Does taking college classes in high school help your chances of getting into rigorous colleges (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, Stanford, etc)?
I already took Algebra 2, Math Analysis, Calc AB and Calc BC by junior year, so I’m taking Differential Equations at the moment and planning to take Multivariable Calculus during school year.
I’m also planning to take some easy-ish courses like Introduction to Energy Management Technology and etc., but I don’t know if it’ll be worth my time.
How affective are college classes in high school when compared to AP courses/SAT scores/Extra-curriculars/ Awards?
Thank you for your answer!
College classes are effective but as long as you get a good grade in them. I’m pretty sure they are valued more than AP because they are harder…
If the college courses are more advanced than the level that AP courses attempt to emulate, and are otherwise generally acceptable for transfer credit, then they should be looked on favorably, assuming that you do well in them.
Even those college courses which are emulated by AP courses may be more rigorous, since many AP courses take a year in high school to cover what a college course covers in a semester. However, recognition of subject credit by distant universities may be more difficult with college courses than for AP scores. For example, college courses taken at a California community college are known to UCs and CSUs (see http://www.assist.org for transferability and equivalencies), possibly known to California privates like Stanford and USC, but less likely to be known to out-of-state schools.
If you later intend to apply to medical or law school, college courses taken while in high school and their grades are included in GPA calculations for those purposes (even though universities usually do not include grades from transfer credit in your GPA for the universities’ purposes).
@ucbalumnus @rosa1748 I understand that some college courses may seem better than others (e.g. Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, etc.) But what about courses like these:
Energy Management Systems and Controls
Renewable and Alternative Energy Systems
Electric Power Systems
Introduction to Energy Management
These are all 1 unit (each) courses & are online courses. Would taking these classes a waste of time? Or can colleges know if they are i unit classes/online classes?
You mean like these courses?
https://www.deanza.edu/es/emt/courses.html
According to http://www.assist.org , some of these courses are CSU transferable but not UC transferable. So more selective colleges might not see them as “academic” enough.
@ucbalumnus yes, haha. Are you from San Jose/Bay area too? Anyway, would UC Berkeley/ UCLA/ Stanford just disregard them?
Only they know how they look at such courses, though they are less likely to be seen as “academic” by UCs and other more selective schools like Stanford and USC.
Take them if you want for personal interest (if they do not crowd out other courses in your schedule), like you would any other elective course outside your core academic course schedule. Are you considering majoring in civil engineering or architecture? If so, even though such courses may not be seen as “academic”, they may give you a taste of the kinds of things that civil engineers and architects consider in building design.
It is good for course rigor, but you may or may not receive college credits from those classes. The latter is up to the school policy. For instance, DE classes taught at a high school are not considered for credit transfer at many school.
I think it’s a great idea. It is an excellent option if your school offers few/no APs and you want to challenge yourself with a highly looked at course rigor. I’m taking 4 APs next year (maybe 5). However, by the time I finish senior year I’ll have 34 College Credit Hours from all of my DE classes. My parents highly recommended to me go this route. I should be graduating with my associate’s but I don’t think I can because the CC’s math class options for the degree were below the levels I had already taken. Anyways, listen to what @billcsho said to about DE classes at your HS. I took all of mine either online or at the college itself, minus 1 class that I took at school. I found out it wouldn’t transfer to many in-state private universities and out-of-state colleges. That’s the only tricky part with DE. You can’t guarantee that your classes will transfer to out-of-state schools.