<p>I'm on a committee for our High School and we're talking about many ways to improve our school. One of the things we're looking into is offering more dual enrollment classes. Right now we have 17 DE classes and all are taught either virtually or by teachers that also teach at the local CC and teach the same class at the HS. There are a mixture of classes ranging from Computer programming (C++) to Intro to Astronomy. I'd love to hear any comments about how this is done at your school and if you think DE classes are as rigorous as AP classes and how transferable you think the credits are.</p>
<p>My guess is that some classes transfer more readily then others and probably not so much to more competitive Colleges. </p>
<p>All of the classes have some sort of prerequisite and the grade is not weighted, but does count for the GPA.</p>
<p>At our HS, there are dual enrollment classes taken at a local CC. There are also on-site classes that are taught by the high school teachers, but the kids take the midterm and final of the corresponding college class and get credit from whichever college the agreement was made with for that class. My S signed up for 3 of these for next year, and I know there is an additional charge if they want to get the college credit. I have no idea how well the credits will transfer; they should be good for state schools at least. I have been told these on-site classes are weighted like an AP.</p>
<p>I’ve took dual enrollment classes both at my high school and at a community college as my state (WA) pays for dual enrollment if it’s at a community college, but not if it’s in the high school . Apart from paying a fee and filling out an application for the community college, the courses offered in the high school were treated the same as any high school class and taught by high school teachers. Many of these courses were also AP classes, so they were equal in difficulty to AP classes. If anything, don’t penalize students for taking dual enrollment classes. IMHO, they should be considered the same as AP courses.</p>
<p>To me the biggest issue with dual enrollment courses is credit transferability. Up to a certain amount, AP credits are easier to transfer to colleges. I ran into difficulty as I almost had enough credits for an associate degree and applied to schools that would accept most of my credits. The list of possible AP courses is short, however, when compared to those that could be offered as dual enrollment.</p>
<p>Overall, it seems like schools tend to offer more AP’s in lieu of more dual enrollment courses. Offering more dual enrollment courses is a good idea to improve the academic caliber of your hs, but I would also allow students to take courses at the CC itself if such is viable (they can provide their own transportation to/from the CC).</p>
<p>I took dual enrollment classes from both a local community college and from a private university. All of the classes I took were in the high school during normal school hours. I ended up with 18 college credits that transferred to a OOS state school (regional) and 4 that did not. The 18 that transferred were considered to be honors classes. At least 12 of them were AP level classes and we were eligible to take the AP test for them. I do not think many actually took the AP test. </p>
<p>The community college classes did not cost me any money other than buying the books. The private school (SLU) I think we paid something like $50/credit hour. </p>
<p>Our high school offerred a couple other community college classes, but they were taught before school and you had to pay tuition for them.</p>
<p>Our HS offered “concurrent enrollment” with our local CC. It was new, so they were finding their way. The classes were taught by the HS faculty (approved by the CC) during the regular day - if you didn’t sign up for the credit for the class from the CC, you were still taking the same HS class. Many of the AP classes counted as well as the 4th year of a language. To get the college credit, you had to pay the CC $100 per class. I didn’t understand why I would want to do that for an AP class for which the student would take the AP exam and normally get college credit anyway (at least at the schools we were looking at). And although we were assured by the CC VPAA that ALL colleges would accept this as college credit, I was skeptical. Why would a college accept a course for college credit that was part of the normal HS curriculum? So we opted to save our $100.</p>
<p>Turns out, we were right. The college that S chose would not accept those credits as college credits (S found out from others who paid for the concurrent enrollment and attend the same college as he does).</p>
<p>When I was researching colleges for my D, I found that almost none (except the credit-granting institution) will accept any college courses taken as part of the high school GPA.</p>
<p>My D’s high school offers dual enrollment classes and I think they’re a waste of time and effort when AP classes are available.</p>
<p>She took a semester of straight-up college classes at the local CUNY on a scholarship for people with certain SAT scores. All her colleges will take some of the classes and some will take all.</p>
<p>My kids enjoyed there classes at the CC while they were in highschool. Most of the credits did not transfer but they did not take the courses or earn the AS to transfer. It is not a waste if they are taking these classes for enjoyment. My kids took these classes in conjuction with there AP classes in their highschool. It was a great experience for them and they enjoyed being on the CC campus with all types of students. They even tutored “moms” when they were 14 and 15.</p>
<p>For those of you that had students that took DE classes and are now attending (or graduated) college, how many of the DE credits actually transferred? </p>
