So we have 3 more years of highschool, and with the new year my son decided to look at his classes for next year since he has a new counselor. He has 4 APs and one honor for his junior year, some of his friends are already talking about dual enrolling while taking multiple APs.
I don’t see the point, he has plenty of APs, he has ECs (music) that take a lot of time.
I would rather he focus on his AP classes and enjoying his highschool life. I don’t think any top school looks for dual enrollment but maybe I am wrong ? I assume having a rigorous highschool schedule and ECs that he is dedicated to will show his commitment for even the T20 schools.
am I out of touch here ? is dual enrollment something colleges look for ?
My son is a Cal Poly alum (BS/MS ME) several of his AP classes had a DE option. At CP AP didn’t get him out of retaking chemistry, but DE did, because it was actual college credit at the local university. It’s really a matter of what schools he’ll be applying to.
The point is - you’re taking a college class in the convenience of high school - but it’s really more.
I can’t speak for others, but in our school, for the college bound kids - it was the next class offered. It was the only dual enrollment - but if you exhausted high school English/composition, you took the DE. Of course you get college credit - without the AP Exam. But it’s just how it was set up schedule wise.
I think your son’s schedule sounds rigorous (assuming his APs are across the board and not just say in STEM) and music is a wonderful EC. I don’t think taking or not taking a DE will impact his admission - unless it’s the only way to get more rigor and that depends on what the school will offer.
I wouldn’t worry about top 20 or otherwise. He should do his thing and then he’ll find his place in a few years…
It might be a tad early to discuss - but it may just sort of fit the schedule once he maxes a subject out- like, what’s next. That’s what it was for both my kids and our school only offered one DE class that I"m aware of.
I agree this is the critical point. Many highly selective colleges will say some of version of that they want applicants to take most of the rigorous classes in core subjects available, understanding you can’t do everything and elective subjects are good too. And that is a reasonable goal for many academically-inclined kids regardless of college admissions.
And at some high schools, that would imply taking some dual enrollment courses. At others it would not.
I might note that I personally think the use of a lot of APs as the most advanced courses in some high schools is somewhat unfortunate. But I also understand why for some schools, that is the best they can do with the funding and other resources available. And in turn I think if dual enrollment replaced at least some of those APs, that could be an improvement, if only because in many subjects teaching to a test is not really a particularly appropriate way of structuring an advanced class.
My son earned his associates degree concurrently with his high school diploma. He’s taking over 60 DE credits to UC Berkeley and they will accept almost all of it. With this many units of DE credits he can graduate early, double major, or do a plus one masters degree. So practically speaking, it will save us at least 40k. The DE classes were no more effort than AP classes, in fact many of them were both AP and DE. I do think having all that college credit helped his college applications. He had a very favorable application cycle last year.
@Mike_Ba i think it really depends on each university. At Texas A&M, AP is preferred over DC (it’s Dual Credit in Texas)…because not every community college is created equal. AP is a consistent rigor. Those entering with ‘associates degrees’ are often at a disadvantage-at A&M- because it can limit the student in terms of changing majors.
Dual Credit automatically applies, AP is applied when wanted by the student.
So thankful my student only took AP. DC (where we live) is very easy, watered down; her AP provided plenty of rigor for college prep.
Not specifically, but where the dual enrollment option is the most appropriate option for an advanced high school student looking for an advanced or rigorous course, that may be the preferred option over other options. For example, a student who has completed AP calculus BC and AP level foreign language and wants to continue in those subjects may only be able to take more advanced courses in those subjects through local colleges. Or a student with an interest in philosophy or sociology may not find those courses at any level in the high school, but find them at local colleges.
I’m working with a student who is doing an early college program. They take courses at the local cc and aren’t at their high school at all. We’re still in the early stages of getting to know each other but I don’t believe they have taken many (any?) AP’s at all. They have taken a round of SAT/ACT tests but didn’t do well enough to submit to a reach school.
My concerns are that this student has some very high aspirations for colleges (UNC, Wake, Duke, Emory - yes, they are working on adding matches & likelys’) and I don’t how these schools view the rigor of early college (our community college is highly regarded, I believe, but I just don’t know how it stacks up to having taken AP’s in high school). Their GPA for junior/senior year will be based on the early college courses and I’m wondering if the reach colleges on their list will consider the community college classes easier than high school AP’s.
I’m also concerned about them being classified as a transfer student and being ineligible for scholarships.
I would ask the guidance counselor to see if not doing DE would have any affect on the determination of course rigor on the recommendation form.
If your son has the aspiration of going to a T20 school then it maybe better for him to take college course level course when he is in college. I know some kids who took entry level college math courses while in high school, thinking they could move right into more advance math courses in college, but didn’t do well because they missed out on a lot of fundamentals.
Your child’s app is assessed in the context of what his school offers. The GC is going to provide his level of rigor in the GC recommendation. If your child is taking the most rigorous course load in the CONTEXT of other students in his school, I see no need for DE courses. So I suggest your child asks his GC if he has the most rigorous designation. If no, the GC might suugest more APs as offered by the high school.
Top colleges want to see rigor, and good grades too. They don’t want to see academic drones. If your child has the most rigor and is able to maintain good grades while also engaging in activities, that’s great. There is no need to load up on DE courses unless the GC recommends it.
To be frank, I think this is a legitimate concern.
The most selective colleges say to take the most rigorous courses available to you. So you do that, but what if those classes are really not that rigorous? Not as compared to, say, the advanced/honors classes at many selective private high schools? Are your near-perfect grades in less rigorous courses going to lead to the same internal academic rating as their near-perfect grades in more rigorous course?
Many highly selective colleges guarantee no such thing, the known procedures they use to evaluate transcripts suggest that may not be true, and then the observable results of how “deep” highly selective private colleges go into the classes of different high schools suggests that is probably not true.
