My DS22 is interested in computer science, with a 4.0 unweighted GPA, 1470 SAT. He decided midway through junior year to take advantage of dual enrollment funding and earn an Associate of Science degree while still in high school. After fall semester, he dropped his two online AP courses (Calculus AB and AP Bio), even though he had earned A’s in both classes, and decided to enroll full-time as a dual enrollment student at a 4-year college instead. Among other things, he didn’t feel that either AP Calculus or AP Bio were a good fit for him in the fully online format. Both courses were heavily tailored toward teaching to the test. AP Bio did not include much of a hands-on lab component. As a result, he decided to take the DE versions of these courses instead and performed well in those and other classes(4.0 unweighted in all college courses to date). Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, most of his classes still ended up being online, so in the end, it didn’t end up being much more of a hands-on experience. Oh well…He did enjoy the independence and relative academic freedom of taking full-time college courses compared to high school courses.
We are now realizing that he appears to be at a disadvantage since AP courses are weighted significantly higher than dual enrollment courses by many colleges (which I understand since AP is a standardized curriculum but his high school weights them both equally, so we didn’t realize this before). He did take two AP courses as a sophomore (scored 4 and 5). Foolishly, we didn’t think to have him self-study and take the AP Bio exam last spring, which could have at least earned him an AP Scholar award with a 3 or higher. 
In any event, it’s too late to change the past now…he is on track to earn his A.S. in May with over 60 credit hours (mostly at a 4-year college; a few technical computer classes at a community college). Now I’m wondering if top 25 schools are out of the question, given the lack of AP credits compared to most applicants to these schools. He isn’t concerned about attending a prestigious school, but I’m just trying to get a realistic feel for which schools he might have a chance with. Some of the Reaches he’s interested in are Davidson, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, maybe even Vanderbilt and Dartmouth- though I’m aware those are all long shots! In trying to narrow the Reach list down, I’m wondering if any of these schools might look favorably upon a student who has completed a significant number of dual enrollment courses, even if AP is an available option? Should we explain his decision making process in his application (even though it didn’t necessarily end up working out the way he had hoped?) Or would this sound like he is just making excuses for dropping the more rigorous courses? Thanks for any insight!
I don’t think the issue is how they will view rigor. The GC at the HS will be the one to determine if that route is the “most rigorous” or not based on what they offer. Colleges go by what the HS says.
I think the bigger issue is the college credits. Elite private colleges have lots of individualized rules. For AP, there is usually a chart with the scores per exam and if they count for certain majors, count for credit, or are used for placement. It is pretty straightforward. DE credits are a whole other deal. Some give credit for classes only within the same state, some give credit for in person classes on a college campus and it is worth investigating further.
D20 attends a school with similar rank/selectivity as those you mention, and applied to some on your list. She had several DE credits (7 courses worth) and 5s on all AP exams (6) but only got credit for one class. If your student would be peeved by having to retake classes and start over, that is definitely something to consider when making the list. Many of D’s classmates opted for public schools or lower ranked schools with more generous credit policies.
Due to Covid, there are a lot of squirrelly paths students ended up on and the colleges are aware of that. Some kids had to move mid-year to take care of family, etc…. The shift mid-year from the two AP classes to DE needs to be brought up for T20 schools and some T50 schools, but most will see the grades and that he can do college level work. The colleges do want to know how many AP classes are offered and how many a student took, but it is not their expectation that AP is all they do.
He may want to look at state flagship schools with honors colleges or other unique research or internship opportunities who will take his DE and AP credits as actual classes.
My D21 took a combo of AP and DE along with PLTW DE Engineering and BioMed classes and was accepted into an Ivy and other T20-T50 schools. Decided in the end on a OOS Flagship with great opportunities and one that took all of her DE and AP credits. She will be a “junior” on paper at the end of her first semester even though she wants the full 4 years there. It does not line up with her majors or minors perfectly, it knocked out some of the 101 required courses and core curriculum. This frees her up to take other things she is interested in or spend more time working research projects available.
His SAT score is in the range for some of the top schools, but other things will need to shine. Does his school give class rank or a percentage range? I do not see that. They will also look at his ECs and essays.
google “transfer credit” and “ap credits” at each college your son has interest in. There are lots of transfer charts and programs. It seems that the more elite, the less likely they will take transfer credits from DE; and that applies to AP classes as well.
Pathnottaken is so right; a less selective college can offer many opportunities to cash in on those earned credits. That can save on costs and time, and allow a kid to pursue other directions, have year round internships, be able to study abroad, or pick up another major or minor. (ok; yes you can do all those without the transfer credits, but it’s sure easier without having to take all of the beginning 101 classes again).
