My high school said that they have an Ib dual enrollment program in UPENN and LaSalle. Does this mean I can take classes in UPENN? I find this hard to believe. Anyone know?
I’m not sure why this is a Parent question. But wouldn’t you ask your high school about it and how it works at your particular HS? When they “said” why didn’t you ask what questions you have. Why don’t you ask for details. Why don’t you ask students at your school how it has worked for them. Dual enrollment is college classes for HS credit while in HS and may be accepted for credit or advance placement when you enter college. You still may apply as a freshman when you apply for colleges.
Thanks for the feedback. I do not know anyone at this High School. I am going there soon. I was just curious. And I am not going to drive there to ask this… I thought maybe parents would know better.
I have a son in dual credit English and he’s getting 6 hours in college upon graduation but be careful bc some colleges do not accept it. All of the schools he is applying to do accept it accept for one.
My son’s high school offers a few classes (e.g. economics and psychology) where the students are taught at the high school but it actually counts as a college level course, in his case through Syracuse University. He was able to get credit for the classes when he went to Bucknell. He just had to send them a college transcript from Syracuse. Sounds like it might be something like this.
There are different models of dual enrollment. One model is what several posters have described–a local college or university will certify certain classes taught in the HS by a qualified HS teacher as eligible for college credit, while also counting toward the student’s HS diploma. Not every college will accept this as college credit when you enroll there, however. So if you successfully complete a dual enrollment class certified by LaSalle as eligible for college credit and you later enroll at LaSalle, you should get full college credit for that course; but if you enroll at, say, Princeton, they may not recognize the credits, or impose limits on how many AP or dual enrollment credits you get to count toward your undergraduate degree…
In another model, qualified HS students actually take some regular college classes on the college campus, with college students as their classmates, and typically the state pays their tuition for those classes. We have that here in Minnesota; it’s called post-secondary education options (PSEO). My daughters took quite a few courses at the University of Minnesota in their junior and senior years of high school through this program. A couple of caveats: 1) Not every state has it. 2) It’s not an automatic “in,” you need to be admitted as a PSEO student by the participating college to be eligible to take classes there, and some private colleges accept very few PSEO students. For example, Macalester College in Saint Paul usually accepts only one or a very few PSEO students each year, and then only if the PSEO student is essentially as well qualified as their entering freshmen, and only if the student can show that the particular class he wants to take isn’t available elsewhere in the community. 3) Again, depending on where you end up enrolling as a college freshman, you may or may not be able to transfer all the credits, though you should be able to keep all the credits if you later end up enrolling as a freshman at the college where you took the PSEO classes.
Generally dual enrollment credits don’t make you a transfer student when you later apply for regular admission to a college; even if the college recognizes some or all of your dual enrollment credits, you’ll be treated as part of the entering freshman admissions pool. This sometimes results in the anomalous situation that a student with a lot of dual enrollment is admitted as a freshman, but when they arrive on campus they may already have sophomore or even junior standing. Some find this an appealing way to reduce the cost of college. My daughters didn’t want their PSEO credits to transfer because they wanted the full 4-year college experience.
The school where I teach does this (in fact, I do it). Basically it is a class taught at a HS for college credit. Not all that different from the post secondary option (where the kid goes off to a local college instead of taking the class at the HS, but without the transportation/liability issues for the HS - which is why they are jumping on board. But - as warned above- there is a caveat. Not all colleges will accept such a credit. If your kid is staying local, or the school involved has national recognition (as in the case of Syracuse noted above) there may be no worries. BUT my school accredits through a local CC- and kids who are trying to go out of state (or even to the other side of our state) have found that colleges are more willing to accept AP credit (which is a national measure) than CC credit. Depends on competitiveness of school etc.
Dual credit was new for us last year, and D graduated in 2014. She and a close friend both wanted to build up college credits senior year. She took 4 APs, he took 4 post secondary classes. (With much teasing b/c he was “guaranteed” credits, and she had to take ap exams) Both ended up accepted at colleges away from home (NYU and Boston) Her senior year credits transferred, his did not. He ended up choosing a more local (and less well recognized nationally) college for a number of reasons, but the fact that he wanted the credits was on the list
Overall, you will have the best chance of transferring your dual-enrollment classes if they were taken for a letter grade of C or higher, taken on a college campus, taught by college faculty, and not used to meet high school graduation requirements.
Private schools tend to have more restrictions. I was a full-time Ohio PSEOP student in my senior year of high school, but I couldn’t have done that at my current private school because they would have restricted me to two courses per semester.
My guidance counselor told me that my university won’t always “transfer” its own classes when incoming freshmen have credit for them. 8-|
You don’t have to graduate early just because you have transfer credit. I took dual-enrollment classes full-time in my senior year of high school, even though I never had any intentions of getting a bachelor’s degree in fewer than four years. I just wanted to take college classes without paying for them. (My high school only had four AP classes, and I wanted to take classes that don’t have AP equivalents.)
You don’t have to drive to your school to get answers about their program. Just call and ask. Each school can have different requiremets/stipulations so we can’t give you an answer that will definitely apply at your school. My children all took classes at our local community college during high school Most of the colleges they attended accepted these credits and they began college as sophomores. Only West Point (USMA) did not give credit for college classes or AP classes.
So, ask at your school how their program works and then decide if it works for you.
There are also programs like “Project Lead the Way” where you take engineering courses in your HS that you can get credit for at Rochester Institute of Technology.
So it may be that you are taking courses at your HS that you get LaSalle or Penn credit for. Ask the Guidance Counselor for more information about the program.