My daughter is an upcoming senior. She does full time dual enrollment classes at a local community college through her high school and does not take any high school classes. She did this junior year and will again her senior year. I believe they register for spring semester classes around Thanksgiving so she will not know for sure what she is taking in the spring when completing her college applications (most likely finishing common app by Labor Day then just needing teacher recommendations to arrive). Of course depending on schools she may have supplements to work on as well.
Assuming colleges review her applications before she has a spring schedule how does that affect her application process? I will see if dd will ask her high school guidance counselor but she may not get the answer until after school starts. Has anyone familiar with applying as a high school student with all dual enrollment? I know both the high school and college will need to send transcripts but classes that haven’t been registered for yet obviously won’t appear on a transcript.
It doesn’t. Since the course catalog for the entire year should be finalized, she should have an idea of what classes she plans to take, knowing what she cannot take because it is not offered or has a time conflict. So the only issue should be being closed out of a class.
Regardless, on the college applications that are due post-Thanksgiving, it’s not an issue. For the ones due pre-Thanksgiving, she lists her planned classes. If the classes change post-registration, she just sends an email to the college saying that her classes have been revised for XYZ reasons. Colleges hate surprises, so as long as she communicates any updates, it’s unlikely they will have an issue.
Either way the secondary school report will be sent by your high school. The GC / college advisor will state what your daughter is taking. In addition s/he will send a copy of the school profile which will talk to how courses are programmed at your school.
@skieurope What school do you go to where they give up the entire year’s course catoluge (incliding times and stuff) in the fall? Sounds nice.
OP: I’m in the same exact situation as your daughter and I’m just including a note in the additional info of the common app explaining the situation and saying I’ll let you know if there’s any changes.
@skieurope schedules are only out for 1 term at a time here and come out close to registration time. You might know what courses the college offers but there is no way to know what will be offered what semesters. Yes you can make an educated guess but there is no way to know about time conflicts ahead of time. So far she hasn’t been closed out of any classes so hopefully that part is good.
@snowfairy137 that sounds like a good idea to list it on the common app. Does your high school send over your college transcript or do you have to pay to have it sent to each school? I’m guessing I’ll have to pay for it to be sent directly from the college to each school. DD’s high school transcript say junior year dual enrollment history and the grade but does not say history is World Civiilization from 1500. It is obvious that she took dual enrollment classes but not where and what.
My son took college courses from several colleges while in high school. His high school transcript showed only the name of the college and the course number. You can’t expect adcoms to look up what Math 160 is at a particular college. So, he sent all the transcripts to all the colleges he applied to. It was expensive, but necessary.
He also listed the courses he hoped to take and included a note in the Additional Info section that the courses were uncertain until he could register. (Senior year he was taking classes at a quarter-based UC and couldn’t officially register until the first day of classes, so had 2 quarters to guess at on his applications.)
@momtogirls2 Advice is still the same. Make the best guess. As mentioned above, she can explain further in the additional info section. And as I said earlier, update the college with actuals once finalized.
@snowfairy137 It’s hardly unique. You may have different experiences of course.
I’m not exactly sure what my transcript shows. Something on PowerSchool says “Dual Enrollment English 12A” and something else (in a different spot) says ENGL201 College Composition for the same class. I’ll take a look once school starts but I think I have to send in the college transcripts regardless because of college policy. What’s nice is the college transcript will show my fall schedule now while my high school transcript will only show that at the end of the December or so.
Curious why she intends to apply around Labor Day. Rolling admissions? We know very little about strengths, interests, or targets, to know how much this even matters.
I agree with looking forward, unless she is applying rolling admissions, there is really no point in applying around labor day. If she is applying EA or somewhere with a scholarship deadline, the more accurate information, she can provide, the better.
Minimally, they should talk to the guidance counselor to see if the college transcript can be uploaded with the regular high school transcript. They should give the GC an official transcript, this way the GC can certify it as a copy of the original transcript-Original on file.
Regular non rolling admissions are usually not reviewed until after the end of the first semester (usually beginning mid February, giving her plenty of time for the spring semester courses to be listed on the SSR.
In some cases, initial RD review can start as ED notices go out.
Thing is, what would matter is completing what the target college recommends- eg, that last year of lab sci or the breadth in history. And maintaining rigor. You can’t project some serious cores and replace them with fluff. But it’s not a show stopper that, eg, you’re thinking of XXX in econ and end up with YYY. They’re likely par (or should be.)
Ime, most high schools that allow for DE do include those transcripts in their own (or what they mail.) Yes, OP should check. And yes, if the course is coded mysteriously, use Addl Info to translate. The GC can attest to that.
DD’s goal is to have her part of the applications done by Labor Day though ultimately it will be up to the guidance department and her recommendations as to when the application is fully done. If it takes longer it isn’t a big deal. She figures it will be harder to do a lot after Labor Day when her classes start. . We have an ELA teacher who dd had for 7&8th grade who is now retired and will happily review essays etc which has nothing to do with the school.
I know dd isn’t doing any binding early applications. Some schools though have strongly encouraged early applications no later then end of October. At least one but maybe two will also waive the application fees if you apply by x date which for one is October 31st. There are 500 kids for 4 guidance counselors so dd wants to be done before it gets too busy. I think there is a mix of rolling admissions and traditional schools. If it makes any difference just about all of the colleges if not all will be in New England since we live in Massachusetts (she may apply to Hunter in NYC)
If I were a college admissions officer I would want to know more than what the high school transcript lists for college classes it has the name of the college then says language, math, business etc but nothing beyond that. For instance language does not say what language nor does it say what level or have a number to indicate level. I guess I should look up the cost of getting those transcripts to add to the application fees and SAT fees.
@bopper Thanks that is a good idea. I’ll mention it to her and hopefully she still has them all. So far I think she has taken classes that are fairly common at many colleges.
Second keeping the college transcripts… What I’m doing is finding most of them on the class website and scanning the rest, titleing them with the class name, and keeping them all in a folder on my laptop (backed up on the cloud!!)
make sure to print them out or save to a file even if they are on the website now. Do this even if they are a common class…if you want to get credit for it, a college may need the info.