may not have the same sequencing requirements, but a friendās kid was interested in astronomy at one point and had sequenced classes such that he could get through the needed physics and then do astronomy. There are also astronomy courses that donāt have that requirement, since Iāve known kids who took astronomy and would have never taken calc and calc-based physics, but it might be worth checking into.
Iād also consider what your student is interested in studying in college. People have different philosophies about that. Some STEM kids like to have the basic prerequisites taken so that they can jump into the more interesting classes. Others want to make sure that they understand those courses better so choose to take them at their undergrad college so that everything is in sequence. Some kids choose to get the random requirement courses taken care of in high school. One of my kidās top 3 college choices requires US History or a civics course, and kidās AP US History class fulfills that requirement. Another of kidās top 3 schools said that, due to their location and what industry is nearby, they are able to offer interships during the school year to students who are taking a lower number of hours (like 12 instead of 16+) so at that school there is also motivation to have fewer classes to take.
Homeschoolers often feel like they need some kind of grade or score to prove that their grades are legitimate, and a couple of schools (I think Georgia is one) are known to want something like that for each subject area. Others donāt seem to require that, and in that case Iād choose what would work best for your student.
Hi! We homeschool and dd is taking 3 APs online this year (2 through AP Homeschoolers and 1 from The Potterās School). I have also heard of local online charter schools that will offer them. My understanding from friends ahead of me is that DE is best if your teen thinks they will stay in state for college. AP seems to be better for out of state schools, are generally viewed as more rigorous, and you know ahead of time checking the College Board site which schools take what and for how many credits. I have one teen at Carnegie Mellon this year and they would only accept a transfer credit from our local university, not from our local community college. So it really depends on which schools your son wants to apply to.
Wow. Thank you all so much. These responses are incredibly helpful. I too was wondering about his mastery of Calc- but he seems to disagree with me on this matter. The suggestion about Astronomy made me smile because he is currently taking an online college astronomy. Homeschooling for 2 years of high school was not our original plan- some issues involving anxiety w school attendance came into play- so Iām jumping into this a bit late. But this gives me a lot of useful info. I am very grateful!
Did your Carnegie Mellon attending child do any online college level course work, or all in person? I ask because as of now, my son is more comfortable with online course work, and Iām a little concerned with how reputable some of the classes actually areā¦ He plans to apply for engineering programs- with Carnegie Mellon and similar schools being at the top of his list.
Hi! She did not do any college level course work in high school while we were homeschooling. Looking back, I wish she would have taken a few APs to get some gen ed/electives out of the way. She took an online history class through our local university this past summer. Once we knew she would be at CMU, we were able to meet with her advisor and she pre-approved some courses once we gave her the institution name, course number, and description of the course. She chose the history course and took it in June. We wanted to lighten her first semester courseload to allow her time to acclimate to college life,etc. We had hoped to do English, but CMU requires you take their English course. We looked at the CMU course catalog and chose similar history courses at our local university, sent the list to the advisor, and she told us what she would accept. I donāt think you can go wrong with APs (the CB has those listed as to what CMU and other schools accept and for how many credits,etc) or taking some courses at a university (many have them online as well as in person). There are so many options nowā¦