<p>I read on these boards about a number of kids who have taken/are taking college courses in high school, either dual enrollment or dual credit. I'm curious as to how that works. At my kids' high school, the only courses that can be taken at the local community college during the school day are vo-tech type courses. My kids don't take any of those, so I'm not sure how the transportation logistics work. I guess HS students could take a college course in the evening, but the CC is an hour away in rush hour traffic, and an early evening course would likely conflict with ECs, not to mention cut into homework time. My D is thinking about taking a CC course this summer because she can't fit the AP equivalent into her schedule next year, but I'm trying to figure out how so many kids are taking them during the school year. FWIW, our high school has a lot of AP classes, as well as upper level math like multivariable calculus for kids who finish AP Calc BC before senior year, so maybe college courses aren't really necessary. How does it work at your kids' schools?</p>
<p>The only college class that my kids took was MV Calc, precisely because it wasn’t available at the high school. The logistics were a big pain in the neck, to put it mildly. If your HS offers the classes that your D needs I wouldn’t look outside.</p>
<p>Many states have some sort of dual enrollment program that gives college credit for a certain selected high school courses. In my state, the program is called, “College in the High School” (CHS). High school teachers apply to have their courses evaluated by college faculty. If the course and the teacher are accepted, then students have the option of paying a fee to obtain college credit for that course. Examples of CHS courses are the highest level Chemistry, Spanish, French, Math and English courses taught at local high schools. My daughter took a CHS-qualified 4th-year Spanish class, but we decided not to pay the fee (something like $200) after we learned that the out-of-state college she had been admitted to, would not honor the class. So, it works great if you are staying in-state to go to college, perhaps less so if you don’t.</p>
<p>Lots of kids here take classes in the summer at the local CC, in order to review advanced math or science topics before they take the same class for a grade in high school.</p>
<p>Our son took courses at local universities, a local community college and an online university. Logistics were a major headache for me in all but the online courses as most schools were 30 to 40 minutes away.</p>
<p>My son took one course that was both “duel enrollment” and AP. His real college never cared if this was also considered duel enrollment. They just gave him credit since he earned a 5 in the AP test. Not sure why I bothered to have that extra credit from a college.</p>
<p>My nephew took duel credit courses at a local college because his hs didn’t offer that level. The class was smack in the middle of the day. The logistics were a real nuisance, even though my SIL wasn’t working.</p>
<p>As ALF said, these can be very popular state programs. Credits are awarded through the local cc or a local 4 year and are accepted by the in-state Us. In my state, the state dept of ed pushes these, not allowing a school to offer AP if a dual credit option is available (or vice versa). If there’s enough interest (and there often is as there is no cost to the students in my state, as long as they don’t fall below C level), the class is offered at the high school. The teacher needs the credentials to be hired at the cc. Syllabus has to be approved by the cc. In these cases, there are no logistics issues. Instead of AP, we have dual credit at the high school.</p>
<p>I think MN has one that has students earning an AA at the same time as a high school diploma.</p>
<p>My kids went to a small high school where there were many scheduling problems. They took online AP classes (look up Educere.net, an umbrella organization, or Virtual High School, or Aventa Learning).</p>
<p>We ultimately convinced our school (and got funding through a foundation) to join Virtual High School so that 25 students could take online courses without paying.</p>
<p>If you pay privately, they run about the same as a CC, approximately $400.</p>
<p>Our state university, and, of course, many others, private and public, also offer online classes that can be taken in high school, usually for a cost between $800 and $1,000, sometimes more.</p>
<p>I think most schools would “allow” these types of classes as long as the student will complete the necessary requirements for graduation and the logistics can be worked out. Logistics would include transportation as well as sync with the school calendar. Our kids school does allow Vo-Tech, the local CC, the local public U and Virtual school but it does take pre-planning of the students schedule with the guidance office. The school’s GC’s generally talk about this at the fresman parent meeting and stress the need for the planning portion of alternatives. The most “favorite” method is to get all the school and state graduation requirements completed by junior year/senior fall and using senior year for alternatives.</p>
<p>Perhaps not directly onpoint, but you should be aware some/(many?) top colleges will not accept dual enrollment credits, unless the course is taught on the college campus with mostly college kids.</p>
<p>My son is taking AP Comp Sci through Virtual HS because our HS doesn’t offer it. This is the first time our HS is offering VHS. He also talked about trying to take French at a local college since he couldn’t fit French 4 into his schedule either Junior or Senior year, but the logistics were really hard for a kid who doesn’t drive and doesn’t have his own car, and S has a full schedule anyhow, so he didn’t pursue this. (Since he’s applying to mostly engineering schools/programs, most of them are fine with 2 years of foreign language taken in HS (plus 1 in MS).)</p>
<p>I think the high schools where this work out well tend to be very close to the colleges where the kids take the classes. Even then the time schedules can be difficult to work out!</p>
<p>Finals can be a problem too as the finals schedule is often released after the semester starts.</p>
<p>Some courses require group work too and that can be a factor in logistics.</p>
<p>On the administrative side, typically a letter from the guidance counselor, principal or superintendent is required along with transcripts.</p>
<p>Mine is at a school associated closely with a university so the logistics are mostly easy. One big benefit is just experiencing how college courses work. The material may be about the same as an AP in terms of difficulty but the manner in which the course is managed is very different. So, kids who take college courses in high school learn a lot about time management and dealing with problems on their own. The teacher of a college course isn’t going to do hand-holding, although they will probably be very available to any student who asks for help. The student will be expected to do more on their on, and excuses that would fly in hs just won’t.
