If these DE students take similar or more advanced courses than what AP and IB HL courses target, then why would they do worse at UF later? True college courses often cover material more quickly than the similar high school AP courses, and DE students will have already experienced how true college courses run (with less hand-holding and more requirement for student self-motivation and time-management) than those who took high school AP courses (though the enormous volumes of work in IB courses would also force students to learn time-management).
Or are Florida CCs significantly lower quality, even for courses that are intended to be transferable to the universities?
@ucbalumnus Good question, I can only share my experience. Our local CC (which I would think is typical of the state) classes are far less rigorous than UF’s. Calculus 1 (MAC 2311) cover the same general info at both schools, but UF’s test are far more challenging. Taking Calc 1 through DE may allow you to cover more material (or not), but taking an AP calc B/C class would be more challenging, which would better prepare you for the class rigor at UF.
Is the issue that CC’s are not rigorous enough, or that IB/AICE/AP classes simply do a better job of preparing a student for their freshman year in college (and the level of homework, and study required in college)? I would guess it’s a little bit of both.
Does this cause problems for CC students who transfer to four-year Florida colleges to finish their bachelor’s degrees?
Here in Maryland, such transfers seem to go quite smoothly. My son went to the University of Maryland at College Park, which is our most selective state university, and he knew quite a few upperclassmen who had started at Maryland CCs and transferred. They were doing fine academically. So I think things are different here than they are in Florida.
It may be a selection issue. Where I am, the “outstanding student” types are much more likely to choose IB or Cambridge, or another magnet program, than dual enroll at the CC. The DE students I know (admittedly a small sample) did that because they were unhappy in HS. I would expect that the former group would do better on average in college, regardless of what program they did in high school. Some students at the large public U where I work prefer to take courses like calculus at the CC because they offer smaller classes that are not taught by graduate student TAs.
I think the attractiveness of an IB program varies by school. A number of inner-city urban high schools are becoming IB schools. In our neighborhood, the public IB high school offers basically just two tracts - the IB program and the regular classes. The regular classes are thought to be full of students who don’t study or do homework, so the parents of average students push them into IB. So the IB program includes students with a range of ambition and skills and is not very selective.
I attended Miami Dade Community College (Wolfson Campus), then U Miami and FAU (one of many in my looooong line of colleges), and the course rigor was not equivalent to the AP classes or the honors classes I’d taken in HS, or comparable to the classes at UM and FAU. In fact, FAU was one of my best experiences with all the retired Ivy teachers (it’s in Boca Raton), teaching the classes. The kids weren’t necessarily amazing, but the classes, omg so good!
For my two daughters I strongly advise them against taking local CC classes-I’ve been to them, too, and while you find the occasional stellar teacher, for the most part it is not rigorous and the repetition would make them nuts.
@Marian In Florida, it’s a key mission of the state public universities to accept transfer students from the CCs. Over 25% of UF’s undergraduates are transfer students. However, UF can be very selective, based on the major, when it comes to CC admissions (and for selective majors, it simply doesn’t take transfer students).
For example, the transfer requirement(to be competitive) for Psychology-Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience:
On the other hand, I think Geography (BA/BS):requires that you’re breathing, and that may be optional.
EDIT: In an effort to avoid angry IM’s from UF Geography grads…UF’s has an excellent program that graduates up to a dozen Geography PhD’s a year. Go Geography majors!! * Motion is our Motto!*