To clarify: he isn’t really concerned about getting college credit, necessarily. It’s more a question of if the Reach colleges might view the rigor of his DE courses adversely compared to AP in terms of admissions decisions.
Also, his school doesn’t rank students at all. His weighted GPA is 4.6, but I know many colleges remove the DE weighting, which would still leave him with an unweighted 4.0.
However, having to repeat what he already knows can be a drag compared to being able to learn something new.
Note, however, that college policies regarding subject credit and advanced placement may differ from their policies on credit units to the number needed for graduation.
I agree with the previous poster who said it’s the high school counselor who marks on the common app what level of “rigor” your child’s coursework was. He might want to ask his counselor what he’ll mark for him so you know. Maybe instead of him explaining his decision making process in his essay, his counselor could address it? I think if presented as he’s a student who wanted educational opportunities not available at his high school, it can be seen as a very positive thing.
Honestly, it’s hard to predict what schools will do. But, I don’t think the lack of AP’s is a big deal. My daughter goes to a Top20 and she took 4 or 5 (I forget which one) and a DE class. This is way below what most folks on these boards would consider normal for a T20. At her school that was all they could fit in due to some weird scheduling issues. I am sure her counselor said she took the “most rigorous” course load and while she didn’t get accepted at all the T20 she applied, she did get accepted at a few, so it didn’t seem to hurt her too badly. But T20 admissions is a crap shoot!
5 years ago when my son was looking, Brown admin staff specifically stated they prefer AP/IB over DE, but obviously they are accepting students from Early and Middle college high schools and small schools which have few AP offerings. Some top schools were clear they prefer AP/IB, then DE taken at a college, and then on bottom of their preferences was DE with a high school teacher at a high school tied to a college for credit. I honestly think with covid that has shifted some of this.
Without class rank, his school counselor recommendation letter with a statement about taking the most rigorous courses available or very rigorous will matter for T20. Their statements about fit will matter, too. Make sure he communicates with them about why he is applying somewhere and a unique program that he is genuinely interested in.
I understand about getting the credit not being a priority. It was not for us either, but it ended up being a great perk with advantages that became part of the conversations in April as she had to make final decisions.
Being ahead is a great advantage in many ways, but not at the expense of command of the foundational knowledge. @ucbalumnus has a wonderful method to help your son know definitively if he should repeat or charge forward.
I am a HUGE fan of LACs so this is not a dig at their course offerings at all (my D attends one, applied at several others, and toured even more). One “complaint”, “negative”, or “drawback” of them that I see on here a bit is they generally do not offer tons of depth in certain subject areas because they do not offer graduate-level courses or have grad students on campus. If he has taken several CS classes as part of his DE program, course offerings might not delve much deeper into what he has already taken. Sitting through repeat classes may be more of an issue if there isn’t much to look forward to in terms of “new” stuff. That obviously will not be an issue at Dartmouth or Vandy but it is something to look at closely at the SLACs.
I understand what you mean regarding the comparative depth of computer science courses offered in a LAC compared to a larger university. So far, he has completed the first-year university computer science sequence, along with a couple of technical programming courses at a community college (which won’t transfer to any school- again, it was just some classes he took that he was interested in, fully realizing at the time that the credit would not transfer). I’m guessing at most, he might place out of a college’s first-year computer science course, but he wouldn’t mind re-taking it in college either, since he truly enjoys the subject.
Other than Computer Science I and II, most of his remaining dual enrollment courses have been in general education requirements (e.g., Chemistry, U.S. History, English 101-102, World Literature, Foreign Language, etc.) If he were to attend an instate public college, he would likely place out of most of the freshman and sophomore classes. However, he would like to have the full 4 year college experience if possible, so transfer of credit isn’t as important.
He isn’t concerned about needing to repeat courses in college…He actually wants to have a full four-year college experience and doesn’t mind repeating courses if needed. We are mainly just wondering about the effect on college admissions and which schools might look less favorably upon the DE courses compared to AP.
Thanks for the feedback about the counselor’s rigor evaluation. I have no doubt his counselor will select “most rigorous curriculum”, particularly since only about half the school’s graduates choose to attend a 4-year college at all. Still, I know that some colleges remove the weighting from grades for DE courses but retain it for AP courses, implying that they consider AP to be more rigorous than DE. So we just wanted to make sure he wasn’t marked down for rigor at the college level as a result of taking DE courses (and if so, then he probably shouldn’t bother applying to that specific college.)
My kid didn’t bother with AP tests for the classes that were also dual enrollment (which happens to be with our state’s flagship U), because he wasn’t worrying about whether top schools would prefer AP vs dual enrollment, and we knew that virtually all schools would accept credit on a flagship state U transcript… except the one he chose to go to (which was a tippy-top school). Anyway, my point is, he shouldn’t worry about AP vs dual enrollment as a strategy for getting into a tippy-top school. He should just apply to the schools he’d like to attend, that are a match for his stellar GPA and his very nice SAT, and choose from where he gets in. I think you’re over thinking this.
