<p>I seem to remember an old thread about enrolling for junior college credit while in high school. I could not find it with the search. Is there ever an admissions or financial aid reason why you would not want to have junior college credit?</p>
<p>Actually, it is a well-kept secret about taking junior college courses. Here is the scoop:</p>
<p>If you take AP courses, you must get a high enough score on the exam to get credit, regardless of your grade in the course. More and more college are demanding even higher AP scores to give credits. It's not unusual to see a minimum required score of a "4" or even a "5." In fact, some schools won't take the credits regardless of the scores or put a limit as to how many courses you can place out of.</p>
<p>This should be contrasted to courses taken at junior colleges. Many more colleges ( or so it seems from my discussions with admissions' officers) will take credit garnered at other colleges such as junior colleges as long as you get at least a "C." This is true even if taken while in high school. Moreover, they usually don't have as many caps on courses that will transfer as they do on AP courses that they give credit for. For example, some schools limit the AP course approval to three. Why three is a mystery of the mind?</p>
<p>Transfer credits from other colleges usually have no limits as long as there is a comparable course. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that you are usually better off taking junior college courses than you are in taking AP courses as far as getting credits for colleges. The admissions' catch is that colleges prefer to see AP and honors level courses taken in high school over college courses taken at junior colleges.</p>
<p>One downside to this is that some of the more prestigious schools do not grant transfer credit for any course that was used to get high school credit. No college automatically accepts all transfer hours either, there can be substantial restrictions on transfers. Be sure to check the website of any school you're interested in and don't be afraid to ask questions.</p>
<p>i know some colleges let you skip your senior year and start college a year early. the classes you take at that college count for both college and high school. just something to look into.</p>
<p>Strick, you are quite right. My son took a dual enrollment course senior year in an arrangement worked out between our public hs and a local four year college. However he used that course to meet one of his hs graduation requirements. Rensselaer would not grant him credit for the course because of that. If it had been an elective course they may have accepted it for credit if there was a comparable course offered at RPI.</p>
<p>With any college or jr college course, transferring credit is never a sure thing and many colleges require pre-approval from the department and/or registrar for credit to be given.</p>
<p>Our son (a h.s. senior) has taken 11 or 12 junior college classes (and five APs) over the past 5 years, all transferable to the University of California or Cal State system. If he matriculates at Berkeley or Davis, he would start as a junior, or close to it. He took the classes on top of four years of a full high school schedule because he was interested in them, and the college is across the street from the high school. He received high school credit, not that he needed it. If he matriculates at Chicago, where he's been accepted EA, he will not receive credit for the college classes, just one or two of the APs. The ivies, should he get accepted, won't give him credit either. Not sure about GW. It's not going to be much of a factor for us because we went into the JC classes to keep him challenged and interested in school, not with the idea of saving money in the long run, although the $$ savings of the UC scenario does give us pause! </p>
<p>Just a side note, I'm sure that the macro-economics course he just finished at the JC in no way compares in rigor to the beginnning economics course at Chicago... he got an A in the class by listening to the lectures and taking tests, hardly cracked the expensive book we had to buy. This has been true for many of his JC classes. I keep warning him that "real" college is not going to be so easy.</p>
<p>His AP classes have been tougher...by far.</p>
<p>I actually have another take on college credit from talking to adcoms at Ivies.</p>
<p>The far prefer students to take APs, and of course, take the AP exam. It's true that they demand higher scores (Harvard will only accept scores of 5). They know the curriculum of AP courses and what it takes to achieve a 5 on the exam. They have no way of evaluating how good a course fom Podunk Community College is. The situation is different if a student from Princeton High takes a class at Princeton University, or if a student from the Boston area takes classes at Harvard, as many do. But, by and large, advanced high schoolers are more likely to take classes at their local community college or perhaps state U. That being said, taking college classes always impress adcoms as it is evidence that the student is pursuing the most challenging curriculum. Ideally, if the college class is an introductory level one, the student can take the appropriate AP exam in May.
One issue to consider is the impact of college classes on GPAs. My S has been taking college classes. His grades appear on his transcript but are not included in his GPA calculation. This is due to the school's policy of encouraging students to take college classes without fear that their grade point average would suffer. </p>
<p>If courses are taken to satisfy high school requirements, they will not be considered for college credit. That does not mean that students will have to repeat the course; they will be placed in appropriate classes (perhaps after a test to determine placement), but they will not receive credit toward graduation. This is true even if the courses are taken at the college where the student will eventually matriculate.
