Dual Enrollment-do your kids participate?

[monkeybug]

My kids are not old enough to do this, but I have talked with other parents about it. One thing that I didn't think of as explained to me by some other parents, is if you have a child that is sure of his major then great, it cuts down the time in college, but for some that really have no idea what they want to do, it forces them to declare a major earlier than they normally would have to. So I guess it just depends on the child. I think it is great for some, but not for others.

When I did it, we just took the classes we needed to fulfill our high school credits, but took them at the college campus instead. I guess one difference being that there were more choices at the college level. Like a pp said it was mostly just general ed.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Ds18 is doing dual enrollment spanish IV and Pre-Calculus. I think thats 7 total credits from the community college.

He goes to a private school and the AP classes would have costed us $600plus and he would get like a $225 rebate after the AP tests. We decided against that since not all colleges here even accept the AP credits and you have to score either a 4 or 5 if they do take them most likely.

So money wise the 2 dual enrollment courses costed us the same as 1 ap course would have with no guarantee of the AP credit etc.

 

[aprilgail2]

It was different at our school. It was only available in English and the cost was almost $400 per semester. My DS took it because it was a little cheaper than a college course and it was worth 3 credits, but when I had already paid book fees of almost $300, show choir fees of $900 plus all the other added senior expenses, money was a huge factor as to why most kids didn't take advantage of it. The same for AP classes. Sure its a great deal, but when I had to pay $90 for each test and hope that they pass it, some people aren't willing to take the gamble.

We have it in more than English but it is about 400.00 for each course they want to take so it can add up.

 

[golfgal]

I am surprised at the states that charge for this. I just assumed it was free everywhere.

 

[jme829]

Our school has 2 different options.

DD17 has taken 2 or 3 classes at High School that she gets dual credit for at Wisconsin Tech. College (or Chippewa Valley TC) long as she got an "A" (she did), however, it doesn't matter for her as these are colleges that she isn't interested in going to . These were just regular electives she could take at the hs school level that would transfer over. ( I think they were computer classes...maybe computer programming and desktop publishing and I think they offer a few others)

She also takes actual college classes at UW-River Falls through the youth options program ( I think its called PSEO in Minnesota) where she also gets dual credit. (and they offer them at the tech colleges as well, in addition to the option above ).

For this option, she had to be in the top 25% of her high school class (40% for the tech schools) to be eligible and the school board has to sign off on the classes she is interested in (she can basically sign up for any college freshman or sophomore level class but if its comparable to something they offer at the hs, the hs won't pay for it and there has to be room in the class for the college to accept her into the class).

Once everything is approved, everything is scheduled through the college. As long as she passes the college class she gets credit for whatever subject on her hs transcript and then it goes on her official college transcript as well when the time comes (and she can transfer it to another college if she doesn't attend UWRF-although, again, not an issue as that is where she is planning on going). She gets her book at the campus bookstore (UWRF does the "loaning" of books-the fees are included in tuition) got a UWRF student ID and takes classes with the regular college students (she was thrilled that her BF a freshman at UWRF-was able to take the class with her., made it less intimidating..lol)

She actually just finished up her first college class at UWRF and just got her approval for fall semester classes.


When she went for the orientation, I was SHOCKED that of all the schools in our area, there were only 8 kids that took advantage of this great program! Just this one class will save us almost $700 and she is already one class closer to her college degree and she's only a (hs) JR!!


ETA: this is FREE for us as well as long as she passes the class and its not something the hs has a comparable option. She is allowed to take a maximum of 18 credit hours between her JR and SR year (she didn't start until Spring of Jr year though-Journalism 101 -Intro to Mass Media). In the fall she will be taking at least one (hopefully 2) college classes at UWRF and 2 AP classes at hs (Lit/Comp and Psych) ..so she could potentially have a whole semester (and a half??? not sure how this will play out) of college out of the way before she graduates HS next June.

 

[punkin]

I am not sure this is widely available here and I am pretty sure if HS students take college classes, they have to pay for them. DD did not take any college classes. She did however take 6 APs in HS. Doesn't matter because (other than AP Calc if she gets a 4 or 5) all the other APs she took only count toward electives at her college, not as required classes.

 

[stacy347]

DD17 was able to do dual enrollment this year (JR) at the HS. We do trimesters here and the college course followed that schedule.

Next year as a SR, she will have to drive to the college for her dual enrollment classes. She is still debating whether to actually do it though, as all but one of her classes will be an AP class and she wants to work after school.

