AP classes (degrees, medical school, salary, grade)

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

We already know the classes she is taking will be transferrable. There is no point in taking college classes that are not. The question is whether her AP classes will be waived for credit or waived for electives. If it's the latter, there is no cost save and they don't help her graduate early.

The classes will be transferable at SOME SCHOOLS. You have to know the school's policy ahead of time. College courses earned during high school are sometimes subject to different treatment than they would be if earned after high school graduation.

From Case Western Reserve University's website:

"...courses taken prior to the student's graduation from high school must be listed in the college's catalog among courses offered for degree credit to the college's undergraduates, taken in the company of matriculated college students, and organized and taught by college faculty. In addition, to be considered for transfer credit, such courses must not have been used to fulfill high school graduation requirements."

From the University of Michigan's website:

"Finally, if you later are admitted to and enroll at the University of Michigan as a degree-seeking student, the University generally awards college credit for the dual enrollment course if the course was taken for college credit, if it was not required to meet minimum high school graduation requirements, and if it satisfies degree requirements or electives within your chosen field of study at the University."

Unless you already know where she wants to go and what the school's policies are with regard to college courses taken prior to high school graduation you cannot know whether the courses will transfer (AP or dual enrollment).

[Charles Wallace]

Originally Posted by Momma_bear

The classes will be transferable at SOME SCHOOLS. You have to know the school's policy ahead of time. College courses earned during high school are sometimes subject to different treatment than they would be if earned after high school graduation.

From Case Western Reserve University's website:

"...courses taken prior to the student's graduation from high school must be listed in the college's catalog among courses offered for degree credit to the college's undergraduates, taken in the company of matriculated college students, and organized and taught by college faculty. In addition, to be considered for transfer credit, such courses must not have been used to fulfill high school graduation requirements."

From the University of Michigan's website:

"Finally, if you later are admitted to and enroll at the University of Michigan as a degree-seeking student, the University generally awards college credit for the dual enrollment course if the course was taken for college credit, if it was not required to meet minimum high school graduation requirements, and if it satisfies degree requirements or electives within your chosen field of study at the University."

Unless you already know where she wants to go and what the school's policies are with regard to college courses taken prior to high school graduation you cannot know whether the courses will transfer (AP or dual enrollment).

A fascinating point -- one I never even once heard the counselors at the local dual credit high school make to students.

I'd also like to add that at least in my experience, the rigor and quality of the community college courses I have taken and have had experience with have been absolutely nowhere near the rigor of AP courses. I guess if you only want an empty letter on a transcript in order to check off a box, it would be okay, but if you actually wanted or needed in-depth content and mastery of skill, AP would be the way I would advise a student to go.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Momma_bear

The classes will be transferable at SOME SCHOOLS. You have to know the school's policy ahead of time. College courses earned during high school are sometimes subject to different treatment than they would be if earned after high school graduation.

From Case Western Reserve University's website:

"...courses taken prior to the student's graduation from high school must be listed in the college's catalog among courses offered for degree credit to the college's undergraduates, taken in the company of matriculated college students, and organized and taught by college faculty. In addition, to be considered for transfer credit, such courses must not have been used to fulfill high school graduation requirements."

From the University of Michigan's website:

"Finally, if you later are admitted to and enroll at the University of Michigan as a degree-seeking student, the University generally awards college credit for the dual enrollment course if the course was taken for college credit, if it was not required to meet minimum high school graduation requirements, and if it satisfies degree requirements or electives within your chosen field of study at the University."

Unless you already know where she wants to go and what the school's policies are with regard to college courses taken prior to high school graduation you cannot know whether the courses will transfer (AP or dual enrollment).

They are transferrable to schools that will take AP classes as waived for electives so she is better off taking the college classes. Why do you find this so hard to believe? Believe it or not the counselors involved here actually know a bit more than you about this situation. You're not an expert on what my dd is taking, where she's taking it and the possibilities for schools she'll transfer to. I don't know anyone who has lost credit, other than for classes they knew up front would not transfer, doing what my dd is doing. I know several families where their kids got classes waived for electives going the AP route (the course in question was waived but they still had to take the same number of credits to graduate so there's no cost save or time save.).

Why do you insist the counselors are wrong when you're not involved here? This is the route I went, this is the route other kids at dd's school have gone,this is the route several kids at the school where I teach have gone and this is the route several friends kids went. Everyone I know was able to transfer classes. I asked the couselor at the school where I teach and she recommended the college classes over AP for the very reasons we're doing it. Sure there might be a university out there that won't take the credits. So what? We won't send her to that one.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Charles Wallace

A fascinating point -- one I never even once heard the counselors at the local dual credit high school make to students.

I'd also like to add that at least in my experience, the rigor and quality of the community college courses I have taken and have had experience with have been absolutely nowhere near the rigor of AP courses. I guess if you only want an empty letter on a transcript in order to check off a box, it would be okay, but if you actually wanted or needed in-depth content and mastery of skill, AP would be the way I would advise a student to go.

I would disagree here. Community colleges often offer courses for higher numbers of credits with more class time. For example, I took my calculus courses at CC before transferring to a private university. I could run calculus circles around kids tho did AP and kids who took their calculus at the 4 year university. There was no one in my engineering class who could come close to my mastery (not that I knew it all but I sure knew more than they did). They could follow instructions but did not know when things did and did not apply. They could do, whereas, I could do AND I understood. I can't say the kids who took AP were any weaker than those who took the classes at the university but I can say they were weaker than my peers who took calculus at CC. Calculus at CC was taught as three 5 credit courses. I had 60% more instructional time than my peers at university. I'm not sure what happened with the AP kids. I think they did a brain dump after the exam. It is, however, clear they never attained understanding. That may be due to age as much as anything. There is a developmental aspect to learning math. You may get past exams not being there but you will learn more once there. Fortunately, dd is there. She's always been, developmentally, ahead of the curve. She's older than her chronological age.

