<p>I was recently talking with my college adviser and because of all the Ap's and dual enrollment classes i'm taken/have taken I could be able to get my AA from my local college, Miami-Dade. Is this a good idea? If i'm planning to maybe apply for ivy leagues, will they accept it? Does it look good or bad?</p>
<p>For highly selective colleges, it will be good that you took AP and college coursework, but the AA degree itself will not matter.</p>
<p>What do you mean it won’t matter?</p>
<p>An AA helps when transferring to a college that has an agreement that permits automatic admission. However, if there is no agreement, then even for transferring, the courses and gpa will matter more than the AA degree itself.</p>
<p>For selective colleges many students will have taken AP and college courses, the fact that you completed the requirements to fulfill an AA doesn’t matter as much as the level of courses taken and grades received. Having an AA is neither a plus or a minus.</p>
<p>For the top colleges and universities, your AP and dual enrollment classes will all look very good, and will show that you are taking the most rigorous program that is open to you. There won’t be a difference between taking the equivalent of a full AA degree in course numbers and actually being awarded the AA degree. Those colleges and universities will decide for themselves which AP exams and which dual enrollment classes can be used toward a four-year degree if you are admitted.</p>
<p>Where the AA is useful, is in admissions to colleges and universities that guarantee full transfer of all of your credits if you have an AA, and in admissions to colleges and universities that will accept your completed AA as fulfilling all of your General Education requirements (or as fulfilling certain specific Gen Eds). Some public universities even flat-out guarantee admission for students who have completed an AA or AS at a given community college - so do get a meeting with the transfer advisor at Miami Dade, and find out about that.</p>
<p>In almost every case, students who finish an AA at the same time as they are finishing high school are allowed to apply as freshmen and to be awarded scholarships and more generous financial aid because of that status. Once arrived on campus, if the AA is accepted as fulfilling the first two years of your program, you may be able to be bumped up to Junior status for course registration, etc.</p>
<p>In some rare cases, it is advantageous to apply as a transfer instead. That would be something else to discuss with the transfer advisor at Miami Dade. Usually merit-based scholarships are much more generous for freshmen than they are for transfers, and often the need-based packages are better too.</p>
<p>Some students who finish high school with many AP, IB, and dual-enrollment courses that do transfer for credit do manage to finish college a year or two earlier and save boat-loads of money. However most use all of those transfer credits to eliminate Gen Ed credits and/or to skip into upper-level courses that are more interesting to them, and they end up spending four full years in college anyway. Lots of transfer credits can make it easier to do a double major or to plan your schedule so you can have a semester or year abroad. Again whether an AA would make that more easy than just taking a bunch of classes will depend on the college/university that you ultimately attend.</p>
<p>If you aren’t focused yet on a specific career goal, trying to rush through college may not make much sense. Think about that too.</p>