I am finishing up my 10th-grade year studying abroad and next year I will return to an American hs for 11th. Almost all of my credits are transferring over except for English, which I will need to make up in order to a. graduate and b. be eligible for most college admissions.
I have looked into a number of ways of making up my English credit and here is what I have come up with: (please give me your opinion on which you think would be best)
Online course: I could take an online course, although it would fulfill my credit, I personally don't think it would be very engaging, and it might not look as high quality as a physical class.
Community college course: I can take a course at the local community college over the summer. This is a bit of a hassle as I have to do some placement tests and attend an obligatory info session although I'm not living in the country. Additionally, while the course would give me credit to graduate, there is no literature discussed, and this might look bad from a college admissions perspective...
Doubling up on English classes next year: This is what seems to make the most sense to me, although I would like to get some opinions on it. I was thinking of taking the English 10 Honors class (in concurrence with my AP Lang class). Although it's a heavier workload than the previous two options, it would definitely fulfill my grad requirements and college admissions reqs as well... Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this?
Thank you in advance! And if you have any other ideas let me know as well!
To me, the most important thing is to show colleges what you are capable of. So if you take an online class just to get the credits for 10th grade, but then take AP Lang and do well,then colleges will know you can do well in English.
Your Guidance counselor can include the fact that you studied abroad in their recommendation on your application to set the context.
Here is an online AP https://my.vhslearning.org/PublicStudentCourseList.aspx. You could ask your guidance counselor if this is an option as an online class but if your school doesn’t work with the company you may have to pay.
To clarify- the issue isn’t making up 11th grade english. I’m taking AP Lang in school as normal. The issue is retrieving my missing credit for 10th grade English.
And yes, I do plan on applying to top schools in the future, so I would really like to make sure I am meeting all the requirements I would need for application (and my fear is that the an English 101 at a community college might not achieve that).
English at a community college through dual enrollment is accepted for college admissions. My daughter spoke to tons of college admisisons including top colleges before making the decision to do only dual enrollment for two years. Even if a college doesn’t give college credit for it they will accept it for admission requirements. Dual enrollment is more and more common. You can even try emailing some colleges your thinking about and ask admissions what they think. The nice thing about doing it at a college is that it is only one semester vs full year. My daughter’s college English professor was very willing to look at her common app essay etc. My daughter got into 8 colleges out of 8 with only English 9 and 10 at high school and no AP ELA.