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How many credits to complete high school?


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Just curious: what would you consider the upper limit of credits for completing high school? Our local school requires 24; they also have an optional 7th hour, so a student could earn up to 28.

 

I have had 3 dc graduate from home school: ds with 19.5 (in the military); dd with 22 (Sr. in college); dd with 18.5 (Soph. in college). One ds graduated from ps with 25 (Soph. in college), and dd is on track in ps to graduate with 24.5. Ds (my baby) is hsed, just beginning his high school path, and loves learning.

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My rule: When the dc have learned as much at home as they're gonna, we graduate.:D

 

That rule might not work for everyone, lol.

 

We did community college instead of high school, with dds taking classes beginning at 14yo. I graduated both at 16, because they were close to full-time at the c.c. and it seemed silly to think of them as still being in high school.

 

If I lived in a state where community college was not as clearly an option, I would probably follow a more tradtional (i.e., like school) format: 4 years English, 3 years history, as much math above algebra as we could tolerate, ditto with science, biology and above. We would explore our options for foreign language and do as much of that as we could. Also, we'd consider college, and what colleges would require if dc were planning to go.

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ANywhere between 16 and 24 I think. However, I agree with Ellie and say that one can start community college before then and never really return to high school. It depends on what they will do after high school. I go by college requirements since my kids are going to college. That means- 4 English, 3-4 Math, 3-4 Science, 3-4 Social Science, 1 Fine Art, 1 PE, 2-4 Language, and maybe something like computer thrown in. THe first graduated with many more than the required and I see the second following in his footsteps.

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You asked how our local school system does the 32 credits. Well, our local high schools are on the block system. The students take four classes the first semester and four classes the second semester. These classes are two hours long instead of one (or whatever the equivalent is to two classes periods instead of one, may not be exactly two hours). Sounds like fun, huh? So, a student could earn an Algebra 1 credit the first semester and Algebra 2 the second semester, KWIM? I think its nuts!

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You asked how our local school system does the 32 credits. Well, our local high schools are on the block system. The students take four classes the first semester and four classes the second semester. These classes are two hours long instead of one (or whatever the equivalent is to two classes periods instead of one, may not be exactly two hours). Sounds like fun, huh? So, a student could earn an Algebra 1 credit the first semester and Algebra 2 the second semester, KWIM? I think its nuts!

 

Thanks for explaining. I agree that it's nuts.

 

It also confirms what I've always suspected... that block scheduling is a way for the schools to make it look like the students