I don’t think you necessarily have a choice with DE classes, unless the class also counted as a high school credit. Because I took college classes in high school, I was required to send the transcript as part of my application and registration, thus the classes transferred. Even if something doesn’t transfer as a “class,” it can still transfer as a 3-credit hour elective or something. Why is that important? Registration. At my midwestern flagship, the order of registration was based on how many credit hours you had coming in.
As noted above, foreign language standing is super helpful at getting college credits. At the time, intro foreign language classes were usually 4 credits each and then the intermediate classes were 3 credits each. If you were able to test out of the 100 & 200 level classes, that was 14 credits right there.
Eyeballing her transcript and UNT’s requirements, I expect that, gauging it quite conservatively, she’ll come in with credit toward 15 out of 36 gen-ed credits, 9 of 18 college of arts & sciences requirements (3 of the remaining credits will be satisfied by her major), and definitely none of her major requirements. If she goes for a poli sci minor (which she’s strongly considering), she’d have at least 3 and probably 6 of the 18 credits required. None toward a theatre minor (which has synergies with her intended major), though.
So at least 24 to 30 credits that are “useful” in terms of counting toward graduation, which seems reasonable.
It doesn’t mess with financial aid—her award is renewable for up to 8 semesters, not by class level. (If she was coming in with an associates, though, yeah, that would create serious problems because she’d be required to enter as a transfer student.) And as @AustenNut mentioned, it’s useful to transfer in all the credits, even the ones that “don’t count”, because it ups her class standing (which is based on number of credits completed) and therefore her position in the registration queue after the first semester.
Of course, if she doesn’t use all 8 semesters (i.e., graduates early) we still come out ahead, because no cost for a semester is better than reduced cost. It is unclear whether she could use the last semester or two of her scholarship toward graduate tuition if she graduates early and stays around for their MFA (a lot of colleges allow that), but she has not just no desire to get a masters but a negative desire, so unless something big changes in the meantime that’s not likely to be a worry.
We’re trying to figure out the dual credit situation too. My son is graduating high school with 64 units of dual credit, he’ll have his associated degree. He’ll have 6 AP tests too, but those are for classes he’s already receiving dual credit. He just wanted to take the tests. The UCs are generally pretty generous with accepting the dual credit from our high school and I see lots of kids graduate early. I reached out to the last family with a kid at Berkeley to see how the dual credit worked out for their child. We have a graduate accepted to Berkeley maybe every 2-3 years. My son wouldn’t mind finishing early if it he could start grad school early. I’m hoping the school can evaluate his dual credit early enough in the summer so that we know how to proceed for fall classes.
Even with an associates degree, they’re not considered transfer students. If the dual credit was while they were in high school, they’re still freshman admits.
D19 had like 44 credits from APs and D23 will have 36-38 I think from APs. D23 will be able to get a better parking spot due to her credits when she is freshman as she will be considered a sophomore.
That’s what we did for the two older kids – one and done, Freshman year. They didn’t mind – Freshman year is when they are still adjusting. By Sophomore year they had better things to do than hang out with us for a couple days at school. Youngest college doesn’t even have a family event or special days. No fall break either.
Our daughter’s family weekend is a mere 4 weeks after move in and is across the country. I am bummed not to be able to make it work. I know it will be tough on her not to have family there but that is one of the trade offs of going so far away and she knows that going in.
It will likely be fine. At my son’s family weekend, there were plenty of small herds of students in the dining halls and hanging out on campus without parents attending.
It will probably work out better than you think. I never told my family when family weekend was because I knew there wasn’t a chance they’d attend. At least at the big midwestern flagship I attended, it really wasn’t a big deal.
It’s ok to not attend parents’ weekend. We haven’t done it once for D20 (Covid her first year, couldn’t make it second year, she’s abroad this year).
Her sophomore year was pretty funny. She was taken out to eat 3 dinners in a row as well as two lunches by different friends’ parents. Her friends joked that it was nice to have a friend who could come out to meals with parents; it gave their parents a better view of their time at school and it took some of the attention off them so it felt less like interrogations over meals.
When I was in college my parents were never able to visit me. Too far and cost too much. Dad worked construction so if you missed days you didn’t get paid. My wife’s parents were the same. We met in college.
So I have a rule when I visit my kids at college, roommates/friends are always welcomed to come to dinner when I am in town and it is on me. Pretty much grab whoever wants to come. Be careful because you could end up like we did with one of D19’s roommates, she ended up going with us on our Christmas trip this year. Just kidding she has ended up being like our third daughter and we are happy to have her around.
Looking ahead to move in. We all want to be there for the big move, but reality is that our younger child may not be able to miss 2-3 school days to do this (based on when move in is). So it would just be one parent and S23. Both parents really want to be there. S23 doesn’t want to have to choose. We may just pull S29 from school a few days so he can be a part of brother’s move in. We know it’ll be crowded too. Has anyone had to choose? If so, how did you decide who goes with?
In the end, we know it’ll be ok. Family weekend is 4 weeks later and we do plan to do that. S29 would miss a day of school for that too. We really don’t like the kids to miss school if possible, but we’ve already decided on family weekend being one we do. Thankfully we are within driving distance so it’s do-able.
huh. My younger kid (S23) was thrilled to be left alone while we jaunted off with D19. He hugged her in the driveway and was done. lol.
(we did not have room for another human with all the stuff crammed into the car)
We pulled our younger child out of school for a couple of days. He wanted that time with his sister and I wanted another set of hands to haul bags into the room!
This is what we do. We take all the friends and roommates available out to meals when we visit. D17 just had her last meal on us, lol. She invited all her friends to a steakhouse of her choice and it was an $800 bill. I guess she went out with a bang, lol.
At my midwestern flagship, the order of registration was based on how many credit hours you had coming in.