[toobusytoday]

I think the take-away from the posts above is that AP's and dual credit classes may or may not be transferable. It really is up to the individual colleges what they want to do. I wouldn't have wanted to box my son into taking certain classes to count on them being transferable to all colleges that he applied to, but we hoped that one or two would count. We were not looking to shorten the time our kids were in college, but to give them more flexibility in their college schedule by eliminating a couple of classes.

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by Charles Wallace

A fascinating point -- one I never even once heard the counselors at the local dual credit high school make to students.

I'd also like to add that at least in my experience, the rigor and quality of the community college courses I have taken and have had experience with have been absolutely nowhere near the rigor of AP courses. I guess if you only want an empty letter on a transcript in order to check off a box, it would be okay, but if you actually wanted or needed in-depth content and mastery of skill, AP would be the way I would advise a student to go.

I don't think that the acceptance or not of college courses taken in high school has anything to do with where they are taken. U of Michigan has its own dual enrollment program and the restriction on using dual enrollment courses to fulfill both HS and college credits applies to those classes as well as community college credits. I have seen this policy at a number of fairly selective colleges, like the two posted above.

Even with all I wrote about colleges possibly not accepting some dual enrollment credits, I still think that dual enrollment might benefit some kids. The pace of college courses is faster than in HS. Kids can take lots of different subjects in a college setting that are not available in HS. In some schools AP offerings are sparse.

As you know, there are some courses which students feel are "check box" courses. For my son science is right up there. No science in college was HUGE for him. You should have seen him bouncing around the house after we looked at the AP course equivalencies and he realized that they were giving him 8 credits for AP Chem and that fulfilled his science requirement. Woo hoo! He is not a science kid. Loves math. Not science.

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Why do you insist the counselors are wrong when you're not involved here?

I am not insisting anyone is wrong. I am merely pointing out common policies at certain universities. It's just information, not a judgement on what you are doing.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

I think the take-away from the posts above is that AP's and dual credit classes may or may not be transferable. It really is up to the individual colleges what they want to do. I wouldn't have wanted to box my son into taking certain classes to count on them being transferable to all colleges that he applied to, but we hoped that one or two would count. We were not looking to shorten the time our kids were in college, but to give them more flexibility in their college schedule by eliminating a couple of classes.

My dd is looking to shorten college. She wants to be a pediatrician but she also wants a family and doesn't want to wait until she's in her 30's to start having kids. She knows where she'll be going to school and we know the CC classes will transfer and will count towards her pre-med major. The AP classes are up for grabs. Some will count and some won't. We know that going in but she needs the credit to get her diploma so she needs to take them.

She'll have 5-7 college classes done that will transfer and 6 AP classes that may or may not count for college credit when she graduates. She plans on going to school year round and hopes to be in med school before she's 20.

Interestingly, she has no interest in graduating from high school early.

[toobusytoday]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

My dd is looking to shorten college. She wants to be a pediatrician but she also wants a family and doesn't want to wait until she's in her 30's to start having kids. She knows where she'll be going to school and we know the CC classes will transfer and will count towards her pre-med major. The AP classes are up for grabs. Some will count and some won't. We know that going in but she needs the credit to get her diploma so she needs to take them.

She'll have 5-7 college classes done that will transfer and 6 AP classes that may or may not count for college credit when she graduates. She plans on going to school year round and hopes to be in med school before she's 20.

Interestingly, she has no interest in graduating from high school early.

Then what she's doing sounds great, but isn't your daughter just starting HS? Your daughters experience may be very different then my own daughters, but I always KNEW that my daughter was going to be a teacher. When she was in HS and college, that was absolutely her plan. She taught for three years and decided that while she liked teaching, she did NOT want to be a classroom teacher. I have a couple of dozen books autographed to Ms. so and so, that I got for her classroom library that I'm not sure what to do with. Your daughter may well end up doing exactly what she thinks she wants to do now, but I'd be careful (as I was not! ) saying too emphatically what a young teen is going to do.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

Then what she's doing sounds great, but isn't your daughter just starting HS? Your daughters experience may be very different then my own daughters, but I always KNEW that my daughter was going to be a teacher. When she was in HS and college, that was absolutely her plan. She taught for three years and decided that while she liked teaching, she did NOT want to be a classroom teacher. I have a couple of dozen books autographed to Ms. so and so, that I got for her classroom library that I'm not sure what to do with. Your daughter may well end up doing exactly what she thinks she wants to do now, but I'd be careful (as I was not! ) saying too emphatically what a young teen is going to do.

She started high school last year. We'll see if she does. Her fallback plan, believe it or not, it to be a kindergarten teacher but she's not sure she can live on the salary, lol. I'm thinking she may end up a pediatric nurse or physicians assistant. Who knows though. I'm just amazed that she actually has a plan at 14. She was born with an old soul so I guess it shouldn't be surprising she has it all mapped out.

There's a much greater risk of dd#1's plans coming up short. She wants to be a vet but she does not have the grades to get into vet school. I'm worried about her.