Logistically - group work can be difficult, but with good internet access , things are generally okay - however you may need to think about whether you are comfortable with your kid hanging out with a bunch of college kids in a dorm to work on a project. The schedule will be different - and this may cause a problem during vacation time. And, there aren’t many snow days.
Colleges all handle placement and credit differently, but most are used to it and have reasonable policies.</p>
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<p>In a university setting, you’re not restricted to offerings from the
College Board. Upper level undergraduate courses and even graduate
courses may be available to dual-enrollment students at the local
university.</p>
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<p>Students can also get a sense of the freedom at a university, chat
with college students, attend colloquia and look into areas of
study that they haven’t been exposed to in high-school, chat with
researchers, etc.</p>
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<p>Overall, it can be a big headache for parents but it can also be a
big growth experience for students.</p>
<p>We were very lucky. Our district offers several dual credit classes, taught by faculty members of the local CC, on the high school campus. So, no logistical issues.</p>
<p>I agree with what some I think are saying…I think high school kids taking dual enrollment or any sort of off-campus or vitual classes should do so because it fits their academic needs…not as a path to cutting college costs. I feel the same way about AP branded classes. That benefit, if the class is excepted by the college or university for credit or in lieu of a entry level pre-req is a bonus.</p>
<p>My high school is in Florida, which has the 2+2 transfer agreement between community/state colleges and universities. At my school (and the other schools in the district), there is a dual enrollment program with the state college that serves our county and the one above us. Here’s how it works: I took the CPT (College Placement Test) to place into college level math and English (and thus the other subjects). Then, upon completion of my sophomore year, I was allowed to take college classes. I had to provide my own transportation (first car pooling, parents, rides with friends, then me driving when I got my license at 16). Credits from the college counted towards high school credits on this scale (one high school credit = semester course on 4 block/day every day schedule):</p>
<p>College Class Type – High School Credits
English/Literature – 1
Math – 1
Science with a lab – 1
History/Humanities – 1/2
Social Sciences – 1/2
Science without a lab – 1/2
Other – 1/2</p>
<p>Thus, my junior and senior year schedules were as follows (high school classes in bold, college in italics):</p>
<p>Summer 2009
AMERICAN HISTORY: DISCOVERY-RECONSTRUCTION<br>
AMER HIST:RECONSTRUCTION-PRESENT
ENGLISH COMPOSITION I</p>
<p>Fall 2009
*WESTERN CIVILIZATION:1485-1815
HUMANITIES-PHILOSOPHY
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY </p>
<h2>STATISTICS I*</h2>
<p>Latin V</p>
<p>Spring 2010
PRINCIPALS OF ECONOMICS MACRO
ADVANCED COLLEGE WRITING
COLLEGE ALGEBRA<br>
CREATIVE THINKING<br>
INTRO TO SPEECH COMMUNICATION</p>
<p>Summer 2010
AMERICAN LIT AFTER 1865
ENGLISH LIT AFTER 1798
INTRO TO SOCIOLOGY</p>
<p>Fall 2010
*GENERAL ASTRONOMY
ASTRONOMY LAB<br>
WESTERN CIV:ORIGINS
INTRO:INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p>
<h2>INTRO TO ECOLOGY*</h2>
<p>Debate IV (taught as president)
Exploratory Teaching</p>
<p>Spring 2011 (current)
TROPICAL MARINE ECOLOGY
COLLEGE COMPUTING<br>
HUMANITIES LITERATURE: ANCIENT-RENNAISSANCE
WORLD LIT: ENLIGHTENMENT-PRESENT
SOCIAL PROBLEMS<br>
WORLD HISTORY SINCE 1500</p>
<p>In many cases, the college classes were more difficult (for example, my statistics course covered things that friends who took AP Stat didn’t get to), but the teaching style was so much better for me that my grades shot up. My high school GPA is 3.65 unweighted, but my college GPA is 3.95. There was no homework (not counting papers, which I usually enjoyed in Philosophy or History courses). This program allowed me to take more academic classes than anyone else at my 2000-person high school. I will have 79 college credits and an Associate’s Degree by the time I graduate high school. I love this program and it was a god-send for my education.</p>
<p>There is also a fairly new high school in my county, which my girlfriend attends. It is a building on the college campus, and is centered around dual enrollment. They have the same policies for dual enrollment, plus they’re right there on the campus.</p>
<p>Our high school offers a couple of courses that are dual enrollment with Syracuse U. Neither of my kids took them so I don’t know what was involved in getting college credit for them. They are taught at the high school and appear on the high school transcript with the same weighting as AP and honors courses. Our son took AP Comp Sci as a freshman and we never did find a local college that offered any follow-up course he could take at an hour where he could get there.</p>
<p>That sounds like a very enlightened setup. I doubt that there are many (if any) high-schools where you would have been able to take that kind of course variety.</p>
<p>My HS has a dual enrollment program similar to what ALF described. Interestingly, they tended to opt for this over AP’s when I was in high school – there were very few AP classes. I was in all high-level classes and took about six of the dual enrollment (which they called “co-op”) but took no AP’s because they were all very specified. For example, every language had a level 5 class. Latin 5 was the only one where they taught closely enough to the AP test to consider it AP. I was a Spanish student.</p>
<p>Interestingly, my college’s policy says that they don’t accept credit from college courses taken in a high school classroom. However, I just contacted the college and asked that they forward my transcript to my college – apparently it didn’t have any kind of differentiation from a regular transcript from that college, because I got credit.</p>
<p>My high school was also effectively on a college campus – the same one that we could get co-op credit from – and some students took classes there.</p>