My kid also did a lot of Computer Science concurrent enrollment instead of taking AP classes, with just over 60 credits. She mainly applied to UCs and CSUs, which weight concurrent enrollment the same as AP or honors courses. She did get into one T50 private school, though, so I don’t think her class rigor held her back.
Does anyone know of other schools that weight dual enrollment the same as AP?
It’s not about not having that. It’s about how broad and deep you can go in a curriculum. More courses equates to a more desirable potential employee. Plus, during terms where there are crux classes, a student who is ahead can take fewer hours.
I disagree than an AO will evaluate a student’s course rigor purely based on one checkbox. There are, what, four or five possible choices? A high school students’ course rigor certainly has more than 4 or 5 possible levels.
Getting this checkbox seems so be almost a holy grail by some on CC, but at elite schools, it seems to me it’s tablestakes. I would bet that the vast, vast majority of rejected students at top schools had a “most rigorous” checkbox. AOs will certainly review the transcript in detail and make an assessment. Different schools will almost certainly come to,different conclusions, despite an identical counselor rating.
As a “DE” course has so many meanings, it’s hard to make global statements.
If you’re in a Cambridge high school and hop over to MIT for a DiffEq course each afternoon, for which your high school agrees to grant credit, that’s likely to be more rigorous than any AP course.
Our high school offers DE with several local schools. While some are real (Freshman Engineering Physics at Pitt, for one), they also offer a “DE” course in Excel at the local Community College.
As OP mentions, APs are known quantities and widely used. An AO would need to do some investigation to understand DE courses. A “BCCC Excel” course on a transcript would not be obvious. How it’s viewed in this scenario will depend on the quality of the unnamed ‘4-year college”. It’s not necessarily a negative, just riskier vs. a known entity.
My son graduated HS in 2020, and for the schools he was looking at, DE was looked at as an equivalence to AP as long as it was taken on the college campus and not in the HS. He looked at top schools and smaller less prestige schools.I wonder if you could Find out if your child’s counselor thinks his path is the most rigorous, since the counselor has to send the report.
My son was able to get credit for some DE courses at his current university as long as he showed a copy of the syllabus of each course he was trying to get credit for. My son’s DE are from a community college and he goes to a top, selective university. So make sure your child keeps each syllabus for every DE course he is trying to get credit for.
I understand your not worried if your child will get credit at his future school, but even credit for one course does come in handy. My sons current school only allows credit for two courses, whether AP, DE or IB. Having those two course credits, means he wont have to overload any semester unless he wants to.( He is in engineering)
I agree with this sentiment. A university that offers a master’s or PhD was a requirement in our search for exactly that reason.
Better to have a full four year college experience learning something new rather than spending a lot of it repeating material already learned. Generally, colleges do not require students with credit or advanced placement to graduate early (indeed some make it difficult to graduate early), but fulfilling some requirements and prerequisites with AP credit or college courses taken while in high school allows the student to have more free electives during the full four year college experience.
If the student is not sure whether to take advanced placement based on AP credit or previous college courses, trying the old final exams for the course allowed to be skipped can give a more informed placement decision.
Thanks for all the feedback. His DE courses were taken at a couple of unranked state colleges and universities, so nothing too impressive. The courses he took likely would not be considered more advanced than their AP equivalents, e.g., English Comp 101 and 102, World Literature, Biology I, Chemistry I, U.S. History 1, Calculus I, Intermediate Spanish, etc. The only course possibly more advanced than its AP equivalent is maybe Computer Science II (At most schools, students can get AP credit for Computer Science I but not typically Computer Science II).
Originally, he had planned to attend an in-state 4-year college after high school and transfer in the full 60 hours from his Associate degree. At the time, semi-selective colleges weren’t really even on our radar, since we just assumed they would be too pricey. However, now that we know that some colleges meet 100% of demonstrated financial need, we’ve realized that it might actually be MORE affordable to attend some private schools, even compared to in-state public colleges. Also, his solid SAT score sort of prompted us to encourage him to aim a little higher than we had previously planned. So just wondering, if at this point, it would be worth his time to apply to a couple of selective private schools, as noted above. However, we also don’t want to waste time with applying to schools that won’t consider him due to a lack of perceived rigor. It sounds like there isn’t a really clear answer either way, so I guess we will try to narrow down the list, apply to a few colleges, and see what happens.
Thanks for the feedback about Brown explicitly stating that they prefer AP over DE, at least in the past … he wasn’t planning on applying at Brown, but if there are other colleges that have a similar policy, that would be helpful to eliminate those from the list.