<p>SteveMA - yes, you definitely have to check the policy of the individual school. Even state schools vary regarding what they’ll take and what they won’t. And it also varies depending upon major.</p>
<p>My D’s school offers AP & dual credit for the same classes. In looking at colleges, many will not take dual credits that are required courses for high school graduation or are taught by a high teacher even if they are teaching for a college. I was shocked how many schools will not take dual credit. For us AP was the best option.</p>
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<p>While calculus BC taught in one year is equivalent to a year long college course, many other AP courses are typically full year high school courses covering what a semester long college course covers (or less), such as calculus AB, calculus BC taught over two years, chemistry, environmental science, statistics, human geography, psychology, computer science A, economics (either one), US government.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a dual enrollment course, if it is a true college course, will cover a semester’s worth of material in a semester.</p>
<p>Murmur and Consolation - you two bring up some good points - I guess that’s why I see the focus on AP here.</p>
<p>I’m not sure it really applies at our high school though. Maybe folks are just trying to keep their options open (ivy/private vs. state public), and they figure that AP is the safer route.</p>
<p>Wow Steve, your high school is amazing! 8 kids got into Harvard? Just wow!</p>
<p>In our neighborhood, no one has heard of any of these schools-well, maybe some of the people have heard of Harvard but no one has heard of MIT, where my son is currently a freshman.</p>
<p>Kids around here mostly don’t go to college…or they go to the local CC for a while and drop out…or they might start at the local state univ. if they were the top students in school. The local high school’s SAT average for all three sections is between 1270-1300.</p>
<p>For my son, we homeschooled/dual-enrolled for the last 5 1/2 years of his education. But he also took six AP exams, most of them corresponding with his college classes with the exception being AP Literature.</p>
<p>He was able to transfer in Calc II, Calc III, Linear Algebra, and Dif. Equations from the community college. </p>
<p>Since I didn’t know if he’d be able to transfer anything, I had him take the APs for Calc B/C, Stats (kind of useless), and Physics (useless for MIT unless you get 5s on both C exams, and my son took them as a freshman and got one 5 and one 4). </p>
<p>So, the only AP that was useful for him was his Calc B/C.</p>
<p>My advice for AP takers - get 5s on everything. :-)</p>
<p>ucbalumnus:</p>
<p>Hmmm…I guess our HS makes the AP more equivalent to the actual semester value of the college counterpart.</p>
<p>For example: AP Chemistry is taught over 1 year, and is the equiv. of Chem I & II.
Economics is taught in one semester, and is the equiv. of Econ 2301.</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo–yep, we are pretty lucky. We live in a pretty down to earth area where education is a BIG deal. Heck, I was talking to some parents the other day and we were talking about another parent, whom I knew was a doctor but just assumed he was a GP–nope, he is a neurosurgeon. Talked to another parent, discussing college plans, mentioned DD was thinking about med school and wants to be an OB/GYN. She said have her give me a call and I will take her on rounds—um, ok, I thought you were a SAHM–oops. Again, education is a BIG deal here, but looking on the outside, you probably wouldn’t guess that.</p>
<p>cromette–same here. Looking at the transfer credits at the flagship, our AP classes cover 2 semesters if they are full year classes. Same with our DE classes, full year classes are 2 semesters of classes (or 4 quarters if you attend one of the state schools that uses quarters).</p>
<p>LOL! I think our definitions of down to earth are colored by where we live. 
