Our district has always offered both dual enrollment through CU Succeeds, a collaboration with CU Denver that grants high school teachers adjunct status, as well as a full slate of AP courses. Students can choose the pathway that works best for them, but CU Succeeds is very popular among kids who are planning to apply to one of the CU campuses (Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs). Other kids who are less certain, choose the AP option. Courses through CU Succeeds are also cheaper than college tuition so it’s an affordable option for CU bound kids.
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Anyone considering DE over AP and med school should note that ALL DE courses will count toward the GPA on a med school application, whether they are taken in the high school or at the college. AP grades do not.
Also, many med schools do not like seeing the Pre-Reqs completed at a community college, so be wary and do a bit of investigation if choosing this route with med school in mind for the future.
Our high school offers some of both. Med school wannabies are cautioned against DE for science and math pre-reqs. Other courses are fine, but be sure to get As.
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I think there’s a lot of variation across the US on this. I also know that if your HS ONLY offers DE and not AP, that won’t really negatively affect your odds in college apps because if you’re applying to tippy top schools, they’ll expect you to have taken the most rigorous courses that are available at YOUR high school…whether they’re DE or AP or IB or whatever.
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There may be a financial angle, whereby the cost (or a portion thereof) of a dual enrollment course may be paid by district or state budgets rather than the high school. In contrast, the cost of an AP teacher would affect the high school’s budget directly. This may not be the case everywhere, but I believe this is the case at my kids’ school.
Like most high schools, the high school gives GPA weight for both dual enrollment and AP, but dual enrollment course options are practically endless for students willing and able to travel to the CC. On top of the grade point weight, one semester DE courses sometimes count for more than a year of high school credit, e.g. I think calc 3 is awarded 1.5 high school credits (3 high school semesters), times the added point to the GPA. The weighted GPA quartiles reported on the School Profile are very high. It is difficult to break into the top 25% without at least a few dual enrollment courses due to the weighting system. This is frustrating for a kid with a 4.0 unweighted and 8 APs who will be lucky to crack top 25% with “only” five of those APs occurring by the end of junior year to be incorporated into the 6-semester GPA on the transcript for college apps in fall of senior year. (I might be whining here.) Basically, there is a big GPA incentive to take lots of DE and it is feeding on itself via weighted GPA reported quartiles in the School Profile.
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Each approach has pros and cons. Our public HS has a really hard time getting good AP teachers for STEM. Many kids find private tutors for extra help. Most colleges accept 4/5 and here in NC, 3 is accepted for general credit. My DS23 has enjoyed DE much more. He says that the classes are taught well, as long as you select the right prof using ratemyprof, his classmates are more mature and engaged and he is learning a lot more. Being able to select the right prof is great. Plus, it is good practice for real college.
The downside is that he has to commute and only took 2 classes last semester and this semester in HS. As a senior, he is missing out on a lot of programming. On top of that, our CC has many campuses. So, classes are spread across making things even more challenging.
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We homeschool and I teach a science class for homeschooled high schoolers, and we also know many people at local high schools. One thing that I’ve seen is that some AP classes in school are massive amounts of work for no discernable reason. I see it in the course that I teach, which is not AP and is meant to be maybe ‘college prep’. It takes some time to learn the content and there are some lab reports to write, but students don’t consider it to be an excessive amount of work. Most kids don’t take the AP exam, but the few who did over the years have passed - I had a student earn a 5 last year and their only other prep was 1 practice test and watching the free College Board prep videos. When I talk to kids taking the same AP at the public school, they talk about tons of homework. I can’t figure out why - it’s definitely not necessary to learn the material, but it seems to be part of what AP is.
At some schools, AP has replaced ‘college prep’, and AP courses are offered to all advanced students, despite few passing the exams. The only social studies option for the advanced track for 9th grade, for instance, is AP Human Geography, an AP that doesn’t transfer as a useful credit at many of the colleges that the kids will be attending.
At the same time, schools are offering more DE in the school. My homeschooled kid took an online DE class with the format of high school-offered classes, and my kid’s take was that it was a recipe for cheating. Online textbooks (easily searchable) and multiple choice tests mean that, if a kid wasn’t interested in learning, they could basically pass the class by making some discussion posts and then searching for answers for test questions. Some community college classes are very well taught - I used to teach them and I know many State U instructors who teach the same classes at CCs. But, some seem to be designed so that you can pass without learning anything.
So, I guess with all of this there are a lot of pros and cons for each approach from the perspective of whether students actually learn anything and how time consuming the class will be. What is best for students in terms of getting college credit probably depends on the specific college, degree program, DE institution, and AP score. We’ve seen a couple of colleges that accept no transfer credits of any kind, or only a select few APs. We’ve seen many that have a chart of AP scores and their equivalent courses so that you can decide if it’s useful to you or not. Some colleges also have a transfer credit tracker, such that you can put in any college and course number and it will tell you if that course transfers and what the corresponding course is. This has been quite helpful for my junior - we learned that neither AP Stats and DE Stats would fulfill the ‘Stats for engineers’ requirement at kid’s top choice college, so kid is looking at other math options - the entire calculus series transfers, so kid will likely go that route.
In talking to a friend who teaches at a State U, apparently all of this is wreaking havoc on their college classes because students are coming in with such inconsistent background knowledge. Upper level instructors assume that students who have taken the prereq classes know the information needed to succeed, and some of the students really struggle due to insufficient preparation.
