“What ever happened to just taking college courses when you go to college?”
I took a couple dual enrollment courses when I was in high school and that was more than 25 years ago…
I never even heard of DE until coming to this forum…our school offers lots of AP classes and occasionally I’ll hear about a student taking a class at the local community college, but never knew about DE. So not “normal” in my world…
Interesting though, never though about it before until reading this thread when someone mentioned that a high school teacher might teach a local CC class at the high school for DE. I actually did this way back when in HS. Our calculus class was taught by one of our math teachers at our HS but was technically a CC class for CC credit (and a few CC students also attended) So I guess I was DE!
What are the more advanced high school students supposed to take when they exhaust the high school level offerings in a particular subject?
They use the opportunity to enrich themselves by developing non academic pursuits. They get a life.
Our friend’s D chose DE classes over AP so she didn’t worry about the AP test scores. This was very beneficial to her when she started college at the state flagship; she had lots of credits and could focus on more classes within her major. And her mom wasnt sure how she’d fare on her AP tests anyways.
Because we were being super-cheap; we had S1 take only AP and we encouraged him to PASS the tests! That was a very helpful decision; his full-tuition scholarship to state flagship accepts AP credits; but DE credits count against the #of hours his scholarship offers. This is a double-dipping savings to us.
With this in mind, we will have kid #3 take some ACT/SAT tests early, just to see how he’s doing and make decisions from there on AP/DE. We’ll put out some feelers to schools he’s already expressed interest in: about DE grades, AP scores needed, and how they all affect scholarship opps. no hurry, but its on our radar. Colleges all vary with this.
the CC/HS route is of interest for us for #3, but D2 is taking a class from our local CC this summer before she starts her freshman college year, and says it is very very easy; like a jr. high class. Is that typical? Do CC classes really prepare you?
And if they already have a life and are pursuing non-academic things as well (i.e. are not overloaded academically)?
“What are the more advanced high school students supposed to take when they exhaust the high school level offerings in a particular subject?” At our school anyhow, students aren’t allowed to accelerate in much other than math, so this is only an issue for a very few students. What do they do? My kid took a college math class. If she hadn’t been able to schedule it (this easily could have happened) then she would have taken 2 more AP classes, or maybe 1 AP and another music class, instead of the 2 study halls necessary to allow her to commute to the college. It would not have been a huge deal. She wanted to take those classes also, but time is limited and choices have to be made.
“They use the opportunity to enrich themselves by developing non academic pursuits. They get a life.” It’s kind of offensive to say that advanced students have no “life”. My advanced student was on a couple of teams, both academic and sports, and she was in various music ensembles. Her life was just fine even if you don’t approve of it.
@GMTplus7 you crack me up! I’m not a fan of college in high school. At all. Unless that DE experience is on the college campus, with mostly college students, it’s just not the same. High school can turn off students to a subject while the different approach at a college can turn them back on. Gen ends aren’t something to “get out of the way” (and I cringe whenever I hear that phrase). They are opportunities for exploration. High schools can challenge students without offering college credit. And in many subjects, a maturity element comes into play. Your 16 year old may be a genius, but his brain still isn’t mature. There are going to be things he just can’t grasp that he will be able to at 18 or 20.
What do you do when your kid scores a 36 on ACT English? Covered more literature than I read by the time I finished grad school? Should he take 4 years of h.s. English, then two more semesters in college as part of gen-ed? As a STEM student who would like to actually do STEM subjects?
That’s what I’m talking about when I suggest getting a gen-ed “out of the way.”
But it is not right for every situation. I totally agree with that.
“I never even heard of DE until coming to this forum…our school offers lots of AP classes and occasionally I’ll hear about a student taking a class at the local community college, but never knew about DE. So not “normal” in my world…”
Mine neither.
It sounds great, but for these top students that end up going to top colleges, the dual enrollment only gets them out of the intro classes freshman year, but does NOT replace credits. Top schools will still make you take the required credits at their school - so instead of taking intro to Bio freshman year, you’d take the next level freshman year. You’d still have to take X credits in science per the school requirement. This is exactly like AP, so if your school already offers AP, I don’t see the purpose of this. Its a sweet deal for the public high school who can get the parents to pay for college courses and lighten up their number of AP sections offered.
In Hawaii they have Running Start as the DE program. It’s community colleges and you pay for the credits and the books unless you qualify for free or reduced lunch, in which case grants are available. The pubic school high schools in our area are rigid, uninspired, and obsessed with meeting benchmarks that don’t apply to my kid. My daughter preferred the opportunity to set her own schedule, take more focused classes, and learn with adults. She is currently jumping through the hoops to see what credit she will get at an out of state private school for her DE classes. Even if it is zero, choice is good, kids enjoying their educational experience is great, and I am grateful.
