Community College vs. AP Classes

<p>Go 5878, I'm in your corner, since I only see value in what is learned, not in "credits" or in "saving $." Lowering the number of classes one completes to obtain a bachelor's degree isn't saving money, it's just not buying as much education. IOW, the sheepskin is more important than the knowledge & training obtained.</p>

<p>Imiracle, your instincts are correct. You know what it is you know better than anyone. The answer to your question is "maybe." It depends on where you find yourself in college and what you want to accomplish.</p>

<p>A slight correction, Marite--a more extreme case than Harvard is where AP never gets graduation credit, and the most extreme is where it doesn't even get advanced placement. There are some of those places left.</p>

<p>My S had 11 APs and 12 local U classes. His college accepted NONE. However, other colleges would have at least given him a years credit. S made decisions to take the college classes based on the HS teacher teaching the AP course. Example, Physics AP offred for first time by regular physics teacher, who wasn't the best anyway, so S opted for university class. History & English AP classes were good. His HS did not offer Latin, math he needed, etc., so all these he took at university. Scheduling was difficult; some nights he didn't finish class until 9:30 pm. In sum, what he could take AP, he did.</p>

<p>i know my material and all the things it's just that i don't think i've touched any of the u know the real hard stuff. I never derived the Taylor series nor proved the theories of partial differentiation and double or triple integrals. Maybe something like proofing Jensen's inequalities somewhat like olympiad style problems. I haven't dug into it. So the question is will college classes will foster this type of learning.</p>

<p>That's interesting because in my BC Calc class we certainly derived the Taylor series...though, of course, the other stuff is probably not on our level.</p>

<p>Wyogal notes,"Go 5878, I'm in your corner, since I only see value in what is learned, not in "credits" or in "saving $." Lowering the number of classes one completes to obtain a bachelor's degree isn't saving money, it's just not buying as much education. IOW, the sheepskin is more important than the knowledge & training obtained."</p>

<p>Response: For my daughter, I am not recommending that she graduate early, nor does she want to graduate early. She will simply be taking courses that she wants in lieu of those courses that she has to take.</p>

<p>like r u talking about deriving it from the mclaurin series? i'm talking about deriving it from nothing b/c from the mclaurin series we did it.</p>

<p>Wyogal:</p>

<p>You are right. I was using Harvard only to illustrate the way some colleges can differentiate between APs and college courses. It isn't even a matter of quality. Had my S decided to go to Stanford, he might have been able to make use of his Harvard courses; but not at Harvard itself. </p>

<p>With regard to your general point, in fact, my older S attended a college that allowed only two AP credits to be used, but only to fulfill distribution requirements, not toward graduation. I believe many LACs are like that in refusing to allow students to graduate early, whether using APs or CC course credits. </p>

<p>In any case, I also agree with you that the value of the courses, whether AP or college courses, lie in what is learned, not in the credits or money saved. </p>

<p>A general point about AP and college courses. AP classes are generally smaller than college introductory classes in the same subjects. Because of scheduling conflict, my S took Introductory Biology in college where he was one of about 200 students. Had he taken AP Biology in his school, he would have been in a class of about 25.<br>
The textbook was the same. The amount of time spent in the Introductory Biology class was about 2/3 of the time spent in AP-Biology. The extra time and extra teacher's attention are a definite advantage over college courses, allowing for a somewhat slower pace of teaching, more practice and more assistance for struggling students.
So why are college profs complaining? I suspect it is a matter of divergent students' and profs'expectations. College profs expect students to be far more self-reliant and pro-active in seeking help than do high school teachers. They also cover materials at a far quicker pace. Students who had enjoyed being taught by the best teachers in their high school can find it hard to adjust to the new sink or swim atmosphere in their college. But I find it unfair of college profs to blame the AP curriculum for this situation.</p>

<p>Would a college like Univeristy of Ohio or UVA accept community college classes? I know they accept AP classes, but what about CC classes. Also how many credits would they give you? Thanks</p>

<p>
[quote]
Would a college like Univeristy of Ohio or UVA accept community college classes?

[/quote]
As a general rule, state colleges accept all credits from CCs that routinely feed into them, although they may not take credits that readily from a CC in another state. You need to go to the websites for these two schools to get their particular policies.</p>

<p>imiracle - if you feel that your calc courses have been insufficient, you have multiple options which you may want to explore with your college advisor:
1) repeat the entire intro calc sequence in college and risk being bored out of your skull half of the time
2) get the textbook that your college uses in its intro course and cover the topics on your own that your high school course skipped. (btw - Taylor Series is on the AP exam)
3) assume that your college wouldn't give credit for calc in high school if very many people struggled in the higher level courses and just take the placement.
4) take the college's own internal placement exam in calc and use that to decide if you are ready to move on(colleges usually use a final exam from one of their own past courses for this).
5) take a more theoretical version of calculus in college, if they offer one.</p>

<p>(just as an aside, NO calculus course will cover Olympiad-style problems. The Math Olympiad is pre-calculus topics only. Preparing for the Olympiad is like doing a very theoretical, rigorous version of high school subjects. ie, algebra, geometry, trig, number theory, combinatorics).</p>

<p>Check the websites to see what their policy is on CC and ap credits. Sometimes students don't know what they will get credit for until they enroll. </p>