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Exactly. Veterinary school is the same so those students should be aware too.
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Our HS offers just about every AP class you can think of. It was great for my D19 & D23(as long as she passes her last 4 tests this year). D19 took 9 and got 43-44 credits at her college. One reason she was able to get so much was she took both AP Spanish classes and got 17 credits from that. She got a 300 level class credit. The kids that did DE only got 3-6 hours. D19 was able to double major and get a minor.
My D23 ended up taking 11 APs. Her goal was not to take Gen Ed classes. D23 wants to be a HS teacher and be able to teach History/Social Studies along with Special Ed & ASL. I spent a good amount of time yesterday seeing what classes she gets credit at her two top choices and if she would have time to do everything she wants. If I did it right she would only have to take one class that doesn’t count toward a major or minor.
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The biggest issue I’ve noticed is our teachers who are also adjuncts teach the DE classes like college courses—as they should—but the usual support for students is missing. This means a solid sixty to ninety minutes of lecture, but no TA or recitation section where students can review the material or ask questions.
Our high school offers one section of Calc III for both dual enrollment and high school credit so everyone is lumped together. The class is moving really fast and test averages are low. It’s brutal. My kid, who is taking the class for hs credit, would like more time to sit with the material but the class structure simply doesn’t allow it. Ideally, our school would offer another section but good upper-level math teachers are hard to find in our district.
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Having those types of supports is typical at the universities I am familiar with, but not at the community college where my son is currently doing (full-time) dual enrollment. There is a “peer tutoring center“ which he found remarkably unhelpful. His statistics professor specifically states in the syllabus that she will not answer any questions on course material so don’t bother to ask. His Calculus II professor never held office hours or responded to emails.
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In many cases that is because the instructors do not get paid for their time spent on helping students outside of class. They get paid for their in class/lecture time - if they offer office hours, they are working for free, and while some do that if they can, some are teaching so many classes (or working a second job) to make ends meet, that they simply can’t afford to donate their time in that way. Of course, this may not be true in every case, but it is not at all uncommon for community college instructors as well as adjuncts at 4 year universities. So it’s a crappy situation for both instructors and students, but it’s not really the instructors’ fault. Pay them to hold office hours, and most will be happy to.
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Our HS offers a pretty good suite of APs. DE is also available, however, DE courses are not included in the calculation of your gpa - the same goes for courses offered by vhs. Most high performing kids don’t bother with DE, except in a few cases.
What about kids that take dual enrollment courses, but also take the AP test in the corresponding subject?
If they get a 4 or 5 on the AP test, doesn’t that cover their bases at schools that give credit for the work (either dual enrollment or AP test credit, since the credit isn’t the class but the score on the standardized AP test)?
My kid is at a small California public school that has seen a spate of long-time teachers (at least 5) retire in the past four years. Because they teach AP courses, the number of AP courses at this school has also dropped considerably. (They had a moderate amount, and it’s shrinking.)
Our family is in a unique situation; my kid has a year-round non-recruitable sport they do and can’t always be on campus. Combined with the shrinking APs, my kid is trying instead to get an associate’s degree through the local community college consortium (still working to fit in all the requisite classes). In May, they will take four AP subject tests. Along with one taken last year, my kid will have a certain amount of college credits and completed five AP tests by the end of junior year. It won’t be a perfect transcript for schools, but it’s what we’ve got.
Our school does include dual enrollment courses on their transcript GPA calculations. They are ones that the school recognizes from a list of generally core subjects.
Better chance of getting credit / subject credit / advanced placement at colleges that accept one but not the other. But expect at most credit for one, not double credit.
Obviously, this only applies when the college course and AP test are on similar material.
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Yes, wasn’t thinking of double credit. Just any potential credit a post-secondary school may consider - either AP credit or dual enrollment credit, depending on the institution.
If the student has taken the dual enrollment course, doesn’t taking the corresponding AP subject test covers a student’s bases?
Few students have a complete list of schools they know they want to apply to in 10th grade/sophomore year. But they start taking advanced courses in this year. Or sometimes, earlier. So if they can take the standardized AP subject test, isn’t that what institutions that give credit for AP courses recognize - the mark on the test, not the school?
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Yes, but the challenge is that the DE course may not align to the AP syllabus. So there may need to be some self-study to fill in the gaps.
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That’s a great point. Grades in DE coursework also counts for Law School apps. (So slacking off a senior DE course is not good as undergrad GPA is ~50% of LS admission.)
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Our large, wealthy, suburban district offers numerous APs as well as a full IB curriculum. The school does not offer any “college in the school” type DE, and few students do outside DE despite it being fully funded by our Midwestern state.
In our district, the AP classes seem to attract a different crowd than the IB classes. The AP classes seem to attract a more popular, pre-professional, and prestige-conscious crowd, while the IB track is smaller, about 90% female, and draws a lot of quirky and LGBT kids who end up at LACs.
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One thing to remember here is that more and more colleges are not paying a lot of attention to AP scores. Taking AP courses is becoming an exercise of diminishing return with each passing year. At least most state schools with articulation agreements will accept and honor DE credits from CC.
The attractiveness of IB likely depends on which subjects are offered HL versus SL.
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