Many high schools now offer these, including almost all good private schools and elite public schools. There are no AP exams for them, so can students get college credit.
I don’t think so.
Short answer, it depends.
HS classes are more plug and chug; top colleges will be more proof-based. Also, these same colleges will often want you to learn math “their way.”
Another option is to see if a local college (possibly community) has these courses which would be more likely to get you transfer credit. Also even if you don’t get college credit for the courses you could then just take more advanced forms of them in college. I know that Brown has two versions of their linear algebra class and one of them is for physics and engineering majors. If you took linear and are not one of those majors you could take that class instead and you would learn more from it and be better prepared for higher level classes.
I work at a university.
In general, you CANNOT get any college credit for college courses taken during high school. And you definitely cannot get college credit for high school courses taken, of any level.
AP is an exception because you get NO credit for taking the course, you get the credit for taking the exam and scoring high enough. I believe IB is similar in this regard. The classes are meaningless if you don’t score high enough to meet the college’s criteria for missing (and in some cases, getting credit for) intro classes.
If you take college courses during high school, they CANNOT count for HS credit (towards HS graduation) in order to be eligible for transfer. And some colleges will not take their credits anyway.
We run into this issue with international students all the time, because there are more specialize high schools so someone might come in with the equivalent of two years of courses in a science, for example, and we have to tell them without an AP or IB exam result, they have to take the courses “over”. Really makes them mad, but there is no way around it.
Imagine having gone to an international HS where you are essentially getting the US equivalent of an AA degree, and you have to take it all over again (hence so many “high achieving” internationals - specialized advanced high schools where the focus is one area is rather common - you can do well in math if you only take math).
My university follows what @rhandco says. To receive transfer credit, you must either have an AP or IB exam (or other eligible exam) score or have taken the course as dual enrollment and cannot be dual credit. To qualify the course must 1) be taught on the college campus, 2) taught by a college professor (not a high school teacher), 3) is in the official course catalog of the college, and 4) offered primarily for enrolled college students (i.e. high school graduates).
That being said, you may still be able to get placement in a higher course, but you will not gain credits without meeting the above criteria. As an example, I took Multivar at my high school with a very good teacher. This course also had the option of receiving dual credit from a local university; I did not pursue that, but it was an option (you just fill out a form and pay the fee). The chair of the math department at my university decided to waive multivar as a requirement for my math major. Since I don’t have credits, though, I have to take one more additional upper-level math course in its place.
Some universities might also have placement tests that you can take or let you take the final from the class to be exempt from it.
Just went through this with my DS. Guineagirl96 pretty much covered all the criteria that his university required as well. He took Multivar at his high school with a hs teacher with a PhD and is an adjunct at a local university (not comm college) and he dual enrolled. He received an official transcript from that university upon completion. He got a very good grade and went on to college level linear. The university he is entering this fall refused credit for both multivar and linear and wanted him to take it “their way” especially because he wants to be a math major. (BTW, he took “their way” placement exams this summer and scored a perfect score on all three sections, and had the credits for Calc AB and BC from junior year in hs). So, they offered him a couple of options – flat-out retake the two courses; retake the two courses in an honors track with introduction to proofs; waive the multivar prerequisite so that he could jump into an advanced multivar with proofs and retake elementary linear. He chose the third option and received elective credit for multivar, but nothing for linear (he didn’t push hard, because he only got a B- and knew he has to retake it). I guess we will know by the end of first semester whether or not it is wise to rely on the multivar taken in hs.
This really depends on the college. Our school offers Multivar CAL as a two semester course but D would not receive any college credit for it at the college she intends to attend. She will be taking the the high school Multivar class first semester and CAL 3 at our local CC to earn the credit for college second semester. You should check with your prospective college to find out the the best way to handle this in your situation. Some colleges will allow you to test for for advance standing and some colleges won’t even except AP exams for credit at all.
I would try to use those classes for placement, not credit. And even then, be careful that the needed material was covered thoroughly.