college credits...limit when applying???

Parents Forum
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<p>I home school my 2 boys and the oldest is in 8th grade this year. he is accelerated (was in an accelerated gifted program where we used to live). We home school to give him the best opportunities available (public schools here are terrible and private are too expensive).</p>

<p>He takes rigorous courses, including several online courses. This year in 8th grade he is taking AP Psychology, Algebra, High School courses (through the public school online program) in Integrated Science, Biology, Composition, World Civilizations and US History.</p>

<p>He is very bright, motivated and academic. We are looking ahead to the next four years and trying to decide how best to provide him with 1) an education that will challenge him and help him grow as a person 2) Provide him with the depth of knowledge needed to do well in the future 3)Allow him the opportunity to apply to very competitive colleges, if he so chooses (he is looking at Yale right now)</p>

<p>He wants to take courses at the local college, starting next year. these would include science courses, foreign language courses and some higher level electives...literature, history, drama, etc. Also, he can take dual credit enrollment courses through the local online high school.</p>

<p>I read somewhere, that if an applicant has more than 30 credits, they are a transfer student and it really effects there chances of getting into a college...and for scholarships, too.</p>

<p>Anyone have any experience in this? what is a good solution?? I was almost thinking of having him audit the science course and then take the AP exam for that subject? he is really wanting to take the college courses, not as a pad for his college application, but because those are courses we are not prepared to teach well at home.</p>

<p>Any advice would be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>I don't think the transfer student situation applies here.
He is still in "middle school" and if he uses the courses for middle/high school then he would still be a freshman when he applies to college.
hwever he does sound very bright, and you may want to look into one of the early entrance programs in your area. I assume you know about the Hoagies gifted site?
they would probably have more accurate information than I.
I do think that if he wanted to use the 30 + college credits ( quarter? Semester?) then he may be considered a transfer student as he wouldn't be at freshman level.
<a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/home_school.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/home_school.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>The issue of transfer would apply only if your son were enrolled full-time in the college. As long as he takes a few courses per year, he should be okay. He would apply for admission as a freshman. You may want to enquire directly to the colleges your son is interested in to make sure you have accurate information.
I would strongly urge him to take the AP exams for the relevant subjects. APs are more portable than college credits because colleges are familiar with the AP curricula, requirements, and the significance of scores whereas the level of difficulty and course coverage varies wildly from college to college.</p>

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<p>Mine (a homeschooler) had 66 credits, at both two and four year colleges, including her final year where she had 32 (which would have made her "full time"). This was in addition to self-studied APs. She chose not to transfer ANY of the credits. She could have applied either way.</p>

<p>Some of it depends on the school. Some colleges say they don't accept credits "earned as part of a high school program". But since we didn't exactly HAVE a high school program, most places would have accepted her as a transfer, had she so chosen.</p>

<p>Where she ended up basically accepts NO AP credits -- they have their own placement exams in areas where one might wish to accelerate. (My d. did take two of them and placed out of some first-year classes.) In the sciences, they offered special honors sections in chemistry and biology for those with AP 5s, but they would NOT pass a student out of first-year courses, which, where she goes, are intense. APs can be used, with permission of the dean, to make up for a deficiency in credits, usually as a result of failing a class, or illness.</p>

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<p>Just to follow up on Mini:</p>

<p>It's useful to distinguish between admission, credits and placement.<br>
Even at colleges that do not allow Advanced Standing. AP credits and college credits give applicants a significant advantage in the admission process as they show that the applicant has taken on a rigorous program of study and is capable of doing college-level work.
Once admitted, a student will have to decide how to use the credits. Many colleges do not allow these to be used to reduce the time to degree, so the student will need all four years to complete the requirements for the B.A., Others allow AP credits to be used to shorten the time to degree. Each college sets its own criteria as to scores, what AP exams, etc...
Even when students are not allowed to shorten the time to degree by using their AP and college credits, they can place out of introductory courses. Sometimes, all that is required is the appropriate score on an AP exam; sometimes a college placement test is administered (especially true if the student has advanced past the AP level).
My S will graduate with 9 college classes and 7 APs. We expect that he will want to spend all four years in college rather than graduate early.</p>

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<p>your comments really helped!! my son is really wanting to take the college courses so that he can get access to instructors that really know what they are teaching (rather than his parents, on online class or self-teaching...he does that for several other subjects).</p>

<p>I just didn't want to jeopardize his chances by going this route.</p>

<p>we are approaching the SAT II, AP tests as validation for work done, rather than a way to shorten the time spent in college. Same goes for the college courses...he wants to do the whole 4 year college experience! </p>

<p>It sounds like we are on the right track!!</p>

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<p>Regarding SATIIs:</p>

<p>Ordinarily, the best time to take SATIIs is at the conclusion of a course. However, the College Board does not keep records before 9th grade, so you should enquire since it looks like your son will be ready to take some at the end of this year. He really only needs 3, so that may not matter. All APs are recorded, so this does not present the same problem as SATs and SAT-IIs.</p>

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<p>The College Board will keep the SAT scores if you ask 'em - but you do have to make a request (we did ours by phone.) My d. never did an SAT I after what would have been 8th grade.</p>