My son’s friends from the math circle used to tease him that he was from “the other side of the tracks”. But all seven of the kids from the math circle at MIT are good friends, and in the end, it didn’t matter where my son came from. We made dual-enrollment/AP exams and everything else work just fine. :-)</p>
<p>Both S’ AP and dual enrollment courses were accepted by his (private 4 year) U. He basically knocked out a semester of gen ed requirements.</p>
<p>Our HS offers duals with our local CC (which shares a campus with our directional 4 year state U, a flagship feeder if you earn the min gpa for auto-transfer). They can also take courses at two local “top 50” LACs, for a fee.</p>
<p>I feel like not too many students take advantage of the 2 LAC options, since both require going to those campuses maybe. The dual with the CC/directionals are pretty popular, taught by a college prof but at the HS.</p>
<p>My son’s high school required that he always take 7 classes at the school; any college classes were in addition to that. So taking APs at the school was less total work, since you then had to take a smaller number of classes.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum - did they not offer any dual classes at the HS? And did they have to take 7 even their senior year?</p>
<p>Man, that would NOT have worked for my D’s. They would not have been able to continue their extra-curriculars AND take all AP academics. Schedule wise, it just would not have worked.</p>
<p>AP courses, if one gets a 4 or a 5 are more universally accepted at selective four year schools. It’s also usually logistically easier to take AP courses offered at your high school and allows the student to spend the day there rather than running off to a college course and then running back to the high school for extra curriculars. There are exceptions, of course, with some DE courses taught so close to the high school and integrated with the high school’s schedule, and some students who are just as happy to get away from the high school. For my kids, the DE at our local SUNY or CC would have been a logistical and time problem as they were all heavily involved in high school activities. </p>
<p>All DE programs are not the same, and the variance is greater than that of the AP courses which are set up to cover a standard core of material. If you are lucky enough to be in a DE program with a college taking those courses that are truly first year college equivalents at selective schools, that’s great. But otherwise the risk is there, even if it is a flagship school or 4 year college, that the course is not equivalent. Harvard will take APs and allow students to go into an accelerated track but as a rule will not accept DE courses. Many colleges will examine the course description and compare it to what they have and unless they can find an equivalence will not do give credit. There is a difference between attending a regular college class as a high school student and DE courses set up for high schoolers at many schools. It all comes down to what is available to your kids and where they are interested in applying and how those schools view DE and APs.</p>
<p>D2 chose not to take any dual enrollment classes because our HS has the best teachers in each dept. in charge of the AP classes. There’s no way that a CC class in English, Biology, Chemistry etc. could beat what our HS AP teachers do. There’s a few kids who take Dual Enrollment in English, Calc, etc. but it’s generally 1st born’s in a family who haven’t experienced those HS teachers yet. Anecdotally, the kids in the AP classes are engaged with a very motivated teacher who expects a lot out of the students especially compared to the classroom experience at the CC. We have pretty high AP pass rates so college credit will probably be given as well.</p>
<p>So surprised to hear that colleges y’all are looking at don’t give AP credit. Of the schools on D2’s list the chintziest with AP credit is Brown but even they give credit for certain exams. Most schools she’s in the ballpark anywhere from 24-44 credits from (expected) AP’s.</p>
<p>In general terms, the Dual Credits work best within the same state and when the transfer policies are clearly identified by schools. While it works (mostly) when agreements are in place between public schools, it is different for out of state and private schools.</p>
<p>For instance, Rice University in Houston will not give credit for any class that the student also used to fulfill a high school graduation credit. This is quite typical for private schools. In so many words, the dual credit would have had to be in addition to the standard diploma requirements. It does not mean that the credit will be lost entirely, but it might not help to satisfy degree requirements.</p>
<p>To make it clearer, I could have started my first Fall at a Texas Flagship with junior standing, but not in the Honors Program. At my private OOS school, I would have been allowed to use only the hours that were additional to the HS 28 credits. AP credits worked a bit better in the OOS context, but with different restrictions. In the end, the only help/credit came into play to earn an extra degree without the full load required. In fact, the biggest return came from having MIDDLE SCHOOL credits added to the high school that helped bump the number of HS credit up above the 28. Something that would have been hard otherwise. </p>
<p>All in all, it is a mixed bag, and one one should explore carefully before embarking on a massive effort, especially if one wants to venture outside public universities in his or her own state.</p>
<p>PS The rigor of the DC classes is also a mixed bag that defies generalities. It is probably impossible to compare one program to another as the teaching and curriculum are so variable.</p>
