<p>I would appreciate any advice with our unusual situation. My son is a high school sophomore, but he also has been admitted to the college as a freshman and in the fall he will attend college as a full time student. At the same time, he will not officially graduate from the high school until the end of the next year - his college classes will count to complete high school requirements. I believe this is called a dual enrollment. </p>
<p>I am wondering if he will be eligible to apply for the merit scholarships next year since technically he will be a high school senior. Has anybody encountered this situation before? Any word of advice?</p>
<p>I know with concurrent enrollment (1 or more classes at high school and the rest at our State University) the students are still considered freshmen when they start full time after graduating high school even if they have enough credits to be considered sophomores (and are therefore eligible for freshman scholarships). But if he is actually going to be considered a freshman this fall that may not be the case. You need to check with the college in question. If finances are an issue would it be worth considering him doing concurrent enrollment?</p>
<p>In my situation you are still enrolled in high school (even if you never set foot on the HS campus again until graduation) even though you are taking courses at the college. None of the college courses that you receive credit for counts as college credit if it used for graduation requirements at the high school. He is basically still in high school and should be able to apply for and qualify for all merit scholarships but ask your school counselor.</p>
<p>In our case the college classes will count for credit at college but they don't show them as credit until after the 1st semester of post high school graduation college.</p>
<p>same here...dual enrollment classes showed on high school transcript and credits were counted toward hs graduation. Upon completion of first semester of college as a full time college only student, dual enrollment credits were on the transcript as transfer credit and merit scholarship was given for that first semester of college as a full time college only (HS grad) student.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody for your answers. I will check with the university and high school to see how it works in our case. One question: do you know if there are any limitations when applying for the "external" scholarships, for example Siemens, Intel, etc?</p>
<p>When I did this, it was as an early acceptance admission, not dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment. While I did not offically graduate until the following year from my high school, I was a full time college student at the LAC, and I was considered a college freshman all the way around. I wasn't just "taking classes at the college." I applied as a freshman, got FA/merit aid as a freshman...I enrolled as a full time freshman, fully intending to spend four years there, so it never mattered re: transfering, status etc. On paper I graduated the following year from high school, once I had completed requirements during my freshman year at college. I graduated from the LAC as planned, and went on to med school. In my case, I was never really considered a high school senior....</p>
<p>Best to check not with the high school, but with the college as to his "status." If he is considered an early acceptance full time student, he is not a dual enrollment student. But if you do NOT want his status to be early acceptance, I am sure you can change this prior to classes starting. At the time, dual enrollment was not really looked upon as favorably as it is now, and my HS did not have AP, etc. So I just applied as a college freshman for full acceptance under an early acceptance status.</p>
<p>Hi Sunnyflorida. My son is in the same situation as you were. He was accepted under early admission. We do not qualify for financial aid and he wasn't offered merit scholarship by university. The tuition is $39,000, so it is a financial challenge for the family. We are trying to figure out if it makes sense for him not to officially graduate from high school this year hoping to pick up some merit scholarships along the way.</p>
<p>If he is accepted under early acceptance, he is considered to be enrolled in college and not dual enrolled. He would be a transfer student if he left, and I do not believe he would be considered a high school senior from the standpoint of many scholarships. This can be a fussy area from the scholarship standpoint, so there may be some outside scholarship programs who would consider him even after a year of college. But from the university's standpoint, he will be enrolling full time as a university student come fall. And that is important with regards to transferring. Under on official early acceptance/admission program, the universities and LAC's I am familiar with consider the student to be a full time college student and not dually enrolled.</p>
<p>this exact situation is why many parents and counselors do not advocate early graduation/early college. While the student may be perfectly capable of the college work -- and really be ready for the experience, that lack of a senior year really hurts when it comes to getting merit aid.</p>
<p>If money is going to be an issue -- consider just doing dual enrollment and not starting college. Once he officially starts college as a freshman, he is not eligible for many merit aid opportunities (especially those offered by the institutions -- and that is where the most money is).</p>