<p>Are DE classes weighted at your school? At our HS they are unweighted even though we do weight AP and honors classes.</p>
<p>No weighting at our HS so I can’t answer that one.</p>
<p>A handful of our AP classes are also eligible for credit from a local LAC. The LAC faculty provides curriculum guidance and teacher training. Instead of paying for her to take the AP test, we paid over $100 for the college credit, assuming that credit from this top 20 LAC would transfer just about anywhere. Wrong - D’s university explicitly does not offer credit for classes taught in the HS by HS teachers, no matter how demanding the curriculum. In hindsight, she should have taken the AP test for the class - she would have had a better chance of getting college credit that way.</p>
<p>I had three semester-classes transfer in to fulfill requirements. I took College English for two semesters and that took care of my composition classes. I took American History I and II. American History I fulfilled a requirement; II transferred in as an elective. I also took Political Science classes (2) but they transferred in as electives. This means that I am actually only two classes away from a minor in political science. </p>
<p>I had two other classes (4 credits total) that did not transfer. They were web-design classes that I took for fun. They didn’t cost me anything so no big deal.</p>
<p>My experience with my kids was that dual enrollment was not nearly as rigorous as AP classes. This was well known to the students and faculty, but administration chose to weight dual credit classes the same as AP classes. You can see the loophole here. Kids who wanted to go to the state flagship or other in state schools would take dual credit instead of AP if both were offered. For example given a choice between dual credit english and AP english, take the dual credit. It’s an easy A and will transfer to the state school and will bump up your grade, GPA and class rank. Laugh at the kids taking AP english. The kids wanting to go out of state felt like they had to take AP if there was a choice between dual credit and AP, because the AP is more rigorous and colleges do question why you took dual credit when an AP was available.</p>
<p>My kid only took dual credit courses that were electives and were not offered as AP classes. All dual credit was offered by a community college and taught at the high school by community college profs. None of the dual credit transferred (we didn’t expect it to). Of the two dual credit classes that my kid took the same subject in college, he said that one of the dual credit classes covered in a semester what was covered in 3 weeks at his university and the other was totally useless. So, In general, I’m not a fan of dual credit as I know it because I think AP is a lot more rigorous. </p>
<p>However, if you’re looking into it at your school, I think you should do a realistic look at the rigor of the dual credit compared to other available classes and weight it appropriately or not at all since the costs involved may prevent some students from taking it. Dual credit classes will probably only transfer to in state publics.</p>
<p>Our high school offers dual enrollment classes taught at the high school by high school teachers but through either the local CC or a nearby SUNY 4-year college. If you pay for them you can earn college credit, while your grade counts toward your high school GPA. </p>
<p>Our school also offers several AP courses, although the CC has been lobbying hard in recent years to dump AP in favor of dual enrollment. The main selling point is that you can earn college credit by passing the class, whereas you can only earn credit for AP courses if you receive a 3,4 or 5 on the corresponding exam.</p>
<p>Frankly, I find the hard pitch by the CC and SUNY intentionally misleading because in reality few colleges outside of NYS CCs and the SUNY system accept the credits. And over the years I have found that only one of the dual credit courses to be equal in rigor to the better AP courses (not all APs are created equal either, of course). The Level 4 and 5 foreign language courses are particularly bad, IMO, as they rarely prepare students to pass a basic competentcy test at non-SUNY schools. I do not universally admire the AP program, but I do believe it is a superior program to the dual enrollment alternative, at least in our community. Since most of our HS grads go to the local CC I doubt my opinion is a majority one, however.</p>
<p>I had a class that we were eligible to take the AP test afterward that was the same way. We covered the same amount of material in 2 full semesters as what would have been covered in about 2/3 of a semester at most universities. We did not even cover all the material that were were supposed to cover in the fall semester over the two semesters!</p>
<p>Ah, just checked our HS’s current course catalog and I see that they are not guaranteeing that the credit will be accepted by other colleges:</p>
<p>“Please note that students will only receive credit through the CC and are not guaranteed that another educational institution will accept these credits.”</p>
<p>Plus the fee has gone up to $125/course. Since they are also HS courses, I assume they are weighted as the HS course. For example, AP Bio with the concurrent enrollment would still be weighted as an AP class.</p>
<p>Funny… after I mentioned to the principal and guidance counselors that my D’s DE credits didn’t transfer and after they told me that had never happened before, language like the above suddenly appeared in the course descriptions and in the counselors’ scheduling presentations to parents. </p>
<p>kathie - my kids’ high school was pretty small and we had dual enrollement that was just getting going when my kids’ graduated.