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<p>Yes, 7 every year, which is why my son decided to graduate in 3 years rather than take a bunch of regular and honors classes during a 4th – he had already exhausted the entire math and science AP curriculum. Not only were there no dual classes in the high school, officially there were no dual classes at all. The college bridge program for the entire Chicago public school system had been cancelled due to budget cuts. It took a tremendous amount of time and effort for my son to get officially enrolled in his college classes and special handling by his GC to get credit for them on his transcript – plus we had to pay for the classes out of our own pockets.</p>
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<p>While several of the Ivies do give AP credit, there are lots of restrictions compared to state schools (where a 3 is often enough): some classes don’t count at all, for others you almost always need a 5 and you need to earn them in blocks of one half-year or one full-year plus make a special application – off by one point on one class and you can’t get that half-year credit at all.</p>
<p>My son is at Brown and is using his AP credits to place out of intro classes and start at a higher level. Brown is kind enough to provide us with a 90% discount off list price, so taking 4 years to explore the depths of the course catalog is more appealing then finishing a degree in 2.5 years at the state flagship, which would have cost the same net or more, even with significant merit aid offers.</p>
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<p>Similar thing here. When S was a sophomore in HS, I tried mightily to get him enrolled in a philosophy course at the local 4-yr public U. (Philosophy was his major intellectual interest at the time, thanks to CTY.) The U basically blew us off. The professor, whose consent was required, never answered a single phone call or email from the many S and I sent. I contacted the department secretary, and even she couldn’t get a response out of him. I contacted the administrator of their “early college” program, who said we were on our own because he wasn’t 16 or homeschooled! This course met in the evening on certain days of the week, which was the only time S could have attended a course there, due to sports practices, music lessons, and youth symphony/string quartet rehearsals. I would have had to drive him.</p>
<p>I would have thought that these “educators” would be interested in encouraging a 15-yr-old who was fully capable of taking a college philosophy course. I would have thought that a PROFESSOR of philosophy would be happy to encourage him, or at the very least return an email. (There’s probably a good reason he’s an instructor at this 3rd rate school.)</p>
<p>We finally gave up. Instead, he did AP French Lit, a 2-yr course of study, as an “independent study.” The GT coordinator and the AP French teacher arranged it between him, and one of the two met with him during his one weekly study hall for two years.</p>
<p>Obvious who the real educators were…</p>
<p>BTW, none of the schools S considered gave any credit for APs, to my knowledge. The could be used for placement, though.</p>
<p>Consolation, which schools give NO credit for APs? Perhaps the academies where you are stuck for 4 years regarding of a college year’s worht of AP’s–haven’t checked that. But even Harvard gives credit for APs.</p>
<p>What our state school did was give credit for APs for the most part for 3, 4, 5 scores but 3 were only given credit as general courses not for specifically required courses. In other words, needing 120 courses to graduate, there are some “your choice” courses in the mix and students could use AP credits where they got a 3 for those credits. 4s and 5s could be put towards specific course requirements and a course was delegated for each AP course. </p>
<p>In some schools, your major will determine what is accepted and what is not. AP BI may not be accepted as a subsitute for the required Bio course for those who are science majors, though the credits can be used as general credits . But AP bio with a certain score might get a music major out of his science requirement. I’ve notices schools are particularly generous about opting out of foreign languages accepting both AP and even SAT2 scores as a substitute.</p>
<p>I was looking at a post from a kid who is in a Dual Enrollment program at a high school. He is not specific of the school or how it works, other than the fact that it is integrated with the high school. Upon reading the post, I have no idea whatsoever how colleges would view that curriculum and what college credits if any, he’d even have a chance fo getting. Harvard, I know is highly unlikely to take any, as they specifically say so regarding such programs though they may make exception to certain programs. Had the kid said he was taking AP Calc BC, AP English (both), AP language and has already taken and gotten 4s and 5s on AP Bio, AP Calc AB, and AP Euro, I would have a better picture of how difficult the curriculum is at this school and where he is. As it stands, I have no idea since it all depends on how good that dual enrollment program is. The APs offer a standarization that makes it easier to see in an instant wher a kid is academically.</p>
<p>Consolation, my son’s high school has a formal arrangement that permits select high school seniors to take courses at the 4 year private university nearby. There are also a few other situtions such as a sophomore already at college level math at that high school that also is permitted to do this. However, the university, as a rule, does not permit this from other high schools. They are bombarded with requests and the answer is always no. There would have to be some truly outstanding circumstance for them to consider it, as they do not want to go that way. Some colleges do have courses that are offered to non matriculating students that they do open to the public, but most colleges close off program courses to anyone but those accepted and registered as matriculating students at that college.</p>
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<p>Caltech and Harvey Mudd. They use their own placement tests to place freshmen into more advanced courses than the usual freshmen courses.</p>
<p>St. John’s College. Due to the nature of the curriculum, AP credit is irrelevant.</p>