senior or freshman status? scholarships

Pre-College Issues Home Schooling and College
1

<p>Hi, I’m a mom with a question about my son, who was homeschooled and started dual-credit classes at the community college in 10th grade. Right now he is technically supposed to be going into 12th grade, but the comm. college only allows a maximum of 27 hours thru dual credit. Since he took 2 departmental exams, + all his classes, he now has 23 hours accumulated. The college told me he could take only 1 more class, because 2 3-hour classes would push him up to 29, which is over the limit. He really wanted to take 3 classes this semester, so the only way for him to do that was to enroll as a freshman, instead of dual-credit high schooler.</p>

<p>So, I ‘graduated’ him a year early. The plan is for him to apply to the 4-year university (UT Austin) as a transfer student in the fall of 2007, which is the same time he would have normally applied as a freshman anyway, if he were following the ‘normal’ timeline.</p>

<p>So, here are my questions:</p>

<li><p>UT Austin does not look at high school records for transfer students. Nor do they look at SAT scores. However, many scholarships do require SAT scores. He does not need to take the SAT for admission, but I would like him to take it to help improve his chances for scholarships. If he does well, those scores would help. However, if he does not score as well as he’d like, can I just opt to leave the scores out, or do scholarship organizations check up on that? I don’t want to be dishonest, obviously, but I’d like him to take the test if it’s to his advantage only.</p></li>
<li><p>Many scholarships say they are open to ‘high school seniors.’ Would my son still qualify as a high school senior? I still think of him as a senior - it is only a technicality that he graduated early. Essentially his college classes are AP classes, imo, but I don’t know if they would see it that way.</p></li>
<li><p>Does anyone know anything about the actual courseload of PLAN II? Is it as rigorous as an engineering courseload? I know that it is rigorous in a different way, but I am referring to actual hours spent doing homework.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks for any advice/opinions.</p>

2

<p>If he is applying as a transfer student with over 24 credits he is not a high school senior. You said that he is enrolled this year as a college freshman -- so last year he was a high school senior.</p>

<p>Scholarships are much, much more limited for transfer students and are generally more available to juniors. Also, things like community service, major and campus involvement become very important to those types of scholarships.</p>

<p>As far as I know, the SAT scores are not used for college scholarships for those already in college (which is what your son is). At that point, they use GPA for stats. </p>

<p>from the UT-Austin site: "Some scholarship funds are available for transfer students, but the amounts are limited. Learn more about applying for scholarships for transfer students."</p>

<p>see here for scholarship opportunities for transfer students <a href="http://www.texasscholarships.org/apply/CSA.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.texasscholarships.org/apply/CSA.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just keep in mind that the scholarship opportunites are much less for transfer students so that may affect which colleges your son applies to. need based aid can also be affected by whether your child is a freshman or transfer. They are eligible for increased stafford loan amount.</p>

<p>On the plus side, your son can complete 2 years at the cc and then you are only paying for 2 years of college!</p>