If a student has amassed too many college credits, s/he may considered as a transfer applicant, quite differently from an applicant for freshman status.</p>
<p>The UC system has developed a system for handling dual enrolment credits. My comments are more likely to apply to private, selective colleges.</p>
<p>The issue is of much more concern to us because our S is in a dual enrollment program at a state university where he gets high school credit for taking two years worth of college courses. He'll graduate with some where around 71 hours, most of them in tough, honors courses in math and the sciences. I don't mind that some of the courses he's had to take won't fit in the ciriculum of the university he's been accepted to, but there's still at least 33 hours that are a direct fit for the core ciriculum. </p>
<p>As with momof2inca's S, he was in the program to be challenged. I'm not sure how that helps if he's required to retake those same courses. Our expectation is that he'll get some credit directly and will be allowed to take higher level courses where he can demonstrate competence, though there's no AP equivalent for several of the courses he's taken. No matter what, it won't reduce his time in college; he's already laying out the additional courses he'd like to take.</p>
<p>Marite, the most interesting cases are those where the school doesn't really have a stated policy, just an indication they'll "consider" transfer hours. We're planning to bring the subject up when we visit with our school's faculty soon. We're fortunate that there have been at least a couple of students from my S's high school who've already attended the university and that they've taken to visit the school in the fall. I'm hoping that means they have enough familiarity with the courses being offered to make good decisions.</p>
<p>Strick11 notes,"One downside to this is that some of the more prestigious schools do not grant transfer credit for any course that was used to get high school credit. "</p>
<p>You may be correct as to the most selective ivy schools; however, I looked into this issue for CMU, RISD, Pratt, our local state university, and others. Most said that they would take the college credits as long as the courses were legitimate college courses taken at the college ( or the college professor visited the high school as part of a college institute). I also specifically asked if my daughter would get credit if this course also fulfilled a high school requirement. They all answered that credit would be given.</p>
<p>One of my daughter's best friends is enrolled in a special "college for high school students" program. She no longer takes any of her classes at our local public - she does all of her classes at the community college. After two years, she will receive both her high school diploma and an AS degree in general studies. The CC has special support and advising services for students enrolled in this program. It has worked out very well for daughter's friend, who was frustrated with the atmosphere at our local public and is a very self-motivated person. She will be applying as a transfer to the UC's next year and apparently the UC's have very little problem with taking students from this particular program. I am not sure if she is considering applying to any private schools as finances are a real issue for her.</p>
<p>The answer in this state is that there is a very formalized system </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mntransfer.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.mntransfer.org/</a> </p>
<p>for transferring credits from community colleges to the state comprehensive universities (former teacher colleges) and to the state flagship university. The answer I have received from regional information sessions of Ivy and similarly selective national private universities is as Marite has already related: previous credits do NOT count for graduation or for advanced standing, except as indicated by 5s on AP tests or comparably high scores on IB tests for advanced standing. But fulfilling the prerequisites for an interesting course can be demonstrated by a transcript from a previous college, thus four years at Ivy U. can be four years of taking very high-level courses rather than two years of taking introductory courses followed by two years of more challenging courses. </p>
<p>As Marite also mentioned, and this is confirmed in all books I have read on the subject, the best reason for an aspirant to a strong college program to take college-level courses while of high school age is to get academic challenge. Some HUGE percentage of applicants to the more selective colleges have a year or more of previous "college-level" credits from community colleges, distance learning programs, PSEO or Running Start programs, or whatever, and that kind of profile is getting to be almost necessary to be a competitive applicant to the most selective schools.</p>
<p>One of my friend did something like carolyn's daughter's best friend. During high school, I guess she started in 9th grade, she would take classes at community college, and was able to graduate high school in 3 years instead of 4, due to the extra credits, and graduate from a community college with her AA at the same time, and is now at Berkeley, I'm pretty sure she started as a Junior at Berkeley, seeing that she was able to finish her AA degree.</p>
<p>"The answer in this state is that there is a very formalized system"</p>
<p>We have something similar in Texas. It's online, too, so I know exactly what my S could transfer to UT Austin. It's more open to interpretation other places.</p>
<p>Taxguy, I'm seen what CMU says on their website. What I don't know is how that translates in to practice for particular course. Over the years I've known regular transfer students who had trouble transfering college credits; I assume that this kind of transfer is subject to the same issues.</p>
<p>Strick:
