<p>I've been told by my dual enrollment literature teacher that it is possible, due to the nature of the class, I will graduate high school already bearing an AA degree. As it stands, I am in my junior year. What I would like to know is how this would affect the admissions process for me. Will this mess up tuition and admission; will I be considered as just a transfer student, or a high school graduate with distinguished academic achievement like that of an IB or AP program? Could this be used to make me "stand out" to the admissions department somehow, and possibly broaden my choice of colleges? I know I have many questions, but there doesn't seem to be much out there on graduating high school with a college degree, and I'm a slight bit nervous about the whole matter. Any advice would help me greatly.</p>
<p>When you take college coursework during HS, even if you get an AA, you still apply as a fr applicant. </p>
<p>It is baffling that your teacher would present this and not address those questions. Go see your GC.</p>
<p>My daughter is graduating HS in May with an AA. She will go to a 4 year university as an incoming freshman, and her units will be transferred after the start of her freshman year. So far she is 4 for 4 in acceptances, and has been admitted when others with better basics stats were rejected. So I’m feeling pretty good that it’s probably helping, and certainly not hurting.</p>
<p>Colleges probably see actual college courses (at least non-remedial ones) as better predictors of future college performance than high school courses (including AP courses). Even when the material covered is the same (e.g. a college frosh level course and a high school AP course covering the same material), the college course typically requires more self-motivation on the student’s part, with less hand-holding than in the high school course. (Of course, if a dual enrollment course is run more like a high school course than a college course, then this advantage is lost.)</p>
<p>For almost all colleges and universities in the country, you will apply as a freshman. Some state public systems are set up in such a way as to treat dual enrollment students with a full associates degree from a CC in that state as transfer applicants. The only way to know if your state universities would treat you that way, is to ask. Your own HS guidance counselor should know the answer to that one. If not, the dual enrollment coordinator at the CC and the admissions officers at the public Us surely do. While you are at it, find out if your particular AA program has any guaranteed transfer or articulation agreements with the public Us in your state.</p>
<p>For the places that you apply to as a freshman, or as a regular transfer, once you are admitted, they should be able to give you a pre-read on the number of credits from your AA that will transfer and as what. Once you do complete the AA, and arrive on campus in the fall, the place that you attend will make a decision about which credits truly are transferable. This means that you need to save every scrap of paper from all of your CC classes (course description, syllabus, graded homework and projects, etc.) to have as evidence in case you need to petition for credits that you believe you deserve.</p>
<p>If you are admitted under a guaranteed transfer or articulation agreement, you won’t need to negotiate for credits. The agreement that is in place will determine in advance which credits transfer and as what.</p>
<p>@Brownparent – the GC at my kids school tells them very little, and tells the parents nothing. They have a Parent University program (which we couldn’t do because it always conflicted with one of my classes, and always one that was only ever offered every two years, or my H’s work schedule). If you didn’t attend, you were out of luck in the info dept. Most of what I know about how to coordinate this HS program with college applications I learned by asking D’s boyfriend who is a year ahead. She’s the only counselor for the entire school of approx 350 students, so difficult to meet with. If you do catch her, she is great about answering questions, if you know what to ask. I find her to be quite passionate about what she does, but my D is intimidated by her. The students are assigned a counselor from the college as well, but she only looks at your major, writes down her choice for your classes with no discussion, and good luck trying to deviate from the Ed plan, even if the course you want to take is a option in your required courses. So even though I have a high regard for the amount of work D’s GC does, I can also see why a student might look elsewhere for info.</p>
<p>Some states (like mine) are set up so that students leaving HS with an AA or AS can enter a state college as a junior. As a college educator myself, I think that is a pedagogically unsound practice for most students, including very bright students.</p>
<p>My own daughter will graduate with 50+ hours of dual enrollment, but we are agreed that she will transfer a maximum of 9-12 hours of that (depending on the school), but only so she can place out of freshman composition and eliminate the need to take more than 15 hours during any semester of her college career. It will also be credit by AP test, not transferred directly from the dual-enrollment college.</p>
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<p>The reasons?</p>
<p>In practice, do such students who enter college with junior standing by credits actually try to fast-track their graduation, or do they take four years anyway?</p>
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<p>What prevents her from bringing in the transfer credit and using it (when course material is equivalent) to go directly to more advanced courses instead of repeating already-known introductory material, but not attempting to graduate early?</p>
<p>Thankfully the early college HS program in California isn’t doing that. Both D14 & D15 will enter as freshman, be in the same dorms and experience all of the incoming freshman hoopla. You just have to be careful not to take any college classes after HS graduation, because that can potentially affect your freshman status. Her CC didn’t offer an AA in art, so she’s getting one in Liberal Arts Studies because it allowed her to knock out a lot of GE requirements, as well as the foreign language requirement to apply to the UCs and many universities.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus – I’m hearing that quite a few students from our HS (previous graduates) are working on double majors, rather than fast tracking. </p>
