<p>1) We live in North Carolina and there is a relatively new offering called the “College Promise” program. This allows high school students that have made sufficient progress to graduation to also take actual college courses at the local community college (In the community college setting, not the high school). In general, this program is set up so the average student can take up to 32 hours (many student take fewer) as a “core block” that will transfer to any NC public university (and most of the privates via an articulation agreement). </p>
<p>My daughter “doubled up” on many of the high school core requirements (at honors level) in her freshman and sophomore years (with much resistance from her counselor who wanted her to follow the “cookie cutter” template she had). Because of state budget cuts, most of the course she was interested in beyond the high school requirements have been stripped from various schools in the county. About this time, the College Promise came into being and she decided to take one to two courses at her high school and totally immerse herself at the community college as well. The result is, in addition to getting her high school diploma in June of 2014, she will be getting her Associates in Arts (64+ hours) at the local community college the following week. In her college counselor’s best estimate, she will be the first person in the state to actually get her associates in this manner and intends on trying to publicize it as PR for the college and the program.</p>
<p>She has been pretty creative in meeting the Associates degree in combination with her high school course work and her extra curricular activities as well (multiple community theater productions a year, many choral activities at her high school and lots of volunteer hours at the county’s arts center.</p>
<p>Aside from trying to address this in the common app essay, or under additional info is there other areas where this might stand out?</p>