My schools Pre-Calc and Calculus AB teacher is not a very good teacher. He has a very low number of students passing the Calculus exam compared to previous Calculus teachers at the school(He is currently in his 3rd year at the school and his first 2 years he had roughly 2/15 students pass the AP exam, compared to the last teacher who had an average of 12 out of 15-20 students passing the exam) . Because of this, i am considering taking Dual Enrollment Math classes instead of taking them at the High School.
My Freshman year i had a HORRIBLE Geometry teacher, and all the students taking her class had to teach themselves through Khan academy or pay for a tutor. I DO NOT want to go through this again, and i feel that this is what would happen if i took Pre-Calc and Calculus AB at my high school.
I talked to my guidance office about wanting to dual enroll math(and a couple other classes), because i have to have my school permission to take dual enrollment and must sign up through my guidance office. While talking to them about the classes i want to take they have been pushing the idea that Dual Enrollment is inferior to AP and that Dual Enrollment will not prepare me for college(ITS LEGIT A COLLEGE CLASS). When i said i wanted to take dual enrollment math and i was told that “taking Dual enrollment math is not recommended because you will not have the structure and assistance that you do here”.
Is what my guidance counselor is saying true? Will Dual enrollment prepare me less, and is it inferior?
If it is an actual college course, you will need to do more of your own time management and have more of your own self-motivation than in typical high school (including AP) courses where there is much more supervision and progress monitoring to keep you from falling behind. That may be what your counselor is referring to.
However, if you sample and succeed in the college course format in a subject you like and are good at while still in high school, that may give you a head start on the transition to college.
College instructors can be better or worse, just like in high school.
College calculus will cover more material in two semesters than high school calculus AB will, so be prepared for a faster pace in college.
Transfer credit for college calculus 1 and 2 to other colleges can vary, and not always be known beforehand (unlike AP credit that is typically listed on college web sites).
If you later apply to medical or law school, college courses taken while in high school and their grades will count toward any college GPA calculations, unlike high school courses and AP scores.
I don’t see dual enrollment as inferior and my own daughter did it. What I do see as a difference is doing just some de classes with some high school classes may mean that you may not be able to take advantages of resources such as the college math lab or the professor’s office hours. Your high school may offer those as well but you would need to see if you can use them since your not taking math there. In high school math is usually 5 days a week all year but in college it is 1-3 days a week for 1 semester. To my daughter there was much less busy work in college but sometimes it is that busy work that you need to understand the work.
Dual enrollment will not prepare you less but if your not a strong math student you might do better with more frequent classes spread out over the full year and most likely a lot more hand holding then you get in a college class. Some students excel at DE math but others do need lots of help - no different than high school.
I can’t really say because it depends on you and how easy/hard you find it. I would confirm that you can go to help at the high school if needed if you can’t be there for college help. It is still taught at twice the speed as a high school. Actually my daughter had Calculus 1 twice a week but 2.5 hours each time. For her neither homework nor participation counted towards the grade but not doing either could make it harder to earn a high grade.
If you don’t have a strong math background perhaps you could start with an advanced college algebra class for 1 semester, then take precalculus for 1 semester, calculus 1 for a semester, then either calculus 2 or statistics for the 4th semester.
I interpreted this
“taking Dual enrollment math is not recommended because you will not have the structure and assistance that you do here”.
in a different way. I thought it meant the person thinks your not a strong math student and need the slower paced and more hand holding support from the high school than a de class typically provides rather than the person viewing de as inferior. I would talk to your current math teacher.
• AP tests are well known nationally and are uniform across the nation
• You can look on any college’s website and see what credit you will get for what scores on the AP tests
• AP Courses are given at your High School
• AP Credit is based on a test you take on one day
• AP courses generally are more spread out…e.g., AP Calc AB = Calc 1 is given over a year, not a semester.
DE
• There are more of a variety of DE courses available at a CC
• DE courses will count as a college GPA…make sure to do well for future Med school/grad school purposes.
• DE Courses may be only available at the CC…how will you get there? How will they overlap with your HS schedule?
• Private and Out of State Colleges may or may not give you credit. They may not give credit for courses taken to fulfill HS requirements. You do not know what credit you can get ahead of time. Make sure to keep a copy of your syllabus to aid in determining credit.
• DE Credit is based on your grades over the semester (including final)
• Public In-state schools will give you credit for DE courses. You may be able to get up to 2 years of credits.
• DE Courses may be more condensed…e.g., Chem 101 is over one semester, not a year.
• If you have any issues (health, family, etc) the GC can’t work with the teacher.