I was wondering if you guys could give me your thoughts on doing complete dual enrollment over taking a traditional ap and dp route. I have the chance to switch schools and the new school allows me to start taking college classes by the second semester of sophomore year. I have talked to their counselor and with my advancements, in core classes, I will be able to get about 60 college credits by the end of the 4 years and these college credits are from a 4-year university and not a community college. If you could give me your thoughts I would greatly appreciate it.
Constructive criticism and hard honesty is more than appreciated.
OP’s other thread indicates engineering or business as potential college majors.
Dual enrollment may be helpful if the courses you would take are more advanced than high school AP courses you would take, or if you would choose elective college courses in subjects not ordinarily available in high school.
Acceptance of college courses taken while in high school depends on the college they are taken at and the college you eventually enroll in. If the dual enrollment college is a community college or local state university, transferability is often better at in-state state universities, but may be more limited at more selective private schools.
@Hemanth1 please please go over your potential high school options with the school counselor. Number one goal is to make sure you are satisfying your local and state requirements for high school graduation. So…make sure that is happening first and foremost!
I guess I would ask why you want to do dual enrollment. Is it to get college credits? If so I hope you are thinking public colleges. Many private schools do not accept the credits the same way or at all. Is there something offered in dual enrollment that you cannot get at your high school? Is the community college/college well respected? Just things to start thinking about.
It depends. Especially on where you plan to attend college.
Some colleges view them as less rigorous as a corresponding AP course. Other schools (some public colleges) will give you college credits (check with the college on which ones they may take). The advice about checking local and state high school graduation requirements is right; it’s the first thing to check.
What are your reasons? Do you have classes in dual enrollment that aren’t offered at the high school? Do you want to try and earn an Associate’s Degree at the same time as your high school diploma?
My kid is taking dual enrollment courses, but only because the school has lost AP courses and my kid is also doing athletics. In order to prove rigor, my kid is taking some AP tests in May that correspond with some of the dual enrollment courses. It’s a way to prove that for some core courses, the dual enrollment’s rigor is matched with an AP test. This will probably help admissions in evaluating my kid’s transcript, but how much it helps at a prospective school is currently unknown.
For example, it may show a school like Harvey Mudd that my kid can handle the work and they may accept my kid - however, no credit is given for this course work and all students take most of the same STEM courses in first year. At a California state school, the courses taken will allow my kid to have advanced standing in freshman year, should my student be accepted. This then allows my student the option of taking more specialized courses, which would potentially make for a more interesting school experience.
Your parents and a guidance counsellor should be able to help you draft a list of pros/cons to help you plan your classes for the upcoming years.
If you are planning in the future to attend any public college do it! Credits will transfer and your family will save a lot of money and you will save a lot of energy. Just do not rush. You do not need 60 credits. Even 30 credits will be great (one full year of college.) Stay away from exotic classes, but all basics will transfer. If you will have high GPA you will look to public colleges even more attractive than a person with AP credits and high school GPAs. You will not lose any scholarships. You will be considered as a freshman with DE classes during the application process.
Most people on this board have very limited experience with DE classes and do not believe it is a good idea. They are wrong. I think it is an excellent idea and my 3 kids took DE classes. We had never regretted that they took them. My oldest transferred every single class from CC to GaTech. I wished they took DE classes earlier and would not waste their time with AP classes.
Here advantages of DE:
You do not take all exams at the same time for the whole year (in 2 weeks in May).
You do not need to take 7 subjects (some are double periods, I know) per semester.
You may have a normal college load with spread classes during the week (2 classes M, W, F and 2 T, Th).
Your studies are focused. You do not need to remember material from September in May.
In one year you can have 2 semesters of work instead of 1 semester over the whole year.
You know what you need to study for the exam (what was covered in your class). No more guessing games like with APs.
You can sleep! You do not need to register for classes at 8 a.m.
I would not make a blanket statement that all publics will accept DE credits. My D had to jump through a ton of hoops getting her DE credits approved at Purdue and she didn’t know they were accepted until 2 weeks before classes began. She was required to send the syllabi and lots more detail whereas for AP courses, it was a straight forward rubric. She had friends who did not get their DE credits approved.
One of my kids took 9 AP classes and a few DE classes. She ended up graduating college in 3 years, but getting her DE credits from Rutgers (not her college) took until her last semester, and she needed it (not sure if for graduation or her doctorate program).
Do not believe ANY poster who speaks in absolutes. Every university decides its own policies on which credits will transfer and which ones won’t. So someone else’s experience (DE credits from a college which is NOT the one you’ll be studying in, and transfer credits TO a college which is NOT the one you’re attending) are completely irrelevant.
