<p>Is accruing too many college credits in HS ever an issue? It is my understanding that selective colleges ignore HS credits if they are taken as part of the HS transcript, so even if a student goes as far as earning an Associates Degree is it irrelevant? S15 is concerned that if he accumulates to many credits he will be considered a transfer student for admissions. I would appreciate some insight. Thanks.</p>
<p>I have never heard of a student being forced to apply as a transfer because of too many credits. </p>
<p>I started as a 2nd semester sophomore due to AP and previous credits… the only thing that sucked was that I was bumped up to upperclass tuition rates after only one semester. </p>
<p>If he gets an associate’s degree THEN he’d be a transfer because he has a degree.</p>
<p>The usual issue of being disqualified from applying as a frosh occurs when a student takes college courses after high school graduation. Colleges do vary as to what the threshold for disqualifying a student from applying as a frosh is, so check their web sites.</p>
<p>Some (mostly private) schools tend to disqualify transfer credit for college courses taken while in high school.</p>
<p>Medical and law schools do consider all college courses and grades earned in them, even those taken while in high school, and even if they are not accepted for transfer credit at one’s undergraduate school.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an issue as long as the applicant makes it clear he’s applying for freshman admission. Our daughters homeschooled right through HS, which meant in their junior and senior years they took most of their classes at our local public flagship under a state-sponsored program that allows qualified HS juniors and seniors to take college classes at state expense. Both were admitted as freshmen to leading LACs despite having 12 or so college classes under their belts. Now in our case we made it clear that we considered these classes part of their HS curriculum and they would not seek to transfer those college credits to the colleges they ended up attending. (I was their homeschooling HS GC, so I got to write the school’s profile and a GC rec). I’m not sure we had to go quite that far; many freshmen enter college with HS AP credits, for example, which can free up room for a little more flexibility in the college schedule. D1’s college sets a maximum on the number of credits they’ll transfer, and I think she could have gone up to that maximum without any problem from the college’s perspective. </p>
<p>But if a HS student racks up a lot of college credits, seeks freshman admission, and then expects to transfer all those credits once enrolled, that’s more problematic. Then I’d say the student really is seeking admission as a transfer student, not as a freshman, and the application should be classified as such.</p>
<p>EDIT: I realize I’m writing this with a 4-year, private LAC in mind. These schools place a premium on the entire class being together for four years and graduating in 4 years. They don’t want people coming in as second-semester sophomores; that’s why they limit the number of AP and transfer credits they’ll recognize. Our public flagship is different; it would have given our daughters full credit for the college work they did in HS, so they would have been admitted as second-semester sophomores. And in fact, many students use our state’s PSEO (college while in high school) program in just this way, to get a “head start” on college so they’ll end up paying only 5 semesters’ tuition instead of 8. We wanted our daughters to have the full 4-year college experience.</p>
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<p>However, one difference between high school students taking college courses while still in high school and community college students preparing to transfer to a four year school is that high school students may not be choosing the college courses to complete frosh/soph level major and breadth requirements for their intended majors (if they even have decided on college majors). So it is not necessarily the case that a high school student taking college courses will be transfer-ready; even with a lot of transferable college credit, s/he may still need two or three more semesters to become transfer-ready as a junior ready to declare his/her major.</p>
<p>It would have been an issue for my son, which he learned 2 days before winter break in junior year. We called several colleges, and heard the same thing from all. The only class he would have taken as a senior in HS was English. It would not have been an issue for state flagship.</p>
<p>Son was not looking to transfer the college credits. He was taking a language, science and math classes not offered at our HS. Local school not in the same league as many HSs mentioned by other CCers.</p>
<p>bookworm,
I’m not sure I follow. What was the issue? Colleges told him he couldn’t apply for freshman admission?</p>
<p>Only issue for my son who had 17 college credits and about 30 AP credits was that his school would only let him bring in 32 credits. I do think if you earn an AA while in college that might cause a problem. If there’s a particular school you know your child is interested in, I suggest you call them just to verify.</p>
<p>@bookworm-that is similar to my concern. It was suggested to S15 that he might take the bulk of his senior year at a local college because he is exhausting the resources our HS has to offer. There was also a secondary discussion about possibly earning a general studies Associates Degree. We could both care less about the degree, but the school is trying to launch such a program and S is a viable candidate.</p>
<p>My kid is in a joint high school/AA program, getting 2 years of college credit while earning her HS diploma, and applied (like everyone else in her school, also doing the program) as a freshman. It’s fine, no problem.</p>
<p>Having too many college credits to qualify for freshman admission was a problem a couple of years ago, when dual HS-college enrollment started to take off. </p>
<p>Most colleges have realized that these are their potential best students, and backed off more recently by defining a freshman as someone who has not enrolled in a degree-granting post-secondary program at another institution. Most also still require the college courses to be taken before high school graduation. (Whether these courses can transfer is highly variable).</p>
<p>Bottom line - read the fine print on what each college you are interested in uses to define “freshman” and I would still be a bit wary of enrolling in a degree granting post-secondary program expecting to automatically be considered a freshman by all colleges.</p>
<p>I’ve not seen issues at admission… but it could be an issue with the maximum number of credits allowed before graduation if they were dual enrollment earned before h.s. graduation rather than AP/IB units.