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<p>Mini:</p>

<p>Xiggi posted not long ago that the College Board has discontinued this practice. A student we know also made use of the SAT score she received in 7th grade. But this may no longer be possible (another way for CB to make money?)</p>

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<p>Well, what we did to make sure (and in consulting with the colleges) was simply to attach a copy of the score report that WE had to the application itself. Since we knew that her applications would be "unusually reviewed", we felt that this was a way to be more secure about the fact that they would be taken into consideration. But I have no idea what current CB policy is (other than to make as much money as possible.)</p>

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<p>A possible compromise would be to request multiple copies of SAT tests taken before 9th grade so that when time comes to apply to colleges, an original can be sent. But that's assuming that the CB will not keep records of scores before 9th grade even when requested--something to verify.</p>

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<p>When it comes to acceptances of records, the final decisions rest with the individual schools, especially for unusual candidates such as homeschooled and gifted students. This is similar to the acceptance of AP and college credits. In this regard, there is guidance on the JHU CTY site -mostly about obtaining credit for work done during the summers. </p>

<p>As far as The College Board is concerned, they will keep scores current for ONE year and archive them for FIVE years. One of the reasons to wipe the scores earned before high school would be to preserve the integrity of the process.</p>

<p>While it is is a farfetched proposition, one student could take a multitude of SAT tests before 9th grade, but only pick and select the score to report. This would be contrary to the spirit of reporting all scores -or up to the 6 latest scores.</p>

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<p>don't count on archived scores. My son had 800s on two SAT IIs taken in middle school. We didn't know about the policy of taking middle schoolers' scores off their record at the end of the school year in which the test was taken (or rather, we thought it just applied to SAT Is). When we tried to get the scores sent to colleges later, pffft.. they were gone. CB acknowledged that he had taken them and gotten those scores, but they would not move them to the permanent record at that point because they could not find the paper test in their warehouse to confirm. My son had to take the exam he really needed over again.</p>

<p>Interestingly, AP exams taken in middle school are not handled the same way. For better or for worse, they become part of the permanent record automatically.</p>

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<p>What do you guys think of me applying as a transfer student should I not be accepted regular decision as a freshman? For example, I didn't apply to Yale at all because I know it is near impossible for me to be accepted (99% rank in the top 10%) and I also foresee rejections from places like Harvard. </p>

<p>Would it be possible for me to apply (or in a few cases) reapply as a transfer? Some schools might be Stanford, Yale, Boston College, NYU (where I didn't apply) and Harvard, Williams, Amherst (where I am applying but probably won't get in)</p>

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<p>By the way, for those who don't know - I will have completed 18 credits of college work at Stony Brook University by the end of this semster with about a 3.89 (5 A's, 1 B+) and by the end of Spring, another 12 credits = 30 credits and about a 3.93 (if i get all A's in spring)</p>

<p>I'm VERY unfamiliar with the transfer process...is it much more difficult to get in as a transfer?</p>

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<p>EAch college has different criteria for transfer, so you would have to research the schools you are interested in.</p>

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<p>I was unable to take AP classes at my HS, because my HS did not offer AP courses. Resultantly, I began going to night school my junior year. I started calling all of the colleges which I was considering applying to and asking them the following questions:</p>

<p>1) How many credits can I take before being considered a transfer student?
2) Which classes should I take for gen-ed credit?
3) Will these classes transfer for full credit?</p>

<p>The answer were:</p>

<p>1) No more than 30, the standard number of credits taken by a student in an academic year (on the semester system). If I had taken more than 30, I would have been considered a transfer student and lost any chances at Freshman scholarships. Freshman scholarships are the large scholarships, transfer scholarships are pittances compared to them. </p>

<p>Schools have residency requirements, meaning that a student has to earn so many credits at that school in order to graduate. If your child goes into a school with a large number of credits, they may have to take extra, unnecessary, courses in order to graduate. Or they may not be allowed to transfer in all of the credits. </p>

<p>2) I was sent a list of gen-ed courses by each school. I then kept in contact with the registar's office over the course of the next two years to make sure I was taking classes which would transfer. </p>

<p>3) Every single credit transfered, if not for gen-ed credit, for elective credit.</p>

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<p>hsmomstef ~ You've gotten some great advice on this thread already, but I would like add one word of caution based on my experience with my two homeschoolers and thier college courses. You might want to restrict the college courses in the first semester to just one, or at most two (and try for easy ones for your kid's suite of skills). A really bright kid (like yours) has the capacity to do a bunch of college courses plus their other work as well, but we saw that the steady grind of classes, homework, exams, classroom interaction, travel time and other activities and classes can put a huge organizational stress onto an 8th or 9th grader. This stress is unrelated to intellectual capacity. In fact there could be a bit of a reverse issue, as very gifted kids can "glide" through online classes and high school work on pure intelectual power without learning to budget time and effort, but then they can suddenl;y find themselves in a "real" college course with a heavy downpour of learning and without the mature organization skills to get an "A." You want the first college class to be exciting, to result in an "A" and to cause the kid to demand more of the same. You don't want a frantic effort to stave off a "B" and a learned fear response to college classrooms...</p>

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<p>What reasonabledad said. My son had a similiar experience to what he describes.</p>