<p>^^^Scrunch that is what my D did. She is a ChemE and took AP Chem her sophomore year and got a 5. She is taking 2nd Semester Chem. her 2nd semester of her freshman year (she skipped 1st semester chemistry). She did skip her physics courses because those were taken her senior year of HS and did move onto Calc. 3 after getting a 5 on her AP Calc B/C. She got a B in the course so it wasn’t too bad. She now in Linear Algebra her 2nd Semester.</p>
<p>If one’s goal is to gain entrance to an elite college and you have enough time in your schedule to earn an AA, your time would be better spent getting really involved in an EC. I would venture to guess that a challenging load of APs and one really great EC will beat out an AA and strong but average ECs every time. Massive amounts of college credit just tells them that you know how to study and work hard. They already have 4000 other kids that can do that; they don’t care that you can do it exceptionally well.</p>
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<p>Lots of transfer students use their CC courses in math, biology, etc. as the prerequisites for their upper division courses at a four year university. Why would it be any different, content-wise, for an entering frosh who took those CC courses while still in high school?</p>
<p>Where entering frosh may encounter difficulty is often in the different expectations of college courses, in terms of less hand holding and expecting more student self-motivation. Students prone to slacking off may fall much further behind in college than in high school.</p>
<p>There are a few situations where bringing in college credit units completed in high school can be a disadvantage. If the college charges tuition based on class standing which is based on credit units completed, then it may be disadvantageous if the tuition is higher for higher class standing (e.g. University of Michigan). If the college includes the incoming credit units in calculations for a credit unit limit, then that can be an issue (e.g. Texas public universities give a tuition rebate if one graduates with the minimum number of credit units needed; a student bringing in a lot of credit units that count toward that limit may be ineligible for the rebate).</p>
<p>But most of the time, college courses completed while still in high school just give the student more options, though the range of additional options varies by college.</p>
<p>@mothergoldenbear – I’m not actually privy to the finances of those students, so I have no real knowledge to answer accurately – I attended the senior awards ceremony and graduation last year, and they announced each student’s scholarships and what school they were going to (probably because it is a small school) so that’s how I know the basic stats of full-ride, etc for that class. I know there are some students at the school that are need based eligible, but I can’t imagine that every single top performing student in that class was, especially as I see plenty of expensive luxury vehicles dropping off kids in the morning. An interesting point though, and I would guess that being need based eligible would help secure those 4 year full rides.</p>
<p>I think that if dual-enrollment is the best option you have at your school or in your environment, then go ahead do it! Getting a AS and High School Diploma at the same time is never a negative unless you did poorly on those college classes because then elite schools will question your ability to excel in their own classes. However, if you did well in those college courses and you took most rigorous ones (frosh-sophomore level bio,chem,math,etc) then I do not see how it could be a negative. The main question is sometimes not whether or not the credits will be accepted (most private schools won’t even come close) but how these courses are advancing yourself intellectually. Also for premed and maybe prelaw students, keep in mind that on your application to graduate school you are required to list and report all college courses from high school up. Which means a bad record of college courses will stick with you for the rest of your life as opposed to grades in AP classes. </p>
<p>Also for scholarships: I have done lots of research for scholarships and applied to many scholarships and I have quite a bit of dual-enrollment/community college credits along with several APs and mostly honors. Most scholarships apply as long as you are eligible as a first year applicant to college. Some are different if they have a “must have less than x number of credits to be eligible.”</p>
<p>In conclusion, I believe that my experience with taking alot of college courses while in high school at different levels really opens me up to different teaching styles as well as rigorous course material that will be helpful as a foundation/base if I end up retaking those classes in college. In a similar way, not everyone uses their AP credit. Some people take classes to learn the material and get a head start on hard classes they will be taking in college.</p>
<p>What’s your college GPA anyway?</p>
<p>@Catria
Obviously this is mich5225’s post but since we are in a similar situation, what kind of college GPA (over 55 creds) would be looked at favorably by elite schools?
3.8+? 3.9+?</p>
<p>@catria my college GPA is a 3.89 but i dont think any of the schools im applying to will see it. Its not on my HS transcript. </p>
<p>What I learned about college credits, if you WANTED to take those classes why does it matter it is your education. But the AP system has turned out to be very inefficient, AP classes are taught so you can pass the test not retain the information and that is horrible. Don’t have regrets if you had the incentive to actually care about your education. Now if you had to dread those classes everyday just for the hope of college admission is very pointless. Try to be individualized and see what YOU want to do, not what everyone around you is doing. “You cannont cannect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards” - Steve Jobs</p>
<p>Don’t look only at how many college credits you can get off the colleges. Some college courses aren’t equivalent to community college courses. Although, as UCB points out, some community colleges have articulation agreements with quality checks (most famously in California), it is not the case everywhere. And for elite universities, what you learned in community college is not comparable to what you would learn in one semester at their university, so that the community college class gives you a headstart equivalent to the headstart students in prepschools get with their advanced classes, ensuring a smooth transition for the first month or two. That’s invaluable… Furthermore, some students actually try to “retake” these classes at the elite school, in order to boost their GPA (especially for med school).
