So, next year I am going to be a junior and I’m trying to figure out what courses I’m enrolling in so that I can take the appropriate tests if necessary. However, I’d like to know if anyone has any insight on Dual Enrollment courses and if they are harder or easier than their AP counterpart. Are English classes better to take in AP or DE? What about math/science? Is there anything I can do to improve my schedule? (All the colleges that I plan on applying to accept DE courses and AP credit at a 3 or higher. Also, AP and DE are both completely free and both are given a 5.0 weight out of a 4.0 grading scale at my school.)
Junior Year:
English Composition I (Dual Enrollment)(Semester 1) and English Composition II (DE)(S2)
Pre-Calculus Honors
AP Biology
American History Honors
AP Psychology
Spanish III Honors
Senior Year
Calculus I (DE)(S1) and Statistical Methods (DE)(S2)
American Government (DE)(S1) and AP Macroeconomics (S2)
Spanish IV Honors or AP Spanish
Anatomy and Physiology I (DE)(S1) and Anatomy and Physiology II (DE)(S2) free period free period
I’d also like to mention that I plan on becoming a pharmacist so any advice in that area would be helpful as well. Thanks!
Professional schools typically consider college courses taken while in high school as part of your college GPA when you apply to them, even though the college you later attend will typically not include them in their own GPA that they calculate for you. This can be good or bad, depending on what grades you earn (good if you earn A grades, perhaps not so good with lower grades).
Whether they are harder or easier than AP courses at your high school (if the same course is offered in both forms) depends on your high school and college that the courses are offered through.
If the class you want is already available through AP at your school, I would just take that. Look to dual enrollment if you want to take something that doesn’t exist as an AP class (or that your school doesn’t have).
Almost all the classes I’m taking this year are dual-enrollment. I wouldn’t say either one is harder than the other. I prefer DE classes because your transfer eligibility isn’t dependent on one test. I’d recommend English or Math, but not science. At my school, they heavily discourage us from taking most of the science classes because of how hard they are. Check with your school and guidance counselor about that. For math classes at my college, you have to take a placement test, but the class I took wasn’t all that hard. My English class is a lot more writing than high school English classes. I think your schedule looks fine. You don’t want to have too much of a workload when you take DE classes.
I would take AP classes where possible. They are more standardized so the college knows if they can accept credit (if you do well on AP test). Also, they are at your school so it is more convenient. DE classes may be included on your college GPA so you need to do well.
I woudl suggest DE when they have classes (such as multi-variable calculus) that your school doesn’t have. Some people have more financial contstraints and want to get as many college credits they can for free…but usually they are planning to go to a state college where they easily transfer.