<p>Is your goal learning? High school AP courses, CC courses, and yes, even Harvard courses come in all flavors - from great, thru okay, to really bad. The same course at the same school can run the gamut depending on the teacher. If your goal is to actually learn the material, you should research the specific options available to you and choose the best learning environment.</p>
<p>If your goal is credit, it helps to know what college your child will be attending. Many 4-yr state colleges will accept credit for all courses taken at CCs that routinely feed into them. They will also give credit for most AP exams, and even for some CLEP exams. Many elite colleges, like Princeton and Harvard, have a policy of refusing credit for all or most college courses taken in high school, even if the courses are taken at well known colleges. For those schools, your chances of credit are better if you take an AP exam, totally aside from whether you learn the material from an AP course, a CC course, or self-study. But even if you take APs and do well, don't expect to get credit for every AP exam - policies vary widely on which exams and what scores are acceptable.</p>
<p>A third possible goal, totally separate from the previous two, is placement. It is not in any college's best interest to have students wasting time in classes covering material they already know. Colleges may use the results of CC courses or AP exams for placement, totally separate from the issue of whether or not they will give credit. Alternately, they may require students to take the college's own placement exam, or they may just have the student talk to the prof or an advisor before registering for a course for which they lack official credit for the prereq.</p>
<p>Here was my son's experience - he had 10 AP exams with scores of 5, and 3 distance learning college courses with grades of A. MIT gave him credit for 5 of the AP scores and none of the college courses. (it is not a distance learning issue. A friend of his took 60 credits of CC courses and also got no credit from MIT). At our state U. he would have gotten automatic credit for all of it and entered as a sophomore. At orientation, son was able to take MIT exams for 2 of the AP subjects and one of the college course subjects that were not recognized for automatic credit, and get credit that way. Then he talked his way into 2 higher level courses for which he had background, but no proof at all of having covered the prereqs. If he had matriculated at some other college, it would all have been handled differently. Read the policies of schools your child is interested in.</p>