<p>We live in Ohio, where the State pays the tuition for high school students who take classes at all public universities, community colleges, and some private colleges and universities that participate. Students must apply and be selected by the university. </p>
<p>If you or your children participated in these programs, can you tell us how it was beneficial and any drawbacks.</p>
<p>We would also like to know if the grades from the university classes were "weighted" as an honors or AP level class in the high school transcripts. </p>
<p>My daughter participated in dual enrollment/pseo for two math classes through Clark State Community college. I paid for the first one (2012 school year), and the second one was paid for by the state (the rules changed). Both were taught in my daughter’s high school, but counted as both college credit & a weighted high school grade (same weight as an AP class). Because she is now going towards an engineering degree, neither class satisfied any degree requirement, but the credits did transfer to Ohio State University. It was good experience for her, though, and it does allow her to be a sophomore early in college, which affords her some perks with regards to class registration among other things.</p>
<p>My daughter’s private high school is affiliated with a college, and senior year, she took 2 classes each semester at the college, included in tuition. Was not weighted any differently, but her school did not weight any classes differently. She received a’s in all the classes, and 3 of the 4 classes transferred. 2 counted as gen eds and 1 just for credit, but it did free some of her schedule and has allowed a double major. </p>
<p>S’12 did a dual enrollment course at our local CC his senior year of high school. He attended college in Ohio also so the credits were accepted just as if he’d taken the course there. At that time our HS didn’t weight GPAs so I can’t speak to that, he did it just because he wanted to.</p>
<p>A friend of mine homeschools and her oldest took a full load of community college classes through dual-enrollment and actually got her AA degree before her high school diploma (she did a very structured type of homeschooling). She started at the next year as a junior (all credits were counted) at a very well-known private college and began her doctoral studies at 20 with her BA in hand. Obviously this is not typical but it worked out very well for her.</p>
<p>In WA, where I live, Running Start allows high schoolers in good standing to take classes at any of the state-run community colleges. Our HS doesn’t weight grades but there are a number of students taking these classes, one or two do FT at the CC only and credits are counted at both the HS and the CC.</p>
<p>Note that weighting policies may differ between high schools and colleges. High school weighted GPA is typically only relevant if you are concerned about class rank (e.g. if class rank is important for colleges being applied to). Colleges’ methods of weighting high school GPA are obviously relevant to admission to those colleges.</p>
<p>My DD’s HS weights Honors level classes (extra .50, A=4.5) and AP level classes (extra 1.0, A=5.0). She is taking half of her credits at the University and and half at the HS this year, and one class through Northwestern’s Gifted Learning Links, because she could not physically fit it into her schedule at the HS. </p>
<p>We just learned that the Honors level class through Northwestern will not be listed on her transcript as “Honors” and will not be weighted. They also told us that her classes at the University (both are the next level up after AP level courses) will not be weighted at all! Does that make sense? She took AP Economics last year at the HS and received a 5.0 for her A, but in Intermediate Macro Economics at the university, she will receive 4.0 on her GPA if she earns an A. DD says that she cares more about learning and this is the only way she can study these subjects before enrolling in college. We are concerned that it will negatively effect her class ranking and hurt her chances of admission. I asked the school official if they would make a note on her transcript by the ranking to explain that the classes she took at the University counted for credit at the HS, but were not weighted. I was told that they would “certainly not” do that. </p>
<p>We home schooled before last year and she had taken AP English Language through another school and a Summer creative writing program at UVa before starting at our public HS last year. They gave her credits for all the HS English classes based upon her CR and Written SSAT scores (800 and 780) and the AP and UVa classes, but they refused to record the A’s she earned in these classes on her transcript or to include them in her GPA. They listed them as "English 11 and English 12 with “P” for passing. </p>
<p>We are wondering if this could make the difference in getting in or not. She is interested in a few Ivies and equally competitive liberal arts colleges. Is there any way to address this in the Common Application format?</p>
<p>IMO, a good grade in a class at Northwestern outweighs any rank drop.</p>
<p>I live in Ohio and I participated in the PSEO program in my senior year. I took all my classes at a state university (with 16 credit hours in the fall, and 20 in the spring). </p>
<p>Benefits
- Possible college credit, depending on where you go to college. I go to a private university, but I was able to transfer all my dual-enrollment courses and I have 36 credit hours from them.
- Most high school course offerings are pretty bland, and colleges have more options.
- It’s a good alternative to graduating early if you’ve finished all your requirements.
- Not having to be in class all day long. Class attendance usually isn’t required either.
- I fit in better at the university than I did in high school.
- Getting to find out what college is really like. </p>
<p>Drawbacks
- My high school has a policy that says, 1 college credit hour = 0.2 high school credits. Each of my four-credit-hour math classes was worth 0.8 high school credits, so I had to take more than one college class to get a full high school credit.
- The commute might be difficult. I was only able to participate in PSEO the way I did because I was a full-time college student and didn’t take any high school classes. My dual-enrollment university was about 80 miles away from where my parents and I lived (which is in the middle of nowhere, so there weren’t any closer places), and I stayed with some of my relatives during the school year because they lived closer. The university also gave me the option of living in a dorm (which surprised me), but obviously I would have had to pay for it.<br>
- If you go to a high school that weights AP grades but not dual-enrollment grades, your class rank might go down.<br>
- College courses aren’t as standardized as AP courses, so colleges don’t know how rigorous they are and they usually prefer AP if you had a choice.