<p>“we are agreed that she will transfer a maximum of 9-12 hours of that (depending on the school),”</p>
<p>She may have no choice in what the college/university she ends up at decides to use toward a degree. She needs to be prepared to learn that they will put every single one of those 50 credits on her record, and she should be prepared for formal conversations with the dean/registrar/department head if she wants control over how any credits that are negotiable are handled.</p>
<p>Of course, that would only be a problem if there were some sort of penalty for having too many college credits that were earned while still in high school. Public universities are more likely to have credit caps (they don’t want in-state students hanging around forever hogging more than their fair share of in-state tuition subsidy), but they may exempt college credits earned while still in high school from such credit caps. But check each school to be sure.</p>
<p>I’ll also be graduating with an AA, but im more concerned with the effect it will have on admissions. It’s seen as an advantage right? </p>
<p>hello! i will also be graduating with an AA math and science degree. i currently have 56 credits with a 4.0 GPA, and i will have 63 by the time i graduate. as for the helping the admissions part, i really don’t know. I was rejected by upenn ed, u of notre dame ea, and WUSTL. However, i was currently accepted by Brandeis University and Wesleyan University (early-write). i thought my college transcript would be a good indicator of my success in college, but it’s really up to the university to decide if you are a good fit or not. however, at the college where I am studying, I didn’t just take classes there; i joined clubs, participated in activities, etc. now, I’m the VP of Scholarship of PTK with a variety of other activities. So, try not only integrating yourself into your high school activities, but also your college ones as well. This way, colleges will see that you’re more than just a robot going from class to class and getting a degree in the end. But, like I said, i have absolutely no idea what goes on in the admissions process. i guess sometimes it is really just based on luck. good luck :)</p>
<p>Just graduating high school with over 60 credits does not mean that you have earned an A.A. degree. Dual enrollment students are not considered to be in a degree program unless they actually enroll in that program. It is usually a separate application form and entrance requirements (if you are talking community colleges). If you apply to college after graduating high school, but with say 60 college credits taken as a dual enrolled high school student, you would be considered a freshman with junior standing (if all credits are accepted). That would give you benefits like priority registration (before freshmen and sophomores) and the ability to graduate early if desired or a lot of extra room in your schedule to take advanced classes. If you have specifically enrolled in the A.A. degree program in college while still in high school then you will graduate with an A.A. and a high school diploma. You most likely will have to apply to college as a transfer student. You will also be able to graduate early. A drawback is that you might be limited in scholarships because many of those are only available to freshmen applicants. </p>
<p>Most colleges I am aware of do not count dual enrollment high school credits against the credit cap. (credits earned in an A.A. Program would be).</p>
<p>As to what credit are transferred, as mentioned above, many times it is not up to the student. A lot of very selective schools will not accept transferred credits (they would prefer you pay for their classes!). A lot of state schools will accept all of them, whether you want them to or not. There’s no picking and choosing. (reason why you should only take college level courses if you are sure you can do well, otherwise you will sabotage your college GPA).</p>
<p>As long as all of your college courses are taken before high school graduation, and you are not enrolled in an A.A. program, you will be considered an incoming freshman. (of course there may be exceptions to the rule, but that is pretty standard)</p>
<p>The program my daughters are in offers either the AA (obviously you have to take the courses laid out in the catalog for whichever major you are attempting) or the IGETC ed plan. Many students have graduated with AA’s along with their HS diplomas and enrolled in 4 year colleges as freshman. Some have chosen to just work on GE requirements and not earn an AA. As long as the college courses were taken prior to HS graduation, you are allowed to enroll as a freshman at the UCs and CSUs, although some of our graduates have done the same at Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc. Of course, there may be some schools that approach it differently, but I haven’t talked to any parents/students at our school who have had any problems as a result of getting the AA concurrent with HS diploma. When selecting classes at the CC, it is also advisable to pay attention (in California) to which ones are UC transferable, as they are clearly designated in the catalog. </p>
<p>Applying as a freshman guarantees the most financial aid and you can still have “advanced standing” - best of both worlds. Your goal shouldn’t be to have an AA but rather to build a coherent program of classes which may or may not match a major path.</p>
If I get my AA before I graduate high school then take summer classes at CC after I graduate would I apply to the university I want as a transfer? I’m okay with going to college as a transfer student instead of freshman I just want to get in and take my classes.
^^might be more helpful to start a new thread (this one is old). But as an aside, in some cases it’s better to be a first year than a transfer (usually more scholarship eligibility for freshmen). Why do you prefer transfer status?