My son’s counselor advised him that DE and AP were considered equally rigorous. At his school, both are weighted equally, with one full point added to the GPA. For a variety of reasons including limited AP course availability, he chose to pursue full time dual enrollment as a junior and a senior. However, as he’s gone through the admissions process this year, we’ve found that many selective schools have a distinct preference for AP over dual enrollment. For example, the University of Georgia specifically asks how many AP or IB courses a student has taken in high school and recalculates the high school GPA accordingly (with increased weighting only for AP or IB courses). Dual enrollment weighting is removed when calculating UGA GPA.
I also heard a couple of AOs state in webinars that they prefer that a student exhaust all of the Ap/IB offerings at their high school prior to enrolling in DE. For example, if a student has already completed Calculus BC, the College would look favorably upon a decision to take Multivariable Calculus (or higher math) through dual enrollment. Conversely, they are not necessarily impressed with students who pass up their high school’s AP or IB offerings to take the same course through DE. So, for example, if a school offers AP Biology, the college would not be impressed with a student who passes up AP Bio to take college dual enrollment bio instead. However, if the student has completed AP Bio and chooses to take higher level bio, e.g., genetics or cell biology, that would reflect favorably in terms of rigor.
With all that said, the caveat here is that students only receive AP credit for scores of 4 or 5 at most colleges (3 at some schools). OTOH, most state universities will accept DE credit for those same courses as long as the student earns a “C” or higher. Most selective private colleges do not accept DE credit and many significantly limit the number of AP credits that can be awarded also.
The best thing to do is to check the specific policies of the school you are interested in. If you have access to AP courses and are a good test taker, AP is likely a good choice either way. If you’re not a great test taker, you may do better with DE, especially if you’re interested in a school that will accept a lot of transfer credits.
To summarize: in terms of rigor, my impression is that most selective colleges favor AP over dual enrollment unless the DE courses are at a higher level than is offered via AP. For earning course credit, DE may be a safer bet, especially at state colleges and universities.
My son was accepted EA at UGA, though he wasn’t offered Honors (despite a 4.7 weighted GPA (4.0 unweighted), which UGA recalculated as 4.05 due to minimal AP/IB courses). I think had he chosen AP rather than DE, he probably would have gotten offered Honors college.
We are still waiting to hear from several more colleges, but so far, he has been offered admissions to 4 other EA colleges, including two 50 LAC.
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