She is trying to keep herself from getting burned out before she even actually starts college (which I think is wise). Even without the extra classes next year, she will start college next fall with at least 16 credit hours, so she is happy.

ETA:
Forgot to mention that while the classes themselves were free to us, I did have to pay for her textbooks. Not sure if it is the same in every state, but I also have to pay a fee for the final test in each AP class next year to get college credits for them.

 

[Pixiedust34]

Our kids aren't in high school yet, but we hope to have them take a few classes at the community college with duel enrollment for their junior and/or senior years. It's a great opportunity for them to get a jumpstart on college credits.

ETA: Classes for duel enrollment are not free here, but I think there is a discount. It would be excellent to take college classes for free! It's nice that some of your students have the chance to do so.

 

[Buckalew11]

I am not sure this is widely available here and I am pretty sire if HS student's take college classes, they have to pay for them. DD did not take any college classes. She did however take 6 APs in HS. Doesn't matter because (other than AP Calc if she gets a 4 or 5) all the other APs she took only count toward electives at her college, not as required classes.

This is true. It is a good thing to have some idea of what colleges you child is interested in and what things will count for---esp. if it is not free. At our CC the English classes will not transfer as an English credit to DD's college of choice. It would count as an elective.

I plan on DD taking some dual enrollment classes and possibly even some CLEP tests. But we'll be careful not to get too many credits because I don't want her starting as a sophomore as that hurts scholarship $$ she can get as a freshman.
She's waited all her life to go to this college so I doubt she'll want to get out of there early even if she still plans on med school which will be years of hard work.

 

[golfgal]

This is true. It is a good thing to have some idea of what colleges you child is interested in and what things will count for---esp. if it is not free. At our CC the English classes will not transfer as an English credit to DD's college of choice. It would count as an elective.

I plan on DD taking some dual enrollment classes and possibly even some CLEP tests. But we'll be careful not to get too many credits because I don't want her starting as a sophomore as that hurts scholarship $$ she can get as a freshman.
She's waited all her life to go to this college so I doubt she'll want to get out of there early even if she still plans on med school which will be years of hard work.

Most scholarships aren't effected by these types of programs. Usually the ones available to "freshman" are now for "First Year Students" to differentiate between the ones that have college credits from high school and the ones that don't yet they are all still in their first year of being JUST in college.

 

[Sparx]

I graduated high school in three years thanks to dual enrollment. I completed 12 hours of dual during my last year of high school. 6 of the hours were free, thanks to scholarships. I ended up being really thankful for the incoming hours when I was registering for my second semester. My school made current students register based on their amount of hours. I registered a month before a friend of mine who graduated the same time I did (without any dual enrollment) and I was a sophomore after my first semester at the school.

 

[Sparx]

This is true. It is a good thing to have some idea of what colleges you child is interested in and what things will count for---esp. if it is not free. At our CC the English classes will not transfer as an English credit to DD's college of choice. It would count as an elective.

I plan on DD taking some dual enrollment classes and possibly even some CLEP tests. But we'll be careful not to get too many credits because I don't want her starting as a sophomore as that hurts scholarship $$ she can get as a freshman.
She's waited all her life to go to this college so I doubt she'll want to get out of there early even if she still plans on med school which will be years of hard work.

When I enrolled, I was enrolled as a "first time freshman" even though I had transfer hours. When I was dual enrollment through another school I was considered a "special student not degree seeking." so I wasn't considered a freshman there and I didn't have to "transfer" schools, I was enrolled directly as a freshman. Also, my scholarship GPA requirements do not take dual credit into consideration.

I took:
English 1010
History 1010
History 1020
Math 1070 (college algebra)

My dual came through a community college and all the credit I could have taken would have been general education. I went on to a state college, and I didn't have a problem with any of my credit getting transferred or accepted.

 

[laurie31]

Our high school has two options for dual enrollment; both are only available to 11th and 12th graders, so my DDs haven't done this yet, although they are both planning to do so.

One option is called Dual Enrollment and students take a single college class in each of those grades grade. The class is taught on the high school campus, but costs money, like a regular college course.

The other option is called Early Entry. The student takes college courses ON the campus, and again, the parents must pay for the courses.

In both cases, the student gets high school AND college credit for the courses. In the Early Enrollment option, the student graduates from high school with an Associates degree.

DD13 wants to be an anestheologist, which would mean finishing at age 31, so this would put her being done at 29 instead. Of course, she may change her mind a hundred times before 11th grade, much less before she's 18. She is also interested in being an equine vet. However, a general Associate of Science should serve her well whatever she decides on studying at the bachelor's level and beyond. The fact that it will save us money is icing on the cake, but not the primary motivation. If it were free though, wow...we would REALLY be saving some serious cash. I envy y'all in the "free college" states!

