<p>My school is an early college school therefore Junior and Senior year I would be taking all college courses and no high school courses. My school said that I would still be able to take AP exams at the end of the year if I pleased. I wanted to know if taking college courses full time rather than AP courses would hurt my chances? Oh and upon high school graduation I would receive an Associate's Degree</p>
<p>I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure if you apply with an Associate’s Degree you’d be considered a transfer student, which would lower your chances considerably since they accept like 12 a year or something. This would be a question to ask both your school guidance counselor and the Harvard admissions office.</p>
<p>Definitely check out what Dwight is saying. When you get into taking too many university courses you can cross a line that will make the admissions process nearly impossible. </p>
<p>A friend and I both finished all courses required for graduation at our high school by the end of junior year. I was planning to take some electives at the high school and a full schedule at the local U, while he was actually planning to get a diploma and take a full year at the local U. When he contacted H about that, they said he would DEFINITELY be considered a transfer applicant. I, however, would not. In this situation the distinction seemed to be that I would not be attending as a high school graduate, and he would. Since I assume you will not be a high school graduate until after you earn your associate’s degree, I would normally say that you are safe, but the fact that you are a degree candidate at your institute of higher learning (which neither I or my friend were) adds complexity to the situation. </p>
<p>However, I have heard of high schools doing this before, and I’ve heard of students on CC applying to schools through regular admissions after having received an associate’s degree from similar programs. My guess is that until you have a high school diploma in hand, you are simply a HS student who happens to be earning an associate’s and would probably not be considered a transfer applicant. But you can never be too certain, and, as Dwight said I would contact admissions.</p>
<p>From the transfer app website:</p>
<p>“Students who have completed one full-time year of college in a regular degree program in lieu of their senior year of high school (under an early admission plan) should contact the Admissions Office before submitting an application.”</p>
<p>Of the listed scenarios, this seemed to best fit your situation. Perhaps they decide on a case by case bases. At any rate, the consensus seems to be get with admissions! Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone, after reading this i’m probably going to just turn down the offer and take AP courses…
Thanks again!</p>
<p>WhartonDream, please please please do dual enrollment. I am Harvard Class of 2015, and I was in the exact same situation you were in. I decided on doing dual enrollement, which means that I graduated last week with my high school diploma and next week with my AA. Harvard doesn’t look at you as a transfer, you are just an incoming freshman. I would say dual inenrollment very much INCREASED my chances, because it set me apart from the thousands who just do AP classes. I didn’t contact admissions, I just applied and made sure to indicate I was an incoming freshman on the application. The common app asks if you have done any college classes in high school, so I just wrote my “running start” classes in there and made sure to send a transcript from the college as well as the high school. There was no problem at all.
So, do it. ;)</p>
<p>I attended an Exploring College Options seminar presented by admissions officers from Harvard and four other top universities. Someone asked this question during the Q&A session and the response was essentially “Don’t do dual enrollment unless you have sucked your HS dry. We’d much rather see you maximize your utilization of and involvement at your HS”. I believe this response was from the Harvard representative and it appeared to be the unanimous opinion of all five representatives.</p>
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<p>No! No “after reading this.” All we can do is speculate on this forum. Ask Harvard and they’ll give you real advice.</p>
<p>Thanks for giving your take on it…this is such a hard decision lol…I emailed Harvard yesterday hopefully I receive a reply soon.</p>
<p>My two Ds both completed 30-40 hours of joint enrollment in HS because their HS offered few APs. They cited their joint enrollment as evidence of their effort to add to the limited challenge available at their HS and they both got into Harvard.</p>
<p>Dual enrollment increases your chances. You won’t be considered a transfer unless if you submit a transfer app :).</p>