@Mom2aphysicsgeek It doesn’t matter if the credits are via a local CC or one of the state universities (including UF). It’s up to the college (in this case, the college of engineering or college of liberal Arts and Sciences, since both offer a CS degree), to make that determination. It doesn’t matter to UF that the DE class was sponsored by UF or FAU. UF’s policy (in “general”) is to only allow up to 60 credits to count toward your degree.
In general, you may transfer up to 60 credits from public/state colleges as part of the credits needed for your UF degree, regardless when these credits are earned, but subject to university and college degree requirements. It is the prerogative of your college to determine how transfer credit satisfies a specific degree’s course requirements.*
He hasn’t been accepted to the COE or CLAS, so he’s likely not been approve to take many of the upper division classes. All of these classes will need to be taken. Many require that they be taken in sequence. The OP situation could be unique, but that’s typical for most DE students.
I could be wrong! Which is why he should talk to someone in UF admissions or better yet, in the CISE department. If he applies to UF with his DE AA degree, admissions is a bit different from a standard freshman applications, in that he not only has to apply to UF, but also to his department/major, in this case CISE.
Why did you select the first 5 schools as your top choices? They are the top prestige schools for many fields but not necessarily for Computer Science. Keep Stanford but replace the Ivies with schools like MIT, CalTech, and CMU.
One thing that strikes me while reading your posts is how alone you have been in pursuing your passions. I’m sure you have collaborated with people on-line but that’s not the same thing as having a group of peers to geek out with over marathon pizza-fueled coding sessions. Apply to the schools I listed and others of that ilk. This is where your people are. None of these schools will make you retake introductory calculus. They all have processes to ensure that students get placed into the right level courses and you will not run out of learning opportunities, although I do think you could possibly graduate in three years.
Use your undergraduate years to create the human networks that you will need for your professional career. Your professors at these schools will help steer you to the graduate, research, and professional contacts that will suit your strengths.
And yeah, bring up the ACT and make sure you can ace the SAT math II and physics subject tests (or at least get into the very high 700s).
Also, if you get the WWDC scholarship then try to arrange an interview at Stanford and maybe visit Berkeley while you’re out here. Not sure about the finances but if you could swing a trip to southern California at the same time you should also arrange a CalTech visit and maybe throw in Harvey Mudd just to see how you like it.
Most schools will only accept maximum of one year of credits. Maybe as a transfer applicant, maximum of two years. The principle is very simple. If a school awards you a diploma, they want to be the one who teaches you the majority of classes. They don’t want to put their stamp on an education that’s taught by mostly some other schools. The private schools are particularly strict about this.
Also typically the credit can be used only once unless special agreements exist between the programs in advance. If it’s used for a high school degree, it can’t be used for college degree. Same thing in college. If someone takes a graduate class to fullfill an undergraduate degree, that class typically can’t be used to fullfill a future graduate degree anymore.
First, check whether each college refuses to accept them as credit units (that may enable you to graduate early, or graduate on time with fewer credits taken at the college), or refuses to accept them as subject credit and/or placement into more advanced courses as a blanket rule (as opposed to determining that individually for each course).
If a college refuses credit units, but accepts subject credit and placement, then you should be fine if you intend to stay four years at the college anyway (taking additional free electives, including perhaps graduate level courses in your major, in place of those courses). But if a college wants to force you to retake courses with essentially the same content, then you may want to pass on that college.
This is actually an oversimplification of the situation. Many transfer applicants have to have completed 60 hrs with the additional policy that 50% of the coursework for the degree must be earned at the degree granting institution and 25% of the in major courses. The same type of rule normally applies for DE credit at those schools.
High school students who graduate with an AA simultaneously with their high school diploma still apply as freshman, but depending on the university they might be able to technically be freshman jrs. High school students with high numbers of DE credit even wo an AA can typically have 60 hrs transfer in and still be freshman jrs. (I have had kids enter college with high numbers of hrs including 300 level courses which were all accepted as credit. We even had top 40 public schools accept all of the credits. Privates, otoh, were more likely to grant placement, not credit, and still require 4 yrs for UG. That is where finances can play a huge role in the decision process.)
@whoIsTableDelegate I would contact UF before enrolling in your classes for next semester. If you will have completed your AA, you need to understand how those credits will be treated even by UF.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek, I reread your post twice and sorry I didn’t get what additional you are trying to say. I said “will only accept maximum of”. I did not exclude other requirements whether the accepting school will even consider the classes to be rigorous/appropriate enough to accept the credits or not. Your statement of “50% of the coursework for the degree must be earned at the degree granting institution” in fact matches the main message I want to convey. BTW, mentioning “60 hrs” by itself is not exactly meaningful without context. Schools count “hrs” differently, especially depending on whether they are semester or quarter based.
Your ACT score is not going to impress top schools. It’s in the 92nd percentile. Your background is very unusual and it’s hard to say if they would be willing to overlook the ACT. I’m guessing most will not.
Some schools will accept credits from other colleges, others will just accept AP. If credit isn’t given, in most cases you could get placement. I don’t know any school that would force you to take calculus if you’ve already done that, provided that you have an acceptable AP or placement test score. You’ll need to check policies on each school you apply to. But you should keep in mind that the coursework you have completed may not be as rigorous as the comparable courses at a school like Stanford.
Can you give us some idea of what coursework you have done? For instance, you mentioned calc1,2,3. Roughly 20% of incoming STEM freshmen at top schools will have this coursework also. Have you done much beyond this?
And if you spend only a year or two in college whereas they spend 3-4 complete with research projects and multiple internships, it may be difficult to compete for admission to a top grad school like Stanford.
Yes, some schools will do a 4 year masters program for students entering with sufficient credits. Look into that.
which is an overstatement of fact. Plenty of schools will accept 2 yrs or 50% of the coursework as transfer credit including work completed as a DE student (and yes, schools do allow students to “double dip” by using credit for both high school and college credit. There is no universal policy restricting students from using credits for both. My kids have gotten credit for both.) The OP was writing in terms of UF which is on a semester system with 15 hrs/semester being the avg. That equates to 60 hrs for 2 yrs worth of work.
I said “will only accept maximum of”. I did not exclude other requirements whether the accepting school will even consider the classes to be rigorous/appropriate enough to accept the credits or not. Your statement of “50% of the coursework for the degree must be earned at the degree granting institution” in fact matches the main message I want to convey. BTW, mentioning “60 hrs” by itself is not exactly meaningful without context. Schools count “hrs” differently, especially depending on whether they are semester or quarter based.