I have a HS sophomore who needs to decide her junior year courses very soon. Our district offers dual enrollment with the local community college, or an “early college” program where the kids go for three years (11th, 12th, and 13th grades) and end up with a free associate’s degree. I guess they are able to walk with their fellow classmates after 12th grade and get their diploma with them. For both situations the kids go to the high school for three hours and then give up their electives and go to classes at the community college too. I am wondering if anyone else’s kids have done programs like these? Do the kids get enough credits from dual enrollment to make it worth it to drive back and forth between two schools? Is it a hassle or a good opportunity?
For the “13th grade” option, does it force the student to the transfer instead of frosh pathway to 4 year schools by having some college courses after high school graduation?
If she chooses to take college courses, will they be at a relatively advanced level? If she stays in regular high school, what level courses will she take? If different, which is likely to be more academically appropriate for her?
Does your school have the full gamut of AP classes? Is this offering any actual advantage? I hate the 13th yr thing, here early college is just that, 11th and 12th but with the Associates. And now the local 4 yr uni has a pathway for taking 12th grade at the state flagship… Other states do this also. Check out your options. This doesn’t sound like acceleration. It sounds like a great pathway for kids for whom an Associates is the end game. Is that true for your kid?
Our HS does have quite a few AP courses to choose from. I am not sure if this particular kid of mine wants to take them. She is in accelerated geometry (skipped honors English to take regular English 10 with a teacher who prepped our older daughter really well for SAT and ACT), but she is just halfway through sophomore year so I don’t know if she is going to take a bunch of AP classes (or do just the honors classes?). I honestly thought community college was easy, like maybe slightly hard high school courses when I went (ok, A & P was hard but I still got an A-), so I really don’t know how the course load would compare to AP? My senior seems to think AP classes are pretty challenging. I guess this idea of maybe community college has come up because a few of her friends are looking at that route. I really never thought my kids would go there instead of right to a university, but I am open to it if it is a good fit. And I want whatever their career goal ends up to be to correlate with whatever student debt they end up with.
Do you want your D to go to a four year college at 18 or continue her HS lifestyle of living at home? Will her academic peer group be found in those community college classes? Will the pace/material covered be as great as in your state flagship? Will your D miss the freshman year in the dorms college experience lacking? Will she be challenged? Seems as though the district is trying to save money by not providing sufficiently advanced classes in the HS. Going to the trouble of having an established 13th year program means many students must do it. Gifted students would use the CC in lieu of HS classes but to substitute them for freshman college year ones seems like a step down.
Perhaps others can help you better if you made possible 11th-12th grade schedules for the high school option and for the option with the college courses so that they can be compared. Otherwise, there are too many “it depends” aspects to give a good general answer to your question.
You know, all these programs run a bit differently so it’s hard to compare. My eldest did dual enrollment called “middle college” in our area. They had a classroom on the community college campus where they did their 3 hours of high school English and social studies. They took everything else for free through the community college. It was a great program for my eldest. A lot of academic freedom. A more independent student body. A lot less hand holding and busy work. Definitely worth any inconvience. She did not pursue an associates. She could have gone to an in-state public and graduated in two years but she chose a private university that only took 7 of the 17 college classes she took. No biggie as cutting her college time was never the point. In her case, doing a “13th” grade would have been awful as she was very ready for the university experience. However, I think something like that would have been great for my nephew who is super bright but hates school and ended up not going to college at all.
Perhaps the above nephew would have enjoyed the change from regular HS enough to like learning and want college after 12th grade. Or he may have just as bored.
If the student will enter 4 year collage after the associate degree only as a transfer student, it may affect the merit aid opportunity. That would be fine if the student can get the degree much earlier and save money. However, it may still take 3 years to graduate for some majors.