Middle college?

<p>Would you suggest doing middle college?</p>

<p>If you don't know what middle college is, it's basically an alternative to "traditional high school" in which during junior and senior year you take a few core classes such as HS English and Social Studies/History to fufill HS grad requirements. The rest of your class schedule is filled with college courses that will count for high school AND college credits. (ex: if i took pre-calculus, it would count as a year of math for hs, as well as college general ed) </p>

<p>You take all these classes at the local community college. Most of the time your credits will transfer as long as they are eligible and the college you go to accepts them.</p>

<p>Do you think this is a good option? There is a pretty good chance I will want to attend a private university so by getting credits during HS i could save a lot of money.</p>

<p>But how will this impact my college app? How do colleges view this? Will it hurt or help me? Or does it not matter at all. I have contacted LMU, and they've told me that taking college courses while in HS shows "maturity, yada yada yada" So does that mean it's viewed as a good thing? I'm just trying to get an idea of how middle college is viewed by universities. Thanks!</p>

<p>Some private schools do not accept transfer credit units for college courses taken while in high school, presumably because they don’t want students graduating early and escaping tuition bills. Public schools are usually more generous with transfer credit units.</p>

<p>Subject credit may be a different matter entirely, since the receiving school may not consider the transferred courses the same as its own courses. Public schools often have articulation agreements with same-state community colleges, so you can tell what subject credit you will get. In California, these are listed at <a href=“http://www.assist.org%5B/url%5D”>http://www.assist.org</a> .</p>

<p>Check the transfer credit web pages of the colleges you are considering.</p>

<p>Alright thanks. I’ve already gotten in touch with LMU and Chapman, and they say that they’ll accept most credits that qualify for UC/CSU transfers. I’m just not sure about privates that are out of the state of California.</p>

<p>I think that is also known as dual enrollment. It is usually a good thing. It shows you can handle college level coursework. It is most useful to students that aren’t challenged by the available curriculum, or who have maxed out the highest level offerings in subject areas.</p>

<p>You should talk to your GC about it. Your GC will know how colleges view it, and if you won’t be considered as having the most challenging schedule is you don’t. GC’s report to the colleges if you are taking the most challenging schedule or whatnot. </p>

<p>The consideration for you is how much you want to work, and if you will be able to keep your grades up. </p>

<p>One note: I don’t know that you can expect all classes to transfer to all colleges. Precalculus is usually a HS class. I’m sure that having calculus will transfer but I don’t know about precalculus. But if your HS doesn’t offer precalc it will be good for your college outlook to take this in ‘middle college’.</p>

<p>I know most colleges require you to take up to Algebra 2 throughout your four years of high school, which i am in this year. I just assumed the general ed courses you take in college pick up where you left off. So if after algebra 2 you take precalculus, you would take precalculus in college. When the time approaches i will definitely be getting in touch with colleges i am interested in to see which courses i should take in middle college. A lot of times the websites are really confusing and they don’t list which math classes the universities offer. But thanks :)</p>

<p>Precalculus is normally taken in high school by college-bound students (12th grade for normal sequence students, earlier for advanced students).</p>

<p>The normal math course for college frosh is calculus, although advanced students take calculus in high school.</p>

<p>One thing to note is that you want to go to medical or law school, grades in college courses taken while in high school are included in the GPA for medical and law school admission purposes.</p>

<p>My eldest is in a middle college program. Some things to consider. Find out if your program is given priority registration at the community college. This is a biggie. If not, it could be very difficult to get in the classes you NEED let alone the classes you want. If you get priority for even 2 classes, that’s awesome.</p>

<p>Make sure you are taking classes equivalent to what you’d be taking in college or higher. There are so many options at the college that it’s easy to slip into “well, I’ll take college algebra instead of pre-calc.” Nothing wrong with college algebra and it transfers nicely to the California publics. However, it’s only HALF pre-calc. You have to take trig the next semester if you want credit for taking pre-calc at a competitive school (or just take the 1 semester pre-calc class to start.)</p>

<p>Make sure you can afford the books. You can save by renting or borrowing but that’s not always an option. We’ve paid anywhere from 100 dollars for texts one semester to 600 the next. Just be prepared.</p>

<p>Understand why you are there. Some kids go to reduce the price of college over-all and if that is the case, you should have a good idea going in where you want to go. Even within the public systems, while the classes might all transfer, they may not meet particular school GE’s. For example, my daughter will graduate with 38 units… if she were to attend Berkeley, all but one lower-division GE would be completed. It she were to attend Santa Barbara, all her CREDIT would transfer but their GE qualifications are totally different and she’d still have a lot left to do. My own kid isn’t there to shorten university time. She’s there because she likes independence in learning and accelerated pacing of the classes. She likes choosing for herself how to gain mastery as opposed to her last high school that micro-managed her to death. They required mass amounts of homework that for her, was repetitive busy work. She needed more academic options while still in high school. Her top university choices will take either NONE of her transfer credit or only 3 or 4 classes at most. She’s fine with that.</p>

<p>My daughter really loves it. Her school has sent kids to competitive schools like NYU and Berkeley but the vast majority are going to publics and smaller LAC’s.</p>

<p>“as long as […] the college you go to accepts them.”</p>

<p>This is a very important clause. </p>

<p>To ensure the credit will be accepted, you will need to do a few things:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>To the extent possible, take regular college classes with regular students of the college in them. Classes that consist only of dual-enrollment HS students are often rejected for credit.</p></li>
<li><p>Save all syllabuses, reading lists, papers, exams, etc. If the credit is challenged, you want to be able to document the extent and rigor of your coursework, and the degree to which it conforms to the requirements of the class you are trying to get credit for.</p></li>
<li><p>Ask early of any college you apply to whether applying as a freshman vs a transfer will impact the number and type of credits you will be able to transfer. I inadvertently ran afoul of this one at Georgetown. Because I had applied as a freshman, they refused to give credit for the majority of my classes (despite most being very rigorous choices from the liberal arts honors core and the for-science-majors tracks of Chem/Bio/Physics). </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Know before you apply which is the best way to apply for your needs, bearing in mind that freshmen generally have better aid and scholarship options but that may mean sacrificing some credits. Sometimes you can negotiate a compromise in which as a freshman you do not get credit for the classes but do get the advanced standing in that subject for access to higher level classes, and/or a release from the distribution requirements (or if you’re especially lucky or convincing, degree requirements) those classes would have filled. </p>

<p>Generally, the more selective the school, the more these transfer issues come up.</p>

<p>I did a program similar to this and brought 31 hours of transfer credit into Emory. One thing to understand is that almost all schools will count you as a first-year student (not a transfer students), which is a different admissions process–it also serves as an excuse for them to give you less transfer credit.</p>

<p>It makes you more competitive compared to other freshmen and since you apply as a freshman you can access more merit money, so it’s a double bonus. :)</p>

<p>Do you think middle college is good for college application
How good is middle college in comparison vs very good high school?</p>