<p>I think it’s wise for parents to question this and talk to other parents in their kid’s high school about their past experience.
I only object to ‘blanket’ statements.<br>
Look at Albright - they have agreements with certain high schools to accept their own dual credit courses. As does Penn State - dual credit is not only for community colleges.
If parents don’t have a clear idea where their kids are headed - they might want to stick with AP rather than fork over big bucks.</p>
<p>Some colleges are more transparent than others in what transfer credits they will accept - either in or out of high school. It is true that sometimes they will accept the credit but not the course - which is frustrating.</p>
<p>“If parents don’t have a clear idea where their kids are headed - they might want to stick with AP rather than fork over big bucks.”</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue at many high schools is AP vs. Dual Credit so much as it is pay or don’t pay. At high schools in our region you are given a choice as to whether or not you wish to take (and pay for) the AP exam. You are also given the choice at our high school as to whether or not you want to pay for the SUNY or CC dual enrollment course. At an adjoining school district, however, you are required to pay for the CC dual credit course but not for the SUNY course. </p>
<p>I hear frequently from parents who have paid for courses that their kid’s college did not accept the credits but they paid for them because either the high school teacher or CC representative insisted that all colleges accept the credit. I think we all agree that Caveat Emptor is the watchword here. What I am attempting to do is to gather information that demonstrates clearly for parents of students in my high school why this is the case.</p>
<p>I think this thread does a real service. Many high schools advertise their dual enrollment classes with the not-quite-honest pitch that colleges accept them and you’ll save money, bla bla. It’s good to know that they should question those marketing ploys.</p>
<p>One of the things one of our regional CCs is doing that annoys me more than a bit is their pitch to some school districts to dump AP offerings in favor of their dual credit courses. The argument is that an AP student needs to pay to take an exam that will only result in credit if they score a 3, 4 or 5 (depending on the college) whereas the student only needs to pass their course with a “C” or better for colleges to accept the credit. On face value this is sort of true, but what they don’t say is that far more colleges will accept the AP credit if the student does well enough on the exam than there are colleges who will accept the “C” from their college-in-the-high school course. (then there are colleges that will accept neither for credits towards graduation, but that is another matter entirely.</p>
It could be a “greater good” argument. A large percentage of the students might benefit from such a change as they will attend the local CC or Uni and the courses will be given credit. It only matters to the students going further afield/OOS/private. For example…at our “not wealthy” Texas high school that number is less than 10%. Students from our high school entered Texas A+M and UT with 2nd semester sophomore standing (36 hours Dual-Credit and an AP or 2) , and were well into graduate degrees 4 years after high school graduation. For those students , who for whatever reason want to accelerate, it’s a great deal. For mine? Not so much. ;)</p>
<p>That’s how it’s pitched at our hs - save money, get through college faster. BUT, the state department of ed mandates that school districts pay for the credit, not the individual, so it is a no-lose situation for the high school student. If he gets the transfer credit, great, if not, well she’s not out much. Additionally, the credit is accepted at the state universities. One can see the articulation agreements online. So, for the many, many students who go to the in-state universities, it’s a good deal. </p>
<p>Another bizarre little twist is that another state dept of ed mandate is that a dual credit course may not be offered if a course already offered as AP. So, we’ve got no AP calc because there’s dual credit calc, no AP Physics because there’s dual credit physics. My district offers just 8 APs, and I see that number continuing to decline.</p>
<p>“Hey, why would a kid possibly not wanna go to local U?”. lol. Again, for most kids the public policy argument is clear. Serve the majority of college bound kids, and let the fancy shmancy kids who want something different fend for themselves. ;)</p>
<p>curmudgeon – I think you are correct that the “greater good” argument has been used at some area high schools. It makes some sense in many cases, although I feel for the top students who don’t have the opportunity to enroll in an AP or IB course. Unfortunately, even at those schools in our region where a substantial portion of the student body goes to CC or a state school, the bulk of the kids who actually take Calc I or microbiology or French V end up going to a private school or out-of-state public flagship. I’m fairly pleased with the way our high school provides opportunities to take both AP and SUNY/CC courses, but I’m not happy with some of the aggressive and misleading “marketing ploys” as zoosermom aptly put it.</p>
