I’m a high schooler and I’ve been taking summer courses at my local community college. This year I’m taking one right now and may take another one next semester. They transfer over to my high school transcript, and are labeled as community college classes. I’ve pretty much needed to take them because playing sports and music gives me a lot of scheduling problems and I can only take a few APs. Also the community college courses are nice because there’s no AP exam to worry about in order to get credit, although the content is just as hard.
I’m automatically given credit for these courses if I attend a UC or CSU school (the community college has an agreement with them). So I assume that UCs/CSUs will treat these classes as being just as rigorous as AP classes for admissions (all credit aside).
However, next year I’m looking to apply to smallish private schools like Brown, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, etc. Since these schools likely won’t give me credit for these courses since they don’t have an agreement with the community college, how will they perceive these classes in comparison to AP courses for admissions? I assume they’ll definitely recognize that they’re more challenging than regular or honors courses, but how will I stack up against kids who have taken the same amount of college classes, but they’re all AP?
I’m worried about this as I have friends taking 4 APs this year and I’m taking 2 (junior year). However, this summer I took U.S. History at the college and now I’m taking psychology.
My kid was in a similar situation 2 years ago. In fact, senior year, she was at the high school for only two periods a day. The rest of the day she was at the local CC.
She was admitted or waitlisted to all her top picks, Amherst included. She’s now at Harvard.
I don’t know if it helped, but she made it clear on the common app that she would not attempt to transfer any of those courses. They were just her way of taking the most rigorous curriculum possible.
Hi,
I’m currently a high school senior in south Texas attending Early College High School. (That’s the name. It’s very straight to the point.)
I talked to some representative from colleges like U.T Austin and Texas A&M, and they said they carry the same amount of weight as AP or Honors courses.
I know the situation is different than yours, but I figured any input would help.
Good luck!
They are just the same. Only select with care. Don’t take algebra for instance as that is a remedial class. Psych is a bit ordinary and isn’t as rigorous as a core math or science but it is fine as an elective. It is likely more impressive if you are using such classes to extend academic opportunities not offered at your school, like math past HS level. In any case it is just not something to worry about. And I wouldn’t give two thoughts to transferring or not. You can work that out after you are accepted. Brown doesn’t really like to give credits but they may in some cases. In more cases you can just use it for placement.
@BrownParent Thanks. Do you mind me asking, did your child (I assume they attend/attended Brown based on the username) have any community college credits when applying?
No she didn’t. She had some AP classes but didn’t ask for credit, it really isn’t necessary if you are going to attend for 4 years. And she did skip to multivar calc since that is allowed if you had calc BC, but she didn’t with Chem, since AP Chem is only a prereq for the first chem class. Her other AP were Eng, Hist and Spanish. I wouldn’t advise trying to place out of Brown classes too much or at least talk to your advisor.
If you are concerned about getting subject credit or advanced placement for CC courses whose material overlaps with AP tests, you may want to consider taking the AP tests anyway if the colleges are more accepting of AP scores than CC courses or college courses taken while in high school (check each college to see if that is the case).
For CC courses more advanced than AP courses (e.g. multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations), save the syllabus and other course materials in case the four year school wants to see them before giving subject credit or advanced placement. Private schools in the northeast may be less accepting for CC courses than UCs, CSUs, and some California private schools, since it does appear that there is greater disdain for public schools including CCs in the northeast than in California.
Even if you do get advanced placement from either AP scores or CC courses, you may want to try the old final exams of the four year college’s courses that you may skip to ensure that you know the material well from that college’s point of view, if you intend to take more advanced courses that depend on those courses as prerequisites.