The OP is in California, where every year tens of thousands of CC students transfer to the state universities (including the most selective ones). CC students include non-traditional students, students who are unable to attend a university initially (usually due to cost limits), and advanced high school students taking courses beyond the AP offerings at their high schools.
Perhaps that may be different in your state.
I PMed the OP, because I think we have experience at the same CC but different high schools. In general, I’m not sure that you can generalize from your son’s experience in Psych that all the CC classes are as challenging as the equivalent AP course. Particularly for history and biology.
We are very practical. My D’s strategy was to take enough AP classes to be considered “most rigor” by GC at school and only for the classes that would get her useful credits in college. So she got near the maximal AP credits she needs in college without overwhelming her in high school. It was successful that she got 4.0 GPA in high school, an easy load of AP exam each year in high school and scored 5 in all of them, received credits for almost all pre-requisites course for her engineering school and humanity electives by AP. Now she has 70 credits already after freshmen year and only 2 non-major courses to finish this semester in sophomore.
Definitely be careful taking Biology, Chemistry, OChem and the liek in CC…in many cases medical schools won’t take CC credits for those. It might be worth taking AP courses for science, and then either retaking or taking an honors version of those classes in college. They could always take a higher level Bio/Chem class instead if they took Bio in CC, but then they woudl still be competing against the students who were taking Bio…GPAs are GPAs and they dont’ care what courses you take in the first filtering of applications.
Hi, all,
Thank you for all of the input. It’s been extremely helpful.
Ynotgo gave me some excellent info on specific classes at the CC in question. I’ve also spoken to our GC, who says that AP and DE are considered equally rigorous by the high school, and that the only place we might have trouble with the DE classes would be Ivies and East Coast LACs. Hmmm…
We’re not looking at any Ivies, and our LACs are midwestern or here in CA (the CC has a transfer agreement with Pomona, so if it’s good enough for Pomona…)
I’ve emailed several of the schools on our list to ask their opinion of DE. Rice is the only one who’s answered so far, and their answer is that they don’t have a preference between the two as long as the student is in the most challenging environment available. Incidentally, I emailed Rice at 2pm my time, and the admissions rep answered me same day - at 10 pm his time. Hat tip Rice!
So where does this leave us? It looks like the answer so far is a big bucket of “it depends.” S wants to do Japanese at the CC instead of French at the HS for his language, so we’ll continue that track. Math at the CC when he runs out at the HS. Lab sciences will stay at the HS for AP.
Oddball classes based on S’s specific interests (Human Form & Function, Physiological Psych, etc) we’ll evaluate on a case by case basis.
One other issue worth considering – you can’t be in two places at once.
Students who split their time between a high school and a college often spend a lot of time in transit or waiting around for a class to start. That leaves them less time for the other things they may need or want to do in the course of a day.
One of my colleagues at work has a son who is a high school senior. The son is taking a college course in lieu of a high school course because the subject he wanted to study is not offered at the high school. But this means an hour’s travel (by multiple buses) each way from the high school to the community college three times a week, and another hour’s travel by bus to get home. The travel wastes so much time that he has found it necessary to drop an extracurricular activity that he really liked in order to have enough time to get his homework done.
I wonder whether this is really worth it, or whether he would have been better off taking a less interesting elective at his high school, following a normal schedule, and staying in the EC. After all, he could take a course in the subject that interests him next year when he’s an actual college student.
Be careful about one thing: If there are too many college credits, some schools might consider the student a transfer student when applying for a 4 year college/
Which schools have this kind of policy for college credit earned before high school graduation?
I can assure you that no college will diss a DE program, at least in writing. (It would be political suicide since, at some states and some districts, that is the best/most rigorous class that students can take.)
So probably a waste of time to ask further since the “official” answer will always be what Rice told you. What gets discussed behind closed doors, of course, is another matter.
Sending you a PM UCB.
I’m curious, too. I’ve seen warnings about credits after HS graduation here. The warnings I’ve seen about too many credits for freshman entry were elsewhere several years ago and seemed non-specific.
Sent you a PM. Bottom line, any student with a lot of college credits should check the admission requirements of schools to which they are applying.
Since the OP is in California and much of the list consists of state universities there, here are those schools’ policies:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/transfer/
http://calstate.edu/transfer/
Note that college credit earned while in high school or in the summer immediately after high school graduation does not cause the student to become a transfer applicant at UCs and CSUs.
Of course, other schools have their own policies.
This policy apparently varies on an individual basis. Would recommend each applicant check the policies of the schools they are considering if they are a DE applicant.
DE is high rigor, but it does not mean the credits would be accepted by college particularly from OOS. Some school would not consider any DE credit if the classes took place in a high school setting (some CC do that) or the class is only for high school student. I know a student from a very competitive HS in California with DE credits from a local CC. None of the credits are accepted by UMich. For that, one should ask the college.
Wow- physician here- never heard HS gpa matters for medical school (it should not). We always said our gifted kid was too smart o become a physician. Hopefully your son will be able to open his world to a host other satisfying careers in addition to becoming an MD once he is in college.
College. The best thing he can do is to NOT live at home. There is so much after hours learning to be done with high level academic peers. Make your college plans with that in mind. Just living at home to save money with the goal of medical school and its high costs is detrimental to his overall education and development.