<p>I REALLY appreciate this thread. Our school only just began offering the dual courses in the last few years. After things I learned on CC, my son opted to not pay the extra $ for dual credit this year and instead he will be taking the AP exam. Many of the teachers thought I was doing kid a disservice. Most of the faculty did not know the credits are not universally transferred – some of these were the same faculty who bent over backwards to get the dual classes into the school. </p>
<p>I like the choice of the dual enroll, but agree with you, at our school it is not accurately marketed.</p>
<p>In California, it’s also a $$ issue for local school districts. If the course comes with college credit, such as a Cal State Uni, the local school district receives funds from the Cal State system to pay for the teacher. The math teacher at our HS teaches 4 sections of Calc with Cal State credit, so ~80% of her salary is paid by the Cal State system. If the course was AP only, our local school district would have to cover the full cost. (Of course, few kids in that course even apply to the Cal States…)</p>
<p>bluebayou – Interesting! I suspect the $$ issue might have come into play with SUNY Albany’s tentative decision to eliminate the French department but to retain the Spanish department. Many public schools in this area offer both French IV and V and Spanish IV and V through SUNY Albany, but the number of kids taking Spanish dwarfs those taking French (in our school its 4:1).</p>
<p>In PA we are locally controlled. Our school district pays for AP exams but not dual enrollement which is $100/credit.
Most of the kids go to college locally and the courses readily transfer and some would rather be graded through the year rather than have their credit based on one exam. The dual enrollment courses began when my youngest was a junior and they got grant money to refund some of the tuition.
Our school district has had, for years, offered long distance coursework through Penn State. Those credits transfer to Penn State but my kids never took them. Mine took AP’s as they were free. My youngest decided to take the ‘regular’ Calculus I class instead of the AP Calculus class. Her senior year the Regular Calc I was dual enrollment. I took a chance and allowed her to enroll and she did. This course transferred readily to her private college in Maryland and it worked out well for her. IIRC - this was three years ago, I checked the websites of the colleges she applied to and never saw a mention of a CC course being taught in a high school.<br>
Has the rapid influx of Dual Enrollment given college pause??
I wonder how this affects student who attend Early College High Schools?</p>
<p>Dual enrollment is not for everyone. One issue is the cost. Another is you had to sign up for it early in the fall - so uncertainty is an issue. A student could not decide in Jan to pay the $$ and get the credit even though they had been doing the work. Since you can’t get financial aid for DA, it’s probably better for needy kids to wait until the graduate from hs.</p>
<p>Not to be a complete cynic, but sure, the rise of DE has given colleges pause on several levels. The instituion where I work has an articulation agreement with the local cc, so we accept their credit whether it was dual enrollment or not. However, a lot of those “taught in the high school” kids aren’t up to snuff in comp, SO we test 'em all coming in. Yes, a student gets credit for comp, but if the student can’t pass the entrace exam, she gets to take another required writing course. </p>
<p>Did you know MN has a program that allows students to earn an Associate’s at the same time as their hs diploma? From a business standpoint, those programs cut into a college’s revenue. Does a private school need 4 years of tuition or can they get by on just 2?</p>
<p>^^I think if a private school is only admitting full-pay kids it can get by on 2 years. </p>
<p>Except for maybe Harvard and Yale. They could probably get by on a couple weeks worth of tuition or maybe with the hit their endowments took a couple months.</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4 – You might be interested in this thread of the Penn sub-forum I started in order to get a little more information about Penn’s policies regarding duall enrollment credits. I still don’t think we have a definitive answer, but it looks like the way Penn handles credits for your high school is at the very least the exception, not the norm. I would invite you to share your perspective over there as well.</p>
<p>The examples given by Cur demonstrate the biggest weakness of DC programs. The issue of obtaining credit is almost never one of content and quality, but one of packaging. And why trying to build a list is an exercise in futility. </p>
<p>At the end, the programs work when there are clear rules established between the HS, the CC, and the college that accepts the dual credits. In the case of Texas, there is (or was) a website that clearly showed which credit were acceptable. Since this was not debatable, it was reasonably easy for a student to enter UT or Texas AM with sophomore standing, or even be considered a junior by the start of the Fall if the student entered in the summer. On the other hand, the credits might not have worked well in one of the elite programs such as the Business Honors Program. </p>
