I’m a junior taking 2 aps 2 honors (unfortunately, the top students in my school take 3 aps, 1 honor) so I was worried that I won’t get into top UC’s even though I am taking 4 aps next year. I’ve already taken 2 community college courses (macroeconomics and psychology) and plan to take 1-2 more (microeconomics and maybe calculus D). Would they be viewed the same as AP courses considering that my school does not offer AP psych or AP econ?
Made more accurate title
ED
It will depend on what state you’re in and where you plan to go to college.
You mention the UCs, so I’m going to assume you’re in CA. In general for the UCs, yes, dual enrollment is viewed as about the same as APs. I say “about the same” because there may be a difference in how the DE classes are weighted when compared to AP for the specific purpose of calculating your UC weighted GPA. I’m not certain about this, but it’s something you can research. And even if there is a difference, it may not matter if you have enough other AP / Honors classes to hip the cap regardless.
If you apply to top private schools, each school handles AP and DE differently, both for perceived rigor and for whether or not they award transferable credits. You’ll have to check with each individual school.
Is dual-enrollment just mean community college courses?
Okay- and yes, it does count as weighted in the UC-GPA
DE (dual enrollment) means any college classes taken while one is a HS student. It can be a community college, LAC, research university. Colleges view the classes in different ways, and sometimes it depends on the class and your major. Sometimes you can get credit, sometimes you can get placement.
I know that UC’s award the extra point but do they still view honors, aps, and DE the same?
Also, if I’m majoring in economics and take macroeconomics from a very well-known, relatively rigorous community college (deanza), can I skip the class at the UCs?
Yes, but within the context of what UC recognizes as “honors”. Not all courses designated as “honors” by high schools are considered “honors” by UC. College courses must be transferable to count. https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution can be used to look up courses at California high schools and community colleges, and some online high school courses.
Note that a transferable semester college course is typically counted as a full year when added to high school courses in recalculating high school GPA for UC purposes.
@ucbalumnus if all the “honors” courses I am taking, both in school and in a CC, are designated honors by the UC, are they worth the same t hen?
Any course designated as honors counts as +1 if you earn a C or higher grade (however, a semester college course counts like two semesters of high school course). But note that most high school GPAs published by UC are weighted-capped unless otherwise stated – this means at most 8 +1 honors points are counted when calculating the GPA.
I understand the UC GPA but in terms of just looking at your courseload holistically, do UCs not care if its an AP or DE or honors?
My D19 also took more DE than AP so we’re very interested in hearing if there’s a perceived difference in rigor…