I’m not convinced that getting Gen eds out of the way is such a good plan. The workload on STEM classes tends to be very heavy and my kid plans to do a gen ed every semester because it would just be too much work (and also too little variety of work) to do all STEM all the time. Yes, her SAT scores were comparable to a 36 ACT, yes, she’s read way more books than most hs students, but she still felt that she benefited from gen ed classes she’s taken so far. Oh wait, I forgot she has “no life”, she must not read non-STEM books or follow politics.
I believe it’s BECAUSE my son developed non academic pursuits and that he had a life that he was so successful academically. Living in a small rural environment, I believe that it is those students that were exposed to the most that achieved the most, so I always thought it was my job as a parent to throw as much at him as I could and then to see ‘what stuck’
As a child he played football, basketball, baseball (Little League), hockey, and was on a bowling league, but he wound up being more of a spectator than a participant in athletics.
He’s travelled to about half the states, including Alaska.
He participated in the performing arts throughout his school years - was in the school plays, was in the show choir for 9 years, and self taught himself to play guitar.
He enjoyed his Spanish classes and spent 6 weeks on a summer travel abroad program to Mexico when he was 15.
When he had the opportunity he volunteered with Habit for Humanity often with his paternal grandfather who was a carpenter prior to his retirement.
He didn’t have a part time job during the school years, but worked 2 jobs the summer before going to college.
In high school in addition to taking Project Lead the Way courses he was also able to take a theater class, choir, and cooking as electives.
And he STILL managed to have 29 dual enrollment credits and 1 AP class/test completed before going to college.
I mentioned above that for both myself and my son the dual credits we earned were done in classes taught in the high school that also filled high school requirements. If we both had to sit through composition class our senior year and we had the option for that to count only as our high school requirement or to also go on a college transcript and fill the requirement for freshman composition at college, who in their right mind would NOT do the dual credit???
And to ordinarylives comment that college courses are “opportunities for exploration”, how much exploration is really done in your typical required semester long freshman composition course?
I’d rather my son had credits for the BASIC coursework completed so he could use the opportunity in college to explore his interests.
My kiddo still has plenty of humanities credits to take at UF. No worries there.
I do agree that STEM majors need to balance their schedules. It’s easy to get in over your head.
My son actually loves history and I’m looking forward to him doing more of that in college. Now he has room in his schedule to do it.
H/SS/A (humanities, social studies, arts) courses can be substantial workload.
However, regardless of the subject, getting advanced placement ahead of the otherwise-required introductory level courses can free up schedule space for interesting free electives (in any subject). A student may not want to take all STEM courses all the time, but the extra freedom of choice among H/SS/A courses may be valuable to him/her. (Of course, the student may also be able to get advanced placement in the STEM subjects.)
If rank is a concern, be aware of how the high school posts the college grade. At our high school, the letter grade from the college is converted to a number. So an A is a 95, B is 85, etc. They do not account for pluses and minuses. So for a straight A student, this could pull down overall GPA.
Several of the students D knows taking DE classes aren’t the best of the best of the best, but rather, have interests and needs not met by their small HS. One girl WAS taking Calc 3, but two others were doing it because it freed them up to “have a life”. Because CC classes don’t specifically run on HS class hours, one kid was working PT during the day at a “maker space” and learning from a real life engineer, while the other was pursuing her interest in healthcare. Still another was able to focus on his foreign language interests.
I like that there ARE so many options for students. There is no one-size-fits-all method of learning and having many choices allows more kids to actually care about their educations instead of just slogging through.
If I had it to do over, and thought my son would have a shot at an elite private, I would work harder at getting him AP classes.
APs were a pain-in-the-you-know-what for us as homeschoolers here in our county in Florida (at least when we weren’t with FLVS). DE was straight forward as long as you have the qualifying scores, maintain your grades, and you are a legally registered homeschooler.
With so much angst over student loan debt burdens, it really does make sense to try to rack up some credits in h.s., if at all possible. At least imho, and especially for subjects which re-hash stuff.
Couldn’t a home school student taking college courses at a local college also take the AP tests for those where the AP test covers similar material? While the student would not get double credit, s/he would have a better chance at getting subject credit or advanced placement at colleges that accept one but not the other.
Yes, true about getting Gen Eds out of the way in favor or 200 and higher courses that the student can really choose and love. However, my point is, at Top schools there is no money saved. The schools will make you take the credits there. At many other schools, both AP and DE courses will actually save you money. So something to keep in mind.
And for that reason, If a school offers sufficient APs, I prefer the AP route. DE should not be he ‘new normal’. Many schools don’t have sufficient courses for top students, so DE is a great option.