[Maximum</a> Units](<a href=“http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/counseling/max-units.html]Maximum”>http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/counseling/max-units.html)</p>
<p>Our kid had more than 60 credits that he qualified for but he was only allowed to bring in a maximum of 60 credits. He took 17 or 18 APs and could have technically gotten credit for each of them. He also got an A in a college course he took at age 15. He was given the max 60 credits and was admitted as a freshman, NOT a transfer. He was allowed to register early because he had JR standing as an entering freshman. Many of the others in the engineering department were similar, so they pretty much ALL had JR standing and no one got much of an advantage over most other engineering students (but DID get to register before students who had fewer credits).</p>
<p>It worked out fine for him. At some other Us, there was no cap and he could have entered with more credits and potentially graduated early with a bachelor’s and master’s degree. We were fine with him taking his time and enjoying his years, including re-taking the courses that he had gotten AP credit for. </p>
<p>The crucial thing as was posted is if a student takes any college or CC course AFTER completing HS. That would make them a transfer student according to most Us.</p>
<p>Thank you for the response.</p>
<p>I found this on Cornell’s website, so I will probably be able to find similar such policies everywhere:</p>
<p>“You are a transfer applicant if you are (or have been) a full-time college student or you have earned 12 or more credits at another college or university since graduating from high school.”</p>
<p>Doesn’t seem like it is an issue.</p>
<p>Both my sons went into college with 45 college credits from AP’s (and one college course given in HS). Applied as Freshmen. By the way, you have to apply as an entering Freshman as you have no clue how many college credits you will be given from each school based on the AP scores as each school may differ and also when you apply, you haven’t finished your AP courses/tests yet.</p>
<p>What you may find isn’t being asked to enter school as a transfer, but running afoul of SAP requirements, which often limit students to 150% of the credits required of the degree program. This would be a problem senior year, not freshman.</p>
<p>This was December 2004. I know son had at least 40 college credits and 12 APs. senior year of HS would have been at local U, except for English. At that time, we called as many schools as we could within an hour (& who answered), and it was an issue. His HS GC was the one who suggested he apply to the flagship, which is far superior to local U. Perhaps that was the issue, if classes taken at local U of flagship. I honestly cannot recall. Ido know that going to the flagship meant definite “transfer” status.</p>
<p>I cannot recall if we asked what would be the consequences of his having 70 college credits, or what. It was a stressful night, trying to decide where he should apply to and who would write LORs in one day. we had been to only one college presentation at that time.</p>
<p>His friend, a sophomore, learned from my son and planned to apply to college as a junior. He had the luxury of arranging interviews and asking for LORs in advance. Another friend decided to try for the state flagship when he heard what my son was doing, with APs but not the college classes, and was accepted into the Honors college. </p>
<p>Not yet aware of how many different essays the colleges would require, I suggested son apply to his dream colleges and see what happened.</p>
<p>My son took classes for credit at another Ivy while he was in high school. Harvard did not transfer the credits, but they did allow him to bypass a few prerequisites and go directly into higher level classes…however, they typically allow students to move up in difficulty if they can make a reasonable case for it, regardless if they’ve already taken a similar class.</p>
<p>Question: If the student’s college credits (dual enrollment) are applied to the HS transcript to meet the HS diploma requirements, can the credits be applied to the college transcript? I guess so. Double-dip.</p>
<p>Some schools will accept the dual enrollment courses for transfer credit, while others do not or impose limitations.</p>
<p>Remember also to note the distinction between credit units, subject credit, and placement into more advanced courses, since transferred (college or AP) credit may be accepted for one of these but not the other(s).</p>