I don’t know where my son is going to enroll for 2017; right now I’m trying to work out his senior year schedule, which is a mix of AP classes and dual enrollment at Ole Miss. I told my son that the time was over to improve his grade point (he will not be val or sal), and that he should just skip the AP classes and take the equivalent classes at Ole Miss, for example PolySci 101 instead of AP US Government.
Does anyone know or have any experience with this? I know Alabama is very generous with the AP credits. Are they just as generous with the dual credit hours?
It all depends on where your dual enrollment credits are from and where you are trying to take them.
AP scores are at least standardized - every college will have a table of which AP’s they take and which scores they want to see. Credits transferred within a single state public university system will also be relatively standard. There won’t be a standardized course equivalence table between two random colleges in different states. In that case, dual enrollment credits will probably be evaluated over the summer, after your senior year transcript is final, and the receiving college will let you know in the fall what they will accept.
As dual enrollment has become more common, selective private colleges are putting limits on how many credits they will take. A lot of LAC’s my daughter looked at only accepted one semester worth of DE credits, max, regardless of how many classes were on the transcript. However, public universities tend to have fewer limits. Some west coast schools consider a class that earns both high school and college credit to be “double dipping” and will not accept any of it at all!
When looking at AP and DE credits, in addition to seeing whether credit is awarded, pay attention to the type of credit awarded. Some credits are only elective credit, while others can be applied to general education or major requirements.
@AroundHere Between AP and dual enrollment it looks like my son will have at least 65 hours of college credit when he starts, and he has told me that he has no interest in finishing in two years. So if they disallow some of his work, I suppose it’s okay, but I just hate to pay for something and lose it. Taking college classes is just a lot more flexible than taking high school ones.
Link to transfer equivalency table http://registrar.ua.edu/services/transfer-credit/
Many student come in using DE credits. Know that those grades are factored in to the overall GPA (but not the UA GPA that is used for scholarship retention).
I think you are capped at 60 hours of non-Bama credit. I read that somewhere.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer. He very well could end up graduating early with so many credits, but depending on the major, maybe he can stick around and get a masters degree. At some point though, you just have to make the best educational decision you can for the current situation and worry about the future when it comes.
Son just graduated high school . . . looking back, if I was pretty certain that S would go to a good state school then I would stick with DE (keeping my eye on gen-ed requirements at each school he was considering).
If I thought he had a shot at an elite private school, I’d probably shift the focus to AP (though for us as homeschoolers that was easier said than done).
UA has a feature called Degree Works where you can ‘tick’ the boxes of what you need for your intended major. It’s neat to see to see classes checked off the list. S ended up not going to UA, but he had sent his DE transcripts, so he could see the credits in Degree Works.
I think there is a limit at most schools (even public universities) of the number of credits you can bring in. If UA is high on the list you might want to reach out to an advisor or admissions person to see what his options would be. Perhaps he could go for a Master’s within that 4 year time frame.
ETA: I also agree with the above post - at some point you just have to decide which direction you’re going and let the chips fall where they may.
Make sure if you are doing a Masters in </= 4 years that the UA Presidential Scholarship pays for that. Don’t you have to be part of a structured program (i.e., STEM MBA or similar) from your incoming FR semester to have it pay for grad courses? Otherwise is Presidential only to be used for undergrad coursework? In other words, when do you need to declare your Masters path: at the very beginning of FR year, or can you do it SO or JR year? Those of you whose students have used Pres $$$ for Masters please correct/confirm this point.
Also, many suggest using $$$ to do a semester abroad - plenty to do there on the scholarship dime. 
@aeromom The terms of the Presidential that I’ve read are simply that it is good for four years of undergraduate or graduate school.
In the bigger scheme of things it’s really not going to matter if every credit transfers. If a credit doesn’t transfer, he will breeze through the retaking of the course. My son had the highest grade in his class in Accounting 202 this summer, and the dean wrote him a nice letter urging him to take Intermediate Accounting this fall. This is a tough course for some people, but my son is thinking about taking it, fully aware that it might not transfer.
Even though I saw it doesn’t matter, as a parent I hate to spend the money and see him expend the effort and not get the credit!
The 2017-2018 scholarship language below, so it is very clear that $$$ can be used for grad/law school at UA (no need to formally commit as a freshman).
“Presidential Scholar:
A student with a 32-36 ACT, 1400-1600 old SAT score or 1450-1600 new SAT score and at least a 3.5 GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive the value of tuition, or $107,800 over four years ($26,950 per year). Students graduating with remaining tuition scholarship semester(s) may utilize these monies toward graduate school and/or law school study at UA.”
@EarlVanDorn
here is the current list of Ole Miss classes and their UA equivalents, for which he should get credit:
https://ssb.ua.edu/pls/PROD/rtstreq.P_Inputdata
if an OleMiss class does not appear on the list, it is probably b/c it has not been evaluated yet.
FYI here is the UA’s AP credit list:
https://catalog.ua.edu/undergraduate/about/academic-regulations/policies/credit-by-examination/
@EarlVanDorn
Your son’s class might transfer. My roommate took a Calc 3 course at a local CC and it was not listed on the equivalency tables but he still got credit after sending in the transcript. Although, that was for calc, not sure about accounting.