For homeschool parents/educators: How to calculate high school credits based on college courses.

Sorry for the long title. I need help to translate the hours of college courses my children take into credit hours for their high school transcript. Let’s say they take a 15 hour college courses, do I translate as 15 hours equivalent to high school or more since the work load and content are more challenging? Thanks.

I have only ever given 1 cr per course regardless of workload, content, or level. (I have had kids take 5 hr courses (4 hr course plus a lab) and 300 level courses and all were labeled as 1 high school cr hr.)

HTH

For graduation purposes you need to follow your state guidelines. Otherwise don’t overthink it. I have noticed on CC that some students take Calc AB for a year and then take Calc BC for a year and count it as two years of math. My children’s school allowed select students to take the three semesters of calculus in a single year and it counted as one year of math.

I have counted 4 and 5 credit classes as 1 credit. 2 as .5 high school credits. 3 credits as .75 high school

We did one credit per course (3-4 credit at the college) plus 0.5 credits for labs in conjunction with a science course.

Your state might use Carnegie units. For DE students in public school in OH, students have a minimum and maximum number of Carnegie units they can be scheduled for at a time. See if your state education department provides guidance on hs graduation requirements using a Carnegie unit.

“Under the “3 credit hours = 1 Carnegie unit” formula, 30 credit hours of College Credit Plus equals 10 HS credits.” from https://www.ohiohighered.org/ccp/faqs

I did one high school credit per course too. Actual course hours (3-5) didn’t matter. No regrets. No problems.

Not a homeschooler so take my advice with a grain of salt. For your state, do what ever they require. For colleges, colleges read transcripts. They get that a foreign language at a college covers more material than a high school class. or that Calc 1 in college may be equal to AP Calc BC in high school. (Which some high schools will cover in one year and others in two.) I wouldn’t over think it.

I am posting this for those who might not know https://hslda.org/content/HighSchool/docs/EvaluatingCredits.asp. I will just use it as a guideline but depend heavily on standardized test and high caliber competitions because I think colleges do not take my assessment of my own children so seriously. I will let 3rd parties do the evaluation for me.

My daughter did dual enrollment in high school. It didn’t matter if the college course was worth 3 or 4 credits (basically science class with lab was 4, math was 4 with longer hours and all others were 3) they all counted as 1 high school credit. It also didn’t matter if they were more advanced than a class offered at the high school.

The “one 3+ credit college course = one year long high school course” appears to match what California public universities use to determine fulfillment of high school course requirements for frosh applicants who took college courses while in high school (e.g. one 3 credit college art course fulfills the art requirement that is normally a year long high school art course).