<p>On the issue of packaging, it is important to note that the high schools officials who researched the issue well, found a way to eliminate the “transcript” issue. All it took was to label the same class differently. The CC might have been 1301 English, but the class in HS appeared as 400 Classic American Lit. Out of state and private schools that looked at both transcripts could not see a clear description of the classes being DC. However, that did not mean that the private schools would accept ALL credits, as only credits that were ABOVE the graduation requirements could be counted. </p>
<p>All in all, the entire issue of college credits for AP or DC is one of interpretation, and one that defies all logic. Why would an AP course that is clearly taught by NON college professors and taken in HS or online be considered superior to a course taken at the local CC? Considering that many believe that the path CC>>Elite State School is extremely valuable (think Berkeley) why would anyone believe that the AP or IB are of a higher caliber? </p>
<p>In the end, this is an issue that could be cleared up easily IF the colleges had the courage to limit ALL credits to no more than ONE semester, and all the rest only for placement. Of course, this would kill the golden goose for many who have built programs on selling “credits” to unsuspecting families and push programs to “look good” in applications. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that high schools should be high schools, colleges should be colleges, and both programs should be a full four years with clear and distinct levels of education. Right now it is a blurry mess with high schools pretending to be at the level of college through IB/AP/DC programs and most colleges having to offer plenty of remedial classes to patch up the deficiencies of the high school education. </p>
<p>I think I agree with most everything you have to say Xiggi. However, I do think building a list for a specific use, as I am doing, has some utility for the limited purpose I will be using it for – and that is to demand truth-in-advertising from our school’s faculty and from those CC officials who are marketing their products.</p>
<p>As I’ve said, I see clear value in the AP, honors and dual enrollment courses at our high school (can’t speak for others), in that they provide a more challenging options for students who are seeking them. I don’t buy the idea that they are necessarily “college level” (again, at our public HS school), but they are certainly more demanding than the basic college prep fare, which has the NYSED-stated goal of being accessible to ALL students. </p>
<p>A mess! Yes. But it’s not going to go away anytime soon so you might as well understand it and have some appreciation for what it can and can’t do.</p>
<p>My son is starting the process of attending high school open houses, so this is a pertinent issue for us because it is such a marketing tool. Having done the college application process twice already in the same location, I am aware of what the local colleges do and don’t accept. I have been surprised and disappointed to hear factually incorrect statements at several of the open houses. I can’t decide if it is intentional or the result of not having the correct information, but I do believe knowing that there are conflicts and discrepancies is important to parents who are being told that “all colleges take these credits and you can save $50,000 for a year of college being done in high school!!” Sounds like selling used cars to me.</p>
<p>Please understand that I was not criticizing the effort to produce a list. As someone who has spent time trying to organize various sources of information for the benefit of this community, I know that it is difficult but that it also serves a purpose. The reason I added the “futility” comment is because I believe that schools are NOT following their own guidelines or comments made by adcoms. My own experience has shown that the persons ultimately responsible for the decision are not the people working in admissions, or even the professors or chairs of department. The ultimate decision is often in the hands of the registrar who might be swayed by the evidence provided by the high school or college, or remain inflexible. IMHO, a bit of negotatiation is possible … hence my comments about the impact of personal interpretation. </p>
<p>Last but not least, allow me to add a point I consider important. When I presented my dual credits, I believed that I should be rewarded for my efforts. I viewed it almost as matter of principle. While I was disappointed to obtain almost no credit for a large number of credit, I came to understand the soundness of the decision of the college, and became thankful for the opportunity of taking the same classes in college. The reason is that there was no comparison between the HS/CC combination and the type of instruction at the higher level. </p>
<p>Of course, my own experience is just that … one out of thousands. I have no doubt that someone might have an experience that is at the antipode of mine. My experience might also be quite different from the experience of students who are packed ten deep in huge lecture halls and have to rely on TAs for basic instruction and grading.</p>