Hello, I’m a high school student and in my state, high schools offer PSEO classes which basically allow you go to a local college and take a college course, as opposed to AP/IB where you take college material in a high school classroom. Anyways, I am looking to take these classes at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities), which will give me undergrad credit from that university.
However, I’m not looking to apply to a college inside of MN, I’m interested in a few colleges that are out of state, but I am unsure how they handle PSEO because PSEO is a very exclusive program that only exists in a few states, it’s not a nationally-renowned program like AP or IB.
I’m looking at some elite colleges here so it’s important that I take my course load carefully and seriously. I could take PSEO, which is more academically challenging as a student, but it might not be honor-approved by out of state colleges, meaning it might not matter. However, I could take AP classes which are known by them and honored, but clearly not as academically challenging (as PSEO), which is what elite colleges demand.
So I’m kind of in a dilemma here. I don’t know what I want to do for my upperclassmen years in terms of course load, but I do want to know how out of state (of MN) colleges view the PSEO program and whether it factors as an honors course in their admissions process.
If the specific college matters, I’m interested in MIT, Cornell, and CalTech as some of the schools I want to go to. If needed I can contact them on their specific policies regarding this.
Adcoms would probably actually prefer courses taken in a college setting even if they don’t know the specific program your school uses. Whether or not they’ll accept credit for those courses is another matter.
If you’re choosing between an AP class at an equivalent class at your local community college, it may be better to choose the AP class because admissions officers probably won’t be familiar with the community college and they won’t have a good way to judge the rigor of the class. However, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a well-known university and I think it would be fine to take their classes instead of AP.
Be sure to keep the syllabi for the courses in order to show to subsequent colleges if they have questions regarding transfer credit and placement based on those courses.
In many cases, college courses cover material faster than high school AP courses. They may also give fewer small homeworks, but require more self-motivation to do out-of-class reading and preparation and start larger assignments and projects early.