One does not need to take AP courses to take and do well on AP tests (a friend of son’s got to skip US History of any kind when he got a 5 on the APUSH exam before taking any). Your son should be getting 5’s, not 4’s on AP exams. He can do better than B’s, which is what a 4 means. It sounds like he has the ability to do the extra on his own to get 5’s. Community colleges and AP level classes are average college caliber. The best HS students have available but not the same as top tier colleges (including state flagships).
A consideration. Will his CC classes taken as a HS student count as college credits? This could mess up plans to enroll as a college freshman instead of as a transfer student.
Right now you want your son to stay engaged in learning, not prepare to become a physician. Many gifted kids- boys especially- underperform when they are bored (one reason my son did not have a 4.0 after his early semesters of HS). Your son can easily change his mind about his future as well- even while in college he should be open to switching or adding majors.
He and you need to explore many more colleges. Now is the ideal time to list dozens of schools, research them and then pare the list. Right now the CC courses see4m good to him but the typical students there are not of the same caliber as those in the Honors program at your flagship U, for example.
You need a (long) discussion with your son’s HS guidance counselor. This person should know options for gifted kids in your area, both while in HS and for college. Gifted education has progressed since my only ten or so years older than your son’s day. My son was still 16 when he did well at our large flagship in the Honors program, living in the dorm. A girl we know was able to spend her senior year at our flagship through our state’s Youth options program before going to an elite private. It is time for you to seek local professional guidance for your options.
It is only grades in college courses taken while in high school, not regular high school courses or AP scores, that can affect pre-med GPA.
Re: too many college credits while in HS - Pomona has such a policy, but it’s somewhat tricky to interpret. AP doesn’t count. College courses taken in lieu of HS courses don’t count. But yes, if DS accumulates more than a year of college credit before he graduates HS, he would need to apply to Pomona as a transfer student instead of as an entering freshman.
The reason this is tricky is that interpretation of what does or doesn’t replace a high school class is a gray area. Example - if S takes Japanese 202, that exceeds his 2 year HS language requirement. Does that class then count against him for 1 year of college credit? We’re not sure. Pomona has recently redesigned their website, so I can no longer find the page where this restriction is laid out.
Re: general parenting philosophy - we think S should have ample time to do things like sleep, run on the beach, watch some Dr. Who and play a little Minecraft each week. When he’s taking a full complement of rigorous HS classes, plus a college class, plus his ECs and volunteer activities (all of which are his own choices), then we support him in making an ROI-based decision not to do add’l self-study for that AP test. Could he have done it? Sure, but it would have meant giving up something, and the long-term value of a 5 vs a 4 wasn’t there for him.
In the aggregate, there’s a chance that a history of making similar choices will rule out MD as a career option. If that happens, it’s not a bad thing. It simply means that ability aside, he’s not willing to make the necessary sacrifices. We’d rather he learn that in HS or undergrad rather than 2 years into med school, a residency or private practice.
There was a reason he took that test cold, and it was a reason we agreed with: he wanted to gauge the amount of effort required to get a certain score. Now he knows. He’s also got something of an experimental mindset - he took the exact class for which the test was supposed to be a proxy. Taking the test cold, for him, was a validity test* of the entire AP concept. While some might think that’s a peculiar reason to take an AP test, I can tell you that for my particular kid, the success of that experiment went a heck of a long way toward getting buy-in for future AP tests. 
*Kid says there were some questions on the AP test where the relevant material was not covered in the college class, but that the college class also covered stuff that wasn’t on the AP test. He sees it as an alignment issue, not a quality issue for the college class. At his HS, AP Psych is for juniors, and he didn’t want to wait two years. Now he can take Physiological and Abnormal Psych at the CC, both of which fall under the heading of keeping him engaged in learning. Yes, he may have to retake the more advanced classes at his undergrad. He knows that, and is willing to take the risk.
Re: not living at home - I agree. I think he’ll get the most growth if he goes somewhere where he can’t live at home. That will depend on aid and finances, however.
We’re looking into things like research mentorships at the local flagship. Coursework might be a possibility, too. There’s a summer stem cell research program that sounds amazing if he’s interested. If he’s not interested, though, or not interested enough to pursue the coursework and recommendations that would make him competitive as a candidate, we’re not going to force him or pressure him unduly to do it. We see those as indicators that he’d be better suited in a different field, one where his insterest is strong enough that he’ll take the necessary steps pretty much on his own.
Sounds like your son is having a good childhood- no regrets later for missed time of life. Retaking courses at a more rigorous U is worthwhile. A lot of learning builds on previous exposure to the same material with added material. It will be interesting for you to see your son’s path. It sounds like he is taking an active role in determining his future. remember to have him reach high and that there are public U’s out there that trump most private U’s. School atmosphere can matter as well- one reason there is a rivalry between UC-Berkeley and Stanford is that UCB is just as good- and gets students with perfect test scores and high grades. Plenty of excellent choices close to home if you live on the west coast. Wherever he goes- find the money for freshman year on campus. I went a whopping 8 miles from home but it was a world apart. A college friend missed out on so much night stuff (she walked to campus)- even honors students hang out and discuss the world during late night sessions. Talk to that guidance department at his HS. They know the ropes for the area schools.