So here is where I do think standardized tests like the ACT/SAT and/or AP scores can still at least help. Not a total solution, but if you get near-perfect grades in whatever you could take, AND a very high ACT/SAT and/or some AP 5s in core subjects, that may help you at least compete with the students from very rigorous high schools.
Indeed, there are indications that at highly selective “test optional” colleges, the admit rates are often substantially higher for test submitters. Of course people still get in without submitting. But this suggests that while they are not strictly necessary in ALL cases, there are likely cases where they made the difference. And cases where the applicant did not take the most rigorous classes are logical candidates to be such cases.
Anyway, not to be dire, but I do think it is a potential problem applying to such reach colleges without a high ACT/SAT, without some AP 5s in core subjects, and without advanced/honors courses in a very rigorous high school. That may feel unfair, particularly if they are nominally “test optional”. But I think from the perspective of those colleges, they may just feel like they do not have enough information from such an applicant to be confident they deserve a high internal academic score.
There is no one formula to get into college, there are many paths. If it makes sense for your kid, great. Don’t shove them into their schedule just for college apps. Lots of kids will get into great schools with no DE.
My kids took a few community college courses in the summers because they are free here in CA for high school students. It was more for enrichment rather than rigor.
It makes sense to take DE if it’s the next step, or to help fulfill a gap, many kids in our area will take Spanish or Art at the community college to make room in their high school schedules for more electives.
As noted, this is very very school specific. At my D’s HS, APs were considered more rigorous than DE classes. That said, there were a few DE classes that high achieving students took because there was no AP equivalent offered. The school had an agreement with a 4 year college, not a CC. Our current area has the same set up and many students end up taking post AP calc math courses at the local university.
For families who were planning on having their students attend instate publics, many of those students loaded up on DEs because they were free and they received college credit. The guidance counselors had all the information for course equivalences to help students plan. My D has a number of friends who were able to graduate in 2 years because of all their DEs.
I feel the same way, which is why I voiced my concern with this student. They are from a somewhat underperforming high school (when compared to the many other VERY highly rated public schools in my city, not mention the many highly rated private high schools). It’s pretty common for students from the lower rated public schools in the area, to go through early college or dual enrollment, but I wonder how that translates into admission at highly competitive colleges - particularly when they are competing against kids with 10++ AP classes and are likely not submitting test scores.
Purely anecdotally, my observation as a parent who has guided two of my own kids through this process, is that our in-state flagship (a highly competitive admit) scoops up the top academic students from each of the highly rated high schools, with maybe one or two outliers who had limited AP’s and went test optional who maybe wrote a compelling essay, had great recs or had a standout EC. So even though they may say they do a holistic review, it’s hard to ignore the academic prowess of the admits each year.
This student’s EC list looks reasonably well-rounded but a few of things they just started doing this year, so I think that’s a concern as well. They are retaking the ACT in September - won’t tell me what their test scores were the first time, so I’m guessing low to mid 20’s.
The large public sd near us offers AP, but has limited seats and some students are excluded. Excluded students can DE instead and are no longer limited by the capacity of their sd.
Our very small rural public hs doesn’t have enough students to fill up a classroom for APs, so students dual enroll. Since DE credits are self selected, it is possible to change your academic track and earn credit for subjects beyond the AP levels. The DE professors become great resources for LORs, research opportunities and mentorship.
Our hs will DE with any non-profit Ohio college that accepts its students in their DE program. So community, public and privates are all available and utilized. It has been the expansion of DE (the school does a great job promoting DE and supporting its students through the enrollment process) that has allowed students in our district to obtain the rigor required to be competitive for T20s.
Yeah, at most very selective schools, for “unhooked” applicants, “holistic review” typically means outstanding academic qualifications PLUS other things. The other things very, very rarely can actually make up for a lack of outstanding academic qualifications by their normal admissions standards.
Which is fine in theory, because these are of course schools. In practice, some kids get way more support and opportunities than others to make sure they are going to be deemed sufficiently qualified.
As I am sure you know, the good news is this kid does not in fact have to go to one of those sorts of reach schools to get a great education and have great opportunities. But it can be hard on them anyway if they feel like they did everything they could and it still doesn’t work out at such colleges.
One thing to consider is whether the dual enrollment courses are
at the college through the college’s normal offerings, or
“college in the high school” courses where the college merely certifies the content of the course taught at the high school.
#1 above is likely to be much more of a real college experience (in terms of how college courses are run) compared to #2. However, #1 may require more commuting and scheduling logistics, although high schools located adjacent to colleges may make that more convenient.
I am HUGE fan of dual enrollment, but realize that it doesn’t fit every student’s case. It fit my D very, very well, though for several reasons:
Her high school doesn’t offer many APs and students are restricted on the number of AP classes they can take. Adding in DE classes added additional rigor to her schedule than she would have gotten sticking to her high school’s offerings (and the DE classes were quite rigorous compared to the APs she took - they also stretched her skills by requiring term papers, something even her AP classes in high school did not require of her).
Since she is attending a UC, all of her DE credit transferred. She is entering with something like 35 credits (equivalent to a year of college) and several of her general ed requirements already fulfilled, which frees up her time to double major or take interesting electives for fun. This is also a money saver since the DE classes were tuition free.
She got to take more interesting classes than her high school offers: she took philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and several other cool classes. She liked her philosophy classes so much, she’s now considering double majoring in it.
So DE can be a wonderful experience for some students. I don’t think it’s at all essential to do DE in high school and some students benefit more and some less than others. Also, you need to be very careful to keep your grades up as these classes stay on your college record, which means they will follow you to grad school (law school, med school, etc) applications.