<p>Let me add one point that I do not think is mentioned above. If you go on to grad school those CC classes must be listed and will be used for your GPA. I suppose this can be a good or bad thing. I don't think that grad schools will look down on taking CC classes while in High School, but if you take the same class after you enroll in college (e.g. the college did not give you credit so you took the course again to get a good grade) this will show up on the composite transcript to grad schools.</p>

<p>this is a great thread! I have agonized over this very topic and finally decided there is no "best" answer.</p>

<p>My son is homeschooled and he is done with "online" high school classes -- he needs the interaction of the a classroom and the inspiration of a teacher. We checked out the local high schools, but the AP's offered are lacking and the kids do not score well. That is in addition to a host of other reasons he would preferred not to attend there.</p>

<p>He has decided to take community college classes now and university classes in his junior and senior year. For several of those classes, he will also self-study the AP material and take the AP tests.</p>

<p>He is planning on applying to very competitive schools and knows that the credits may not be accepted at all and we are OK with that -- I want him to have the full four year experience at whatever college he chooses. I was hoping that he could get some credit, so that he can take a lighter load of classes his first year -- but if it doesn't happen, that is ok.</p>

<p>We are selecting the community college classes with care -- we have talked with other students regarding the best teachers and he is enrolling in smaller classes. (his biology I class and his composition I class both have a 25 student limit).</p>

<p>In terms of what is best for his learning -- the community college classes are working well so far. He enjoys them, interacts well with the other students and is inspired by the teachers -- and gets A's!</p>

<p>We did discuss him leaving for college early and he may try to apply a year early, but he doesn't seem to be in a huge hurry and neither are we. We are lucky in that here in our state, the school district pays for college courses in junior and senior year -- so the cost is minimal.</p>

<p>Can students get both high school and college credit for taking a CC class? I though that it basically had to be one or the other.</p>

<p>it all depends on the high school and the college -- again!</p>

<p>since we homeschool, cc classes can count as high school credit also. depending on the college you go to -- yes and no. If my son goes to a state university -- all credits are guaranteed to transfer. If he goes to another school, many schools will not count classes taken during high school that were used to fulfill high school graduation requirements -- so those would not transfer. </p>

<p>My son tends to be advanced in the humanities, so in those cases, he has already fulfilled the high school requirements and is now pursuing classes that interest him.</p>

<p>the best conclusion I have come up with -- don't count on anything transferring and you won't be disappointed.</p>

<p>The answer is that you need to ask your school counselor. I can, however, tell you how our high school works.</p>

<p>We have certain required courses such as 4 years of english, 3 of science, 3 of math, 1 of gym, 1/2 of health , 3 years of language is recommended etc. Thus,kids can take any electives as long as they finish their required core courses. Electives can be CC. </p>

<p>Our high school will even allow you to take college courses in lieu of the high school courses. Thus, if you don't want to take senior english but take English 101 and 102 at our local CC, it will satisfy our english requirement. However, most colleges won't give you credit for college courses that satisfy a required high school course. Thus, if you take college chemistry instead of high school chemistry, you won't ordinarily get college credit. In our school, however, you would be deemed to have met the chemistry requirement by taking it in college.</p>

<p>I hope this helps</p>

<p>in our district, if you take a 'required' course at a cc, it goes on the HS transcript (aka "dual enrollment"); otherwise, it does not go on HS transcript. Nevertheless, I've read on several college websites or college brochures that they will not give college credit for dual enrollment courses. Of course, other colleges may.</p>

<p>I think it really depends on the individual situation</p>

<p>I'm currently a high school senior. Last year and this year I have been taking 1-2 college classes a semester at my local state university. The cap for class size is 32 and I've only had one class that large. I live in Minnesota where the state pays for my college classes/books. I'm very glad I'm doing the post-secondary enrollment options and I feel silly taking AP Statistics this year. Why didn't I just enroll in the class at the university? Now I'm stuck with the class for the whole year and I'm going to have to find $80 (because it's not coming from my parents) to take a test so that I /may/ get credit. I would have been done with the class by now and I would have taken it for free!</p>

<p>My sons were also officially homeschoolers (although they attended high school part-time). They each took one AP class at the high school--both had good teachers. One son got a 5 on the test and got credit. The other got a 3 and did not. (different subjects) </p>

<p>Both sons also took community college classes, which we put on their transcript as high school classes. However, they also received credit from the universities they attend(ed)--Stanford and Indiana University (out of state). We had to submit course descriptions for a couple classes to IU, because the numbers did not match theirs and they had to figure out what to give credit for. We also had to submit course descriptions and texts used for engineering courses my other son took (for Stanford), because he was considering majoring in engineering and wanted them to go toward his major.</p>

<p>The classes my sons took at the community college were no larger than the ones at the local high school, and the teachers were generally quite willing to help students who had problems. My sons both felt there was less goofing off and silliness in the cc classes, because people were there because they wanted to be, not because they had to be. (and tended to be a bit older and more mature) My second son chose to take calculus at the cc, rather than high school, because the high school AP class only covered one semester of calculus, and he wanted to get a whole year's worth.</p>

<p>We happen to have a community college with an excellent reputation, whereas our local high school is more into sports than academics, for the most part. Were the situation reversed, we may have made different choices. And that's why no one answer will work for every situation.</p>

<p>In our area there is a program students may enter where the last two years of high school is performed at a community college. The student upon HS graduation receives both a diploma and an AA degree.</p>

<p>What do you guys mean by state schools? Would that be like California State or like University of California or both. Thanks. Also I heard something in the newspaper that my CC is a pretty good school. So then would that like almost guarntee credits? Thanks</p>