We need to distinguish between credit and placement. Credit counts toward graduation. Having x number of credits allows a student to graduate earlier if the college has a policy of granting Advanced Standing. Not all do. For example, my older S's LAC allowed only 2 APs to be used, and only to get out of some required courses provided that the student scored at least a B in a higher-level course in the same field. In other words, the college enforced a four-year residency rule.</p>
<p>In the cases where Advanced Standing is allowed and with which I am most familiar, colleges prefer APs to college courses because they are in a better position to evaluate the AP curriculum. They will not give credit for merely taking an AP class without the exam; some allow scores of 4, some only of 5, some allow a mixture of 4s and 5s depending on the subject.And different colleges award credit for some AP subjects but not others. A comparison between Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Williams and MIT revealed a total lack of consensus. </p>
<p>Whether or not a student has covered materials in an AP class or a college class,
I doubt very much that a student would be made to repeat a course. As I said, even when a student is not allowed credit, s/he is usually allowed to place into a higher level course. </p>
<p>Perhaps the starkest example of credit/placement I can offer is that of my S who has been admitted into Harvard. He already has 4 APs, all 5s, and that makes him eligible for Advanced Standing, Harvard having the most generous AS policy despite its emphasis on scores of 5s. He is currently taking two more APs. In addition, he has taken 8 courses at Harvard, and will take another one this coming spring. He will not be able to make use of any of these Harvard courses for credit. That does not mean that he will be asked to repeat Multivariable Calculus or Mechanics and Special Relativity. He will be required to take the same number of courses in his major as will students beginning at a somewhat lower level. He will most definitely be placed into higher level courses in math and physics, including graduate level courses. But the only way he could shorten the time to degree would be to make use of Advanced Standing, and that can be obtained only through APs. As far as I know, he has no plan to make use of AS, so he will graduate in 4 years with a slew of graduate level courses.</p>
<p>Thanks, Marite, we were sort of aware of the distinction, though, we weren't sure how different universities make it work in practice.</p>
<p>I am currently taking classes at a local JC but will probably switch to a state school in the spring. Some schools will take the credit earned through dual enrollment if it is not used to fulfill graduations req's. Some schools only consider them as part of the application which frustrating. But I will take more classes this summer if able to fulfill some core reqs b/c it's easier to get in an A in a college course than a 5 on the AP exam in the corresponding subject. If I am admitted to Brown I will probably take AP Exams for the courses I took through Dual Enrollment.</p>
<p>Apparently this does vary a lot from college to college. My son, a homeschooler who also attended public high school part-time, took several courses at the local community college. He ended up with around 40-45 credits. When he was accepted at Stanford, they awarded him credit for all courses except for taekwondo, which they don't offer. At first the engineering department was uncertain about awarding him credit toward an engineering major for the engineering courses he had taken, but after we sent them a course description with texts listed, they even granted that. (Our CC happened to use the same text as Stanford.)</p>
<p>He did not take the courses just for advanced standing or credit in college, but he was glad it worked out, as that has given him more time to take other courses, since these fulfilled some general requirements he would otherwise had needed to take at Stanford.</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Both of my children took a few courses at a local college. Son and daughter took 1 each during their junior and senior year, and daughter took one during the summer on Shakespeare which she particularly enjoyed. I'm not sure if the poster was wondering about "core" courses, but my children seemed to enjoy the courses more for the subject than for the potential credit. Neither one took intro courses, actually, and it worked out well. They didn't even bother with transfer credit. Not sure how much it helped in admissions though</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>But I will take more classes this summer if able to fulfill some core reqs b/c it's easier to get in an A in a college course than a 5 on the AP exam in the corresponding subject.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>I am sure that taking college courses can only help with admission. There may not be any hard and fast formula for taking college courses into account within a single college, however. </p>
<p>The quotation from berry986 above suggests one reason why colleges are leery of giving credit for college courses as opposed to APs. Real college courses should not be easier than AP courses. Even when the textbook is the same, the college course proceeds at a more rapid pace than a high school AP class. My S took a 2-semester introductory biology sequence in college, using the same text as was used in the high school AP-Bio class. But he had 92 hours of class time less than his classmates who took AP-Bio. The grading was far more rigorous than in the AP-class as well, but he got a 5 on the AP exam.</p>
<p>It seems to depend on school. My S had a dozen+ each CC and APs, so could have started state U as junior, another school would have eliminated one year, but his current school accepted nada. He placed out of intro class in one subject, but your level determined by their own tests.
All depends on where you go.</p>