A well taught AP course is more valuable than a poorly taught college course (and vice versa). So you need to figure out if you will just be “marking time” with the DE’s, or if they will be well taught, challenging, and valuable to you intellectually.
Nothing else is relevant. You don’t want to rely on someone else’s experience from halfway across the country. Colleges retain the right to accept or deny based on the ACTUAL course taken, not some hypothetical. The syllabus matters. The final exam or final paper matters. Whether the course is a Gen Ed type course or the first course in a sequence matters.
And do not start your college career trying to avoid being challenged. That’s the wrong way to approach your education.
OP, all big schools have transfer database. Look up what classes transfer. If you will have classes that you plan to take in school A listed as acceptable in school B, you have 0 probability that they will not transfer. You may need help of an adult to navigate it. I hand picked every DE class of my kids. Maybe that is why we had 0 problems. DD only took 1 class that was not listed but I was sure it will transfer after I compared syllables of two colleges. It did transfer in the end.
BTW not all schools take APs and not all APs are equal. Few schools take AP stats, or AP research. We even had schools that do not take AP Psychology since it doesn’t have labs…
You will have better luck figuring out what classes will transfer if you plan to stay close home for college (your state or neighbor states.) If students already transfered classes between schools they will be in database. It will be difficult to predict how classe from WA in school A will transfer to FL in school B or from AK to TN since there may be never students who did it.
However if you are transferring classes from MD to PA or VA there is a big chance that you are not the first and class was evaluated in the past.
Finally, some Community Colleges have many partnerships with other schools. That is the safest path for DE clases. If schools have agreements they should have extensive databases both ways.
Also AP credits are inpredictable too. UMD takes only 5 on AP CS. But Gatech takes 4. UMD will take 4 in Physics but Gatech will take only 5. Some schools do not take AP at all…So APs are hit and miss too. Do not forget, privates do not like DE or APs. They want your money! Schools like CWRU would tell that they would take DE only if they are not part of required classes for graduation courses. So of you need English and replace it with DE English they may not take it…
While I am generally a big fan of dual enrollment, I must give one additional caution that I do not see in the responses (maybe I missed it?): Remember that dual enrollment are college classes and as such are part of your college transcripts. This means that the grades you earn will follow you. If you choose to attend grad school, law school, med school, etc., you will need to submit the transcripts of your dual enrollment classes. So if you do take DE, make sure you get solid grades.
You can take DE provided you are happy to repeat the course in college if necessary. The college courses at the colleges that one hopes to matriculate to will likely have the same course taught far more rigorously than the CC ever will. That could be either a bug or a feature depending on your goals.
If they are 4 yr college dual enrollment, and if you are planning on a flagship state U that will take them, then yes, do it, rather than AP. You’ll save yourself the stress of prep for the AP exam, plus you will have tremendous flexibility of major, ability to do double major or even two degrees, upper class standing for course selection.
I would check out the colleges you MIGHT be interested in (even if a dozen) to see what their take is on college credit. If you get too many you might qualify for an AA and that might be trouble. It was for our family friend. Also, check the rigor of your particular CC. Are kids transferring to good state/private unis? If any? As an example, our local CC sends dozens of kids to UCs as well as Columbia and other top schools. Much different than other CCs in different towns. If my DS were in your shoes, I would tell him to only take classes that weren’t offered at your school, like higher-level math (DE, linear, etc), CS, other STEM classes, and specialized humanities. If you have difficult classes at your high school, take those before you take a CC class. Just my 2¢. Good luck!
??? You are recommending college courses for a kid who gets stressed out preparing for an AP?
OP- do not try college level courses taught at a college- by a college professor- if the idea of prepping for an AP stresses you out! This is insane advice. College courses move faster than HS courses, professors aren’t giving extra credit to help a kid skootch their grade up from a high B to a low A, there is no guidance counselor running interference if your grandparent dies the day before the final exam. College is college, not HS with nicer landscaping.
The only reason to take a course at a college is that the subject matter is MORE interesting, taught in a MORE comprehensive way. I cannot fathom a high quality college course which would be less stressful than a HS AP which is well taught.
There are a lot of kids with B’s and C’s on their actual college transcript because they were unprepared for the rigor of a DE course. Which is fine- but the posters who tell you DE is easier than AP are either used to “not terribly rigorous” college courses, OR engaging in a bit of fantasy land. We can’t compare the college/HS in your area- we don’t know where you are or what the rigor is…