Ours are dual with RACC. Some schools in our county also dual enrolled with Penn State Berks.
There are pros and cons - the cons being mainly financial. Tuition at RACC is now $110/credit and it cost me $440 for my daughter to dual enroll Calc I. I had the money and paid it and for her it worked out - she transferred those credits from RACC to her college in MD.
For her it was a better deal than AP since she would have had to take the AP test to get credit. Financially, many kids can’t afford it - our school district pays for AP Tests but not dual enrollment.
The school did get a grant, but the money didn’t come until spring - long after the bill was paid. Her grade in the course is her grade on her RACC transcript. The course was taught by her high school teacher.
Nearly all our teachers have master’s degrees anyway so getting them qualified through RACC to teach was not a big deal. They did work with RACC to marry the curriculum.</p>
<p>As far as transferring goes - most of our kids go to college in PA so it’s not an issue. A classmate went to U Penn and all his dual enrollment courses transferred with no problem. He actually did better with dual enrollment than AP.</p>
<p>I am not sure exactly where you are or which college you will dual enroll - Northhampton CC?
Many of the CC’s in PA have fantastic artiulation agreements with a lot of colleges.</p>
<p>Weighting - our DE courses are weighted the same as an AP course. We don’t weight honors courses.</p>
<p>At my daughter’s high school located on the campus of a community college, students can take dual enrollment classes alongside the “regular” CC students. The state legislature observed some state schools wanting to play the “we’re not accepting your double-secret special-case credits” game and legislated that all state-supported schools <em>would</em> accept the CC credits the same as if the students were high school graduates, which only makes sense as they’re the same classes. Some out-of-state private colleges decline to accept the credits, which is quite the sham, as these same four-year schools <em>do</em> accept the credits from the same two-year schools if the student was a high school graduate at the time - the CC hasn’t changed and the accreditation of the CC hasn’t changed and the course content hasn’t changed, yet some privates want to treat the class as non-credited … pretty weak argument it seems.</p>
<p>Like Zoosermom I found that none of the schools DD applied to would accept dual enrollment credits IF they fulfilled high school requirements (which is I suppose akin to being “taken as a part of the high school gpa.”) Because this was only the case for one of DD’s 6 dual enrollment classes she was able to transfer most of her DE credits. So, it really is case dependent. DD, for instance, had taken three honors high school classes as an 8th grader and had exhausted the math curriculum at our high school (which does not offer AP Calc BC) by the time she finished Junior year. Since she was making the trip, and had taken all but one required high school class, she was able to take classes simply because she was interested in them and get college credit. She got a lot more out of “Modern Social Problems” than she would have by filling in her schedule with whatever AP she had not yet taken at her high school. At her high school, however, the college grades were not included on her transcript or figured into her gpa, which kind of hurt her as far as gpa and class rank went (weighted AP’s with the same grades would have been quite a boost), but also insulated her from the possibility of being penalized for non-A’s in some pretty rigorous classes, since the grades were not weighted (half of which were taken at a third tier university, half of which were taken at a CC). The classes she took at the university were definitely as rigorous as AP’s as were the statistics and philosophy classes she took at the CC. The studio art class at the CC, I’m not sure; she did produce a lot. None of her DE classes were the sort that are taught by high school teachers at the high school; DD actually traveled to the colleges for her DE classes.</p>
<p>DS is currently taking one class at his high school that he will get reportedly get college credit for, but he is not enrolled at the institution conferring the credit (I never saw any paperwork. <strong><em>shrugs</em></strong>), so I don’t know how that will work. The grade for that class is not weighted but is on his transcript. I never really considered this arrangement dual enrollment, but if he’s getting college credit I guess it is (?). DD was actually enrolled at both the colleges (filled out enrollment papers and such and the HS paid her tuition) and her high school simultaneously (hence the term “dual enrollment”)…maybe that’s the difference?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for posting. It had not occurred to me that the reason that some dual enrollment classes wouldn’t be counted towards college is because they also fulfill a graduation requirement, but that makes sense.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make sense at all - that’s why they’re called dual enrollment - you’re completing a college class that is (supposedly) at a senior level to high school, while still enrolled in high school. A sufficient result in the college class should indeed count towards college credit and towards high school credit - after all there is no requirement to attend high school in many states - you can simply take a GED exam. Degrees are supposed to designate a certain level of learning has occurred - not be a square filling exercise, which is what occurs by requiring a class to count towards only one of high school vs college.</p>