Some colleges also have specific requirements for general education (ie., all students read Book X, all students must have completed Z, must have visited X and written a report, but be able to write this and this type of papers/reports…) This may explain why you may have more classes to take at certain schools than at others, even with your AA, but it doesn’t mean these credits are worthless - they’re added to your transcript and prepared you to succeed at the top level.
What you learned in CC is not useless, it helps you compete with the students those elite schools like. Thinking 'I’m not going to apply to Harvard/Amherst/Barnard/Brown/Stanford/HarveyMudd because they won’t give me as many credits as USF" is very short-sighted. You can’t estimate the value of your education to the number of credits you get or classes you skip.</p>
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<p>Data10 has posted gaining admission to super-selective schools despite HS GPA and test scores at the very low end of the admissions class, but with a large number of credits of relatively advanced college courses with a 4.0 college GPA. Presumably, those admissions readers believe that college GPA is a better predictor of college success than HS GPA and test scores.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus my hs GPA is a 3.71 but my college GPA is a 3.89. Should i email or call the schools that i applied to and let them know my college GPA? </p>
<p>Are your college grades or transcript already reported to the schools you are applying to?</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus well my HS transcript (which i sent in) contains all of my college grades too, just not my college GPA. My college transcript contains that GPA, but i feel like it would be beneficial, because of what you said about college GPA being a good indicator of performance. </p>
<p>At the most elite colleges, these college courses taken in high school may help you gain admission, and they may help you get placement–at some, they may help you avoid some distributional requirements. However, if your goal is to graduate in fewer than four years of college, they may not help that much.</p>
<p>Note: the Ivy League schools (including Yale and Princeton) do not offer any merit-based (or athletic) scholarships, so anybody with a “full ride” or full tuition scholarship to one of those schools has a need-based scholarship.</p>
<p>@sloth83
You are supposed to send any transcript with college courses or such along with your high school transcript to whatever school you applied to. Letting them know over the phone will not account for much because they won’t “accept” them in that manner. Does your high school have a hook-up or a connection with a CC or such that you take classes through or is it completely individually? My school has that connection for dual-enrollment purposes and also offers AP courses (not that many though) so the school has found a way to report those courses on the high school transcript even though most of the courses are not used to fulfill high school requirements. And my counselor attaches a official college transcript to the Common App documents along with the high school materials. It would be to your advantage to send those transcripts to the schools you have applied to (or are going to apply to). </p>
<p>@everyone
I think that on another note, I agree with a post earlier on this thread that said that saving “number of years” on a college education is not the only way that taking college courses in high school is beneficial. If you gain admission into a very good school with a great program, these courses can really help you be prepared for those classes if you have to take them again or help you take more advanced courses because they allow you to place out of intro level courses (with and without getting credit). But in the end, it all depends on what are the preferences and goals of the individual person and what he/she is looking for in their college education and how they want to do that. Graduating early using a lot of credits has its advantages for sure, but there are also advantages to not using the credits at a public school and instead going to a great top elite school that doesn’t allow early graduation but offers more opportunities in the field that one is interested in. Many people overlook that many of the elite schools give exceptional need based aid for both low income and middle income families! Who knows, maybe it might even be cheaper than a instate school!</p>
<p>I regret it. When I moved back in to the public schools in 8th grade, they offered to send me to 9th grade because I was so far ahead compared to our district. My parents thought it would be better for me to have that extra year for AP credits and such. Now, I have a ton of AP credits, that basically I cannot use really. I have spent my last couple years of high school scrambling to figure out what classes I could take, which included no math or science last year, no math this year. It was all a waste. I would have been much better off just going to college a year earlier and start working on my actual degree.</p>
<p>@matrixsurgeon the school i go to is entirely centered around dual-enrollment, in fact the small high school is located on the CC campus. All of our college courses and grades are reported on my high school transcript, which was sent in by my counselor. </p>
<p>@sloth83
Oh, ok! I saw a question of yours earlier about contacting the schools and letting them know about college GPA and assumed that there was a transcript issue. My bad! And wow, that is a neat way of running a effective dual-enrollment program! Right on the campus of the CC.</p>
<p>@matrixsurgeon yup it really is a cool program and i definitely don’t regret it, despite not getting the “Traditional high school experience”.</p>
<p>My question though, is in regard to the GPA that the CC gives me. Right now on my transcript (and presumably the one my counselor sent to my schools) is my cumulative unweighted GPA, (and my weighted GPA, but its on a very weird scale so im disregarding that.) which takes into account every course i have taken in my four years of HS (including college courses). This is a 3.71. When i log into my CC’s website i also see my college GPA which just takes into account the 16 college courses i have taken. This is a 3.89. Should i let my schools know of my additional college GPA as it looks a lot better than JUST my HS GPA.</p>