This year as a junior, I started dual enrollment at my local community college, taking diff eq and physics w/ calc. To make room for this, however, I had to drop AP English at the high school and sign up for it online instead. Unfortunately, I ended up dropping that class as well because I was falling really far behind as a result of poor time management, and the stress was starting to interfere with my performance in other classes. This semester I’m taking English at the college, and I plan to keep taking college English for the rest of high school.
Each semester of English at the college counts as a full credit of English for high school, so there’s no worry about getting enough credits to graduate in time. What I’m worried about, though, is how this will look to colleges. I noticed that many colleges claim to require four years of English, but I will have only taken 3 1/2 by the time I graduate (unless I take a class during the summer). Is this interpretation correct, or does each full credit count as a “year?” I imagine it probably depends on the college, but I’m wondering if this is a real concern in general.
If it matters at all, I’m planning on going into pure math/comp sci.
I believe it is just four years on your high school transcript, so if that semester counts as a full year on there, I would imagine you would be fine. However, I would definitely go see your guidance counselor about this, as they most likely have a lot more experience with how various colleges handle this type of thing.
In the state of Washington, high-school students have the option of enrolling in a program called ‘Running Start’ where they can earn high-school credits at a community college starting their junior year. If they want to commit full-time to Running Start, students can go as far as earning the AA Degree for colleges.
At the local community college where most of the students in my high school do running start, they are operating off a quarter-schedule. If a student is to take English 101 at the community college and pass it, that marks off 1 high school credit of Language Arts for them. While most regular high school students would need to spend a whole year doing language arts to get the credit for it, Running Start students can earn that credit in 45 days.
Colleges do understand this concept however, when students who took Running Start are applying. The guidance counselors at my school have stated that Running Start is a much easier method of eliminating the need to take pre-requisite classes in college than taking a load of APs at the regular high school. However, since AP classes are much more difficult and time-consuming than the classes offered at the community college, admissions officers will almost always value a student with AP classes over a student who has taken Running Start.
So my point is, there are perks to taking community college classes (easier, faster), but there are also perks to taking IB/AP classes (higher acceptance rate).
Most of the time when colleges say 4 years of English they mean 4 credits. Being a dual-enrollment student, I understand how credits can get kind of confusing, but according to how your school tracks dual enrollment credits, you should be fine.