 

[MomofKatie]

We live in Union County, NC. We have a magnet school that is Early College HS. Students go to school for 5 years, and the campus is at a local community college. They take HS and college courses from the start- when they graduate, they have a Diploma and an Associate Degree (or equivelent to 2 years of college credit). Everything is completely free to students, including all tuition and books.

Our DD is just finishing 6th grade, but we are already hoping she can attend ECHS. Students must apply and go through an interview process. Acceptence is not guaranteed, and preference is given to children of non-college grad parents. We would love her to be able to go, but we are both college grads, so we aren't sure if she will be accepted.

 

[skw444]

I did this when I was in high school back in the mid 90's. A local community college offered English at our high school. We didn't have to pay for it and I got a full year of English credit when I went to the University of GA. I also had taken some AP courses as well and received credit for some of those too. My kids are only in elementary school so I don't know if it's offered at the high school now, but I think it's a great program.

 

[monarchsfan16]

I graduated from high school in '05. At the time my high school had just one class that would allow enrollment in the running start program: honors physics, and if you wanted the college credit, it'd cost $300. My stepsister's currently a senior at that high school and I haven't heard anything about running start from her. I also haven't heard anything about running start from my mom, who is a teacher at one of the better high schools in the state (not that mine was bad). It's just not big here.

AP classes are bigger, but again, not every subject offers them in our schools. I took 3 AP classes (and exams) in high school, which gave me 12 credits going into college. Honestly, it really didn't help me THAT much. Due to the nature of my program, I was still there the full four years, and I had to maintain full-time status to stay on my parents' insurance, so there was no financial perk. I maybe could have dropped down to part-time status my last semester, but that really had nothing to do with the AP credits, and since the cost of my own insurance would NOT have been less than the difference between PT and FT tuition, it wasn't worth it. The biggest benefit to me was that I only had to take 2 science gen eds at the college level instead of 3.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

We are in a rural midwest school district.... so class offerings are severely limited. Our DS's exhausted the high school offerings locally by the time they were juniors in hs. We had to scratch and claw to get them opportunities for online college and AP coursework. Fortunately now it has become more common - and there are more options.

DS#1 graduated with 36 college credits.... DS#2 with 40. Both worked for the school district and took the college coursework almost exclusively their last two years of high school.

 

[jsmith]

between AP and regular community college courses both my sons entered their Universitys as second semester sophmores-but it was handled a bit differently-they both took the ACT thru university of Denver Talent Search in 8th grade-based on those scores the high school allowed them to enroll in AP courses usually limited to Jrs and Srs as freshman-yes AP tests are expensive-but the high school rebated the cost to anyone scoring a 4 or 5 -i paid for one of 11 tests . Then in the fall of their jr years they just went downt to 5 hours at the highschool-needed to stay eligible for sports-and went half days to a community college-we had to pay tution for that-but since the high school was unable to meet their needs ( Calculus 2 and 3 and physics and chemistry beyond AP courses were not taught at the high school) the school district paid thier tution for those courses. All of the community college credits transfered to their universities of choice (Clemson University and The University of Colorado.)

 

[NotUrsula]

Back in the late 1970's I did the same thing using the CLEP program, and I got 21 hours that way. I did a further 9 in summer school right after hs graduation, and started my "freshman fall" year as a sophomore. I graduated in 3 years.

My university would not let you do more than 30 hours by means of testing or special high-school enrollments at that time, and I gather that is still the case there; they don't want you getting too specialized before you are on-campus. Restricting the credit to one year's worth pretty much restricted it to the various general ed. prerequisites, but that was great, because so many of those are so dull.

 

[kellydizfan]

My DD16 who is a Sophmore just took her AP European History exam the beginning of May for some college credit. She needs a 3 in order to get the credit. We will not know her score until the end of July whether she will have college credit or not. We had to pay $76 for the test and that was it. THe school took care of all books, etc. She still has to take the states regents exam at the end of the year which is in a couple of weeks. Our school has now done away with all AP courses due to the austerity budget we are working with along with music, all sports, etc. We are in big trouble at the moment here in our school district. IT is such a shame! I did forget to say she is taking French 4 her JR year and we have to pay for her to take that course for the college credit. Not sure if she will be taking it now as her teacher is retiring but we are looking at moving her to another district to finish out due to the music program being cut like it is.