- Not being able to see high school friends as often.
- The grades will stay on your permanent college transcript.
- You don’t have priority for scheduling, so it can be hard to get the classes you want.</p>
<p>
My high school didn’t weight any grades, so in my case no. This depends on the high school. </p>
<p>In our school, also in Ohio they are required to have one study hall (where they usually TA) for each PSEO course they take. They have to have 2 English classes (writing based, lit doesn’t count) at the college level to get out of AP English 12. It is virtually impossible for D16 to do this, and have her beloved Jazz band/marching band while graduating with honors, and this is a kid who actually took health in summer school, has two mock trials in lieu of one history course, and has marching band instead of gym.</p>
<p>I think the school makes it unnecessarily hard for them, but some parents have the kid sacrifice the honors diploma for the credits if their college of choice would be accessible without it. She enrolled herself (filled out the forms, sent in her ACT grades and her transcript) as a non-matriculated distance student at Ohio University She earned 4 credits this summer and will graduate with between 30-36. </p>
<p>Thank you for your thoughtful responses. It appears that other high schools in Ohio also make it difficult to take advantage of the PSEOs. The students that I have talked to, that seem to have enjoyed taking the university classes the most, are those that enrolled full-time at the university, like HalcyonHeather did. Splitting your time between HS and college is more complicated and cumbersome. </p>
<p>HalcyonHeather’s comment that colleges prefer AP classes, which are more standardized over college classes was interesting. My daughter is taking all her AP level classes at the high school. The only classes she is taking at the university are classes above the AP level. She also may take some classes that the high school does not offer, such as Formal Logic, Archeology, Philosophy, or History classes beyond the APs offered in HS.</p>
<p>I guess we will have to hold out hope that the universities that she is interested in attending really do want students who are intellectually curious and seek out the most rigorous classes available to them and not just care about their class rank. </p>
<p>
I don’t mean that AP is always better, just that AP is preferable when you’re trying to choose whether to take the AP or dual-enrollment version of the same class (unless the dual-enrollment class fits into your schedule better). It’s different if you’re taking classes that don’t have AP equivalents, especially if they’re above the level of AP classes.</p>
<p>Actual college courses do have the advantage of being run as college courses with college expectations – specifically the expectation of self-motivation and time-management, as opposed to the high school model of closer monitoring of the student’s progress (even if the content of the course is the same).</p>
<p>If the college is a community college, the same-state public universities may be more likely to have pre-arranged transfer articulation agreements with it.</p>
<p>Our HS’PSEO options include a handful taught at the HS by CC profs. Those are most popular because they are there, in the regular HS schedule.</p>
<p>from post 8 above – 6. The grades will stay on your permanent college transcript.</p>
<p>This is important! DS received As and Bs in high school in a mix of dual, AP and honor’s courses. Due to weighting, the Bs in dual enroll courses were not a big deal in HS, but those Bs moved to his 4 yr college and pull down his overall GPA. </p>
<p>I made a [url=<a href=“Will my dual-enrollment grades follow me after I graduate? - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>Will my dual-enrollment grades follow me after I graduate? - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums]thread[/url</a>] about this topic a while ago and learned that the grades you receive in dual-enrollment classes won’t necessarily factor in to the GPA calculated by other colleges. My university doesn’t attach letter grades to transferred classes. Even so, some programs require you to submit transcripts from every college you’ve attended, so they’ll still see your dual-enrollment grades. </p>
<p>I think Heather is right. Our GC tried to tell the kids that the grades in college would ding their college GPAs, however I have transferred credits from different institutions and they show up as P on the new college transcript. So this is only an issue if the PSEO college becomes the college of matriculation </p>
<p>Or if the student later applies to medical or law school, in which all college grades are counted in GPA calculations (can be good if the student got a bunch of A or A+ grades in college courses taken while in high school).</p>
<p>
While I think it’s pretty mean not to weigh college level classes the same as AP or honors. I think not being willing to make a note as part of the GC’s letter is really outrageous. You might consider taking the question up a level in the hierarchy. IME colleges care more about the level of rigor of the courses you take, but many pay at least some attention to rank as well, so it’s nice if the high schools have a reasonably sensible system for determining rank. (There is no perfect system, and both my kids either got dinged or benefits from what our high school did. Scheduling issues often met they weren’t taking quite the level of course they wanted to and in our school honors and AP were weighted the same for example.)</p>
<p>My D. was at the HS that did not allow taking any outside classes. However, they taught few college classes in HS under special arrangement with one of the top colleges in OH. D. took one of these classes, I do not remember what we paid (or not). She took the class that she absolutely hated - History to make sure that she does not need to take it in UG. She got an A (huge efforts, probably the most in HS), which was fully transferrable to her UG later and she did not need to waste her time in UG taking history, so goal was achieved. She also took SAT II in History (I do not know why, SAT II in History is the hardest one with the lowest average score), she listed it on her application. So, I would recommend taking anything that kid does NOT want to focus on at college, something that they are not interested, but would like to get out of the way.<br>
D’s school did not use weighted GPA at all, so I do not how it would be weighted. She had all As in both HS and UG, so her GPA was very easy to figure out. </p>