<p>Is taking community college classes important for home-schoolers to do?
How many classes can you take until your considered a transfer student?</p>
<p>Absolutely not necessary, but it sure helped my son! Outside verification of SOME sort, whether community college classes, other outside graded classes, SAT II/CLEP/Completed AP Tests, or recommendations, is critical. You can’t just have grades from your parents without some sort of outside verification to back it up.</p>
<p>As for the how many question, it depends. My son took very many, and was not considered a transfer student because all the classes he took were dual enrollment. We talked to many top-level schools and the answers were unanimous. He will be entering as a freshman even though he has an AS. However, I’ve known people to say they heard otherwise from colleges they spoke to, so you need to check it out with the schools of interest to you.</p>
<p>If you take classes after you graduate from high school, then it can be as little as six or 12 credits (2 - 4 classes) that are enough to trigger the “transfer” designation.</p>
<p>It’s not absolutely necessary especially if you’re not looking at going to a high level college. However, when oldest was applying the schools told him they appreciated that he had one cc class as well as his decent ACT/SAT scores.</p>
<p>If you had to ask me what the most important thing for a homeschooler is it would be the ACT or SAT score.</p>
<p>Second would be outside confirmation of grades (which is also a part of the ACT/SAT).</p>
<p>Then there are the extra curriculars.</p>
<p>A high ACT/SAT score will get your app looked at. The others add to it.</p>
<p>Forgive my ignorance-but when you take for example ‘American History’ at the local cc, are you automatically not going to have to take the American History requirement in college?</p>
<p>Depends on the college. If the college accepts it as a transfer credit, you won’t have to take it. The problem with dual-enrollment credits is that colleges are less likely to accept them as transfer credits. This is the advantage if you want to get freshman admission. </p>
<p>This is why I recommend taking AP tests as well as dual-enrollment classes. :)</p>
<p>Aah, makes sense now :)</p>
<p>This is a little off topic- but it I were to take AP English next year, would it satisfy the English requirement for next year, or would I have to take something like British Literature along with it?</p>
<p>It would certainly have satisfied the English requirement for my son. If you’re in public school with an English requirement, AP English is a real course. Do you mean you want to take the test next May but not bother preparing for it? I’m confused.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on the rules of your umbrella school (if any - we didn’t use one) and your state.</p>
<p>No, I’m taking AP English online, but I’m also wondering is it necessary to take British Literature along with it. (I also plan to take the AP test in May).</p>
<p>My kids never took cc classes - mostly because we did not want to have to deal with a schedule. They did take a lot of AP classes. My son took 11 AP Classes, but only 7 exams, because he did not take any exams his senior year. He got into Caltech and MIT, early as well as UCLA and Berkeley. My daughter too 13 AP classes (and 10 exams). She got into Scripps, St Johns, Willamette and Colorado College (with merit money at the 3 schools that offered it)</p>
<p>I do think outside verification is usually a good idea, but APs work as well as CCs, it just depends on your preferences.</p>
<p>Bump 10char</p>
<p>Plenty of ways to skin the cat.<br>
My kids didn’t do CC, APs, or any courses at all. Just SATs and Subject Tests.
My son graduated from Dartmouth and was admitted to Amherst, Williams, Haverford, Johns Hopkins and Carleton as well.
My daughter graduated form Princeton on May 31st- the only college she applied to.</p>
<p>I’m currently in this situation. I will graduate high school with an AA in Liberal Arts (though I will have almost 90 credits over the three years I attended my CC and will have gone above and beyond the requirements, especially in math/science). I currently hold a 3.97 GPA and will be re-taking the one course I got a B+ in. Hopefully I can graduate with a 4.0 and be considered for valedictorian/salutatorian of my graduating class. I am pushing to be accepted as a transfer student (I want to avoid freshman dorms and the general ed classes I have already taken), so I am actively pursuing Rutgers, my state school, because I feel that the closeness between my school and Rutgers might improve my chances of getting what I want. Plus, Rutgers seems to have everything I want: a big, diverse student body, respected academics, an honors program, relatively low tuition expenses, and two transfer scholarship options that I qualify for. I just hope it all works out.</p>
<p>@ChatterQuill, does your CC have a Phi Theta Kappa chapter? There are scholarships available for PTK transfer students.</p>
<p>Both of my kids had a number of CC credits as dual credit students. All of the credits were accepted by their colleges and my son is zipping through engineering school in three years because of all of those credits! The only issue we found is when the CC class credit is 3 hours and the college’s class credit is 4 hours - it’s a very good thing to take both the Eng 1 and Eng 2, for example, in case you run into that situation. Then you have enough credits to cover the requirement. And it is a great deal when you can take history in high school and have it count for college at the same time! No worries about the AP test at the end of the year.</p>
<p>It depends on how you are doing homeschooling in terms of outside classes. While they obviously can be a help, someone who is doing an online, accredited program might not need that validation, as opposed to someone working with mom and dad or a homeschooling group.</p>
<p>In terms of classes being recognized, it depends on the school you are applying to and what their standards are. For example (not in a homeschooling context) I got a 5 on the AP english lit exam with essay back in the dark ages, but NYU would not let me use that to get out of the lit requirement in the core courses (got some dirty looks when I said they did that to keep lit teachers employed, because otherwise no one would take those courses). It depends on the outside program you go to, its relative level, and the standards of the accepting school. </p>
<p>Probably the best way to help figure that out is start thinking about what schools you might want to apply to, and take a look at their websites to see about requirements and if they list anything for homeschoolers. Even better, shoot the schools you might be interested in’s admissions department, and ask them about how they look at homeschooled students, what they look for and so forth, most admissions departments are only too glad to oblige IME.</p>
<p>I never did dual enrollment. Just APs. But do one or the other or both. I don’t think homeschooling can be done successfully without one or the other.</p>
<p>In my family’s experience, SAT Subject Tests worked just as well.
Cheap, brief and given frequently. If you don’t like your result, just prepare more and retake.</p>