<p>Our high school offers kids an opportunity to take 3 engineering courses at a nearby state university, taught by the university's professors. It seems like a great opportunity - the kids are driven there every morning and bussed back after a couple of hours to take the rest of their classes. These 3 engineering courses are counted for credit at the high school (treated as an AP level course for weighted GPAs) and can also be used for credit at the university.</p>
<p>This is open to both juniors and seniors. My D is going to be a junior next year and is very very interested in doing this program. We had originally planned that she would do this during the senior year, while taking care of the standard courses (AP Calc, AP Bio, Chemistry) during the junior year. </p>
<p>However, it appears that budget concerns might lead to this program being canceled in a year's time. So, if she wants to do this, her chance to do this would be in junior year. Given schedule constraints, if she does this program, she will not be able to take AP Calc in junior year - she will have to wait till senior year. She might (just might!!) be able to take AP Bio in junior year [ her school has a requirement that Chemistry needs to be completed before AP Bio - so, in her case, she would have to take both concurrently and that might not be feasible if she does this program].</p>
<p>So, the question here is -
(1) 3 AP courses at the university, but no AP exams, no AP scores to show on the resume.
OR
(2) 2 standard AP courses at the high school - AP Calc and AP Bio.</p>
<p>What do you think? Her counselor said that these AP courses at the college are highly regarded by colleges and will boost her resume if she does well. I am concerned that she won't have any of the regular AP courses/scores ...</p>
<p>Courses at the U are not AP courses, they are (hopefully) college courses. The advantage to take them is to be with highly motivated students, and take classes generally not available in HS (engineering). The disadvantage is that, unless your D enrols at the U where she will be taking these classes, she will almost certainly NOT get any college credit for them.</p>
<p>If she is interested in engineering, it sounds like a unique opportunity to see what engineering in college is like before actually committing to it in college (a HUGE plus!). All she will be losing is one AP credit, which is not a big deal - most top students can’t use all their credits anyway, since many schools have a cap on the number of credits you can get through APs. The very top colleges like seeing students who use all the resources/opportunities available to them, so it certainly will not hurt her in admissions.</p>
<p>This has been debated a lot. Here are pros and cons of each:</p>
<p>AP courses: They are more recognizable by colleges since they know what is in them. The ivy schools and some of the top college prefer them to college courses. The cons is that you must get a “3” or more to possibly get any credit for college. In addition, more and more colleges are requiring either higher scores to get credit or aren’t giving credit at all!</p>
<p>College Courses: Usually easier to get credit with a “C” or better. Prepares the kid more for college since they are taking actual college courses. The top colleges prefer AP courses since they know what is in them, yet it is tougher to get college credit for APs, which the quandary.</p>
<p>Personally, I prefer the college course route over the APs. It is a bit easier since everything isn’t based on one exam, and I have personally found it easier to get college credit.</p>
<p>I would go with the college courses. I am not so sure top colleges prefer APs to college classes. My son was accepted to a top tier LAC with 1 AP class, and many college classes on his transcript. I think the typical high-achiever transcript with all the standard APs on the menu looks a little generic. It would be much more interesting to me --if I was an admissions officer, which I’m not – to see a student following a different, and very challenging path toward something they were truly interested in rather than cobbling together the same old transcript that all their competition has.</p>
<p>This is just my opinion, of course.</p>
<p>The point about transferring credits is good though. My son did not seek to transfer credits at all. He took all those college classes as part of his high school/college prep program only because they were very interesting to him.</p>
<p>Are the classes at a 4-year-college and are there college students in the classes too?</p>
<p>Generally speaking, I like college classes taken with college students at a 4-year-college better than I like AP classes. I wish I knew how common it was for colleges to say that “college classes taken during high school that appeared on a h.s. transcript and provided h.s. credit do not transfer” - I know some places say this - can she check on some of the schools she is targetting? If a lot of them say they do not count “dual credit calsses” and that they DO give AP credit, AP might be better.</p>
That’s actually not always true. Have recently researched this and the answer is that if the course is used as part of the high school GPA, almost no college will accept it for college credit. The standard seems to be that for credit to be received, the course can’t be used for high school credit, must be given on the college campus, taught by instructors of the college, and open to students of the college.</p>
<p>Here in MN we have a Post Secondary Education Option (PSEO). HS students have the option to take free (paid for by state) college classes at many different colleges, private and public. These classes do transfer to many colleges. Just do your home work and check out colleges you might be interested in.</p>
<p>We also have a College In the Schools (CIS) program. The class is taught at the HS by a HS teacher but gets credit from the University of Minnesota. Every school D1 applied to took the credits from her senior CIS English class but not from her AP Lit. The CIS was a dual credit and did count in her GPA. It varies from state to state, college to college. Just check universities of interest. I really don’t think it would hurt the student by taking either.</p>
<p>I prefer college courses over AP courses. College course have more time to teach the material while AP courses typically spend a fair amount of time on test-taking skills.</p>
<p>If your daughter is going to be taking three college courses, why not just take Calc I and II at the university and not bother with the high-school courses? Could something be worked out with the university on this?</p>
<p>Are engineering courses AP courses?<br>
A student need not be enrolled in an AP course to take the AP exam.
Some colleges will not recognize cc credits because colleges vary so much in quality, but will give credit for AP scores of a certain level. Harvard is fairly generous in its AP policy (4 scores of 5 for recognized AP courses will make a student eligible for Advanced Standing) and will give zero credit for college course taken in high school, even at Harvard itself.
Policies thus vary greatly and if a student is interested in getting credit as distinct from the learning experience, s/he should examine the websites of some potential target colleges.</p>
<p>It looks like she needs to weight the relative value of the two options on the following factors:</p>
<p>1) Desirability and probability of transfer credits to the college level
2) Creation of a HS transcript that is more unique.</p>
<p>If taking the engineering classes route poses a difficult in taking calc her jr year, why not have her take a summer class between jr and sr year? From your description, she sould enough like a go getter to do this.</p>
<p>FindAPlace - From everything I’ve heard and read, very few colleges will actually give her credit for these courses. So, getting credit for these courses is really not something we are worried about right now. Great if it happens, ok if it doesn’t.</p>
<p>She went on a tour of the college and really liked it. She really wants to do this program - I was more concerned with the fact that she won’t have any of the standard AP courses on her resume by the end of junior year if she went this route.</p>
<p>BCEagle - there’s no choice in the courses you take at the college. It’s a fixed set of three engineering courses.</p>
<p>Sometimes local universities let locals take courses for very small amounts of money. This particular program may consist of three courses but there might be a way to take the fourth outside of the program. It never hurts to ask.</p>
– to see a student following a different, and very challenging path toward something they were truly interested in rather than cobbling together the same old transcript that all their competition has.</p>