<p>Hey people, I'm planning on taking a community college course this year. I'm just wondering if you can give me some solid input on the benefits of doing this and what courses I should take.</p>
<p>Benefits I know:
1. Increases GPA
2. Increases Course Rigor
3. Less expensive
4. College experience
5. This is the one I'm confused about: COLLEGE CREDITS: I know the UC's have agreements and accept accredited ones, but privates do not accpet a lot of them if they are involved with one's major studies.</p>
<p>What CC classes should I take? Popular ones are psychology, sociology, philospohy, etc, but why? it it beacause they count as credits for all colleges because they can be grouped into the elective and gen. ed requirements for a degree? Also, how many elective courses like these do colleges generally require for bacherlor degrees? Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Wow, kind of annoying, but I’m allowing myself to be sucked in anyways. You seem to understand how it works for publics, but not privates. And that’s because every private will treat dual enrollment differently. At my HS, dual enrollment was only offered in AP/IB classes. I never paid for it, because I figured I’d just take the AP test and get credit that way.</p>
<p>As far as how universities treat your credit: most the time it doesn’t seem to matter. Brown doesn’t care about dual enrollment, and won’t give you credit for taking the class without AP test grades. And even then, there are very few classes you can actually get credit in (mostly, Intro Calc I and II (Calc AB and BC)). The only thing APs help you in really is placement so you don’t have to take as many classes in your track (only APs I think that do this though are US Hist or Gov, Econ Macro/Micro, Computer Science, Calc AB/BC, and foreign languages. Oh, and maybe the sciences). Dual Enrollment can also allow you to place into higher classes, if you believe you’re ready for those classes, but you won’t get credit for your dual enrollment class.</p>
<p>Adding to what chsowlflax17 said, taking CC classes really only helps you get into colleges. It doesn’t help you much afterward. Some public schools in my state will take CC credit, but credits go into elective regardless of what course was actually taken. Private schools don’t like to give out credit for CC classes. The college I’m going to didn’t even take AP or Stanford U credits.</p>
<p>My state CC system has a credit-transfer agreement with our public U’s (and some have admission agreements too).</p>
<p>I’m taking DE Gov (PLS 211 and PLS 212), which will count as six credits at my top two choices. </p>
<p>Anyway, to truly know what each college accepts and doesn’t accept, I would recommend looking up their websites and seeing if they have the info about transfer credits. </p>
<p>Every college (especially private colleges) does things differently.</p>
<p>When you say “credits go into electives regardless of the subjects,” I understand that, but how many elective credits do bachelor’s degrees generally require? It’s obviously better to get credit in electives compared to nothing. Thanks a lot for the answer too.</p>
<p>Aryus, you need to check with each college you’re interested in. My daughter had the opportunity to take dual credit classes and we decided it was a worthless option for her because NONE of her colleges accept dual-credit classes for actual credit – except the college sponsoring the classes. I did a significant amount of research on the issue and found that almost no colleges (except the sponsoring) will accept any “college” classes that are used for the high school GPA.</p>
<p>Depending on the CC and the course, it may not increase course rigor. Sometimes the AP classes are a lot more difficult than the CC course. You will have to check with each college to see what their rules are about accepting dual credit classes. Many private colleges and many top colleges will not give any credit or placement for dual credit classes.</p>
<p>Some public schools in my state will take CC credit, but credits go into elective regardless of what course was actually taken. >></p>
<p>Are you talking about WA (I see the Seattle reference in your location)? DD took dual enrollment classes there and they counted for the GRE requirements for each subject, ie. English, math, social studies, etc. at her WA state school. I don’t think any of hers counted as elective. </p>
<p>Or do you mean public high schools counting them as electives? Hers didn’t do that either.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t live in WA, that would be Vickyt09. I always thought the gen. ed (IGETC) requirements WERE elective credits, and that’s is what the CC courses would go into, the “fluff” classes. I know most colelges do not accept core class replacements, but I’m sure most of them accept CC credits for the “fluff” electives.</p>
<p>My main questions is: how many “fluff” or elective classes to universities generally require one to take for a bachelor’s degree? (most students take care of them in their first year…?)</p>
<p>Hmmm… zoosermom, I was looking at University of Penn for an example on their credit requirments, but I couldn’t find anything… Could you possibly give me a link? Thanks a lot for your contribution.</p>
<p>It really differs depending on school and major. My state school requires a minimum of 180 credits. To complete a major also requires about 180, so it seems ‘free’ elective credits are not required. My school (Caltech) requires 255 credits to graduate. It’s about 150-200 credits to major, leaving about 55-105 ‘free’ elective credits. To find out how many credits one needs to graduate, visit the university’s Registrar page. There should be information about how many credits are required for each major. Also, keep in mind that 6 credits from a community college might only be worth 3 credits at a university.</p>
<p>After doing some more research, I found out I was wrong about the numbers for Caltech. It’s like this:</p>
<p>I’m going to major in mechanical engineering. </p>
<p>To graduate: ~471 credits </p>
<p>(^take note, it’s a lot more than most colleges. my state college only requires 180. of course, credits work differently. for caltech, one credit is about one hour of work either in lecture, hw, or lab)</p>
<p>255 credits from core requirements
180 credits major specific (mechE)
36 ‘free’ credits</p>
<p>Core requirements:
5 quarters of math
5 quarters of physics
2 quarters of chem
1 quarters of bio
2 quarters of lab
2 quarters of science writing
2 quarters of intro social science
2 quarters of advanced social science
2 quarters of advanced hum
2 quarters of hum or social science
3 quarters of pe</p>
<p>As you can see, hum and social science are considered ‘core’, but art and foreign language are not. Free credits are like art, music, foreign language, additional classes in core subject areas, etc.</p>
<p>a lab course is typically 3 credits (per quarter)
lower level core classes are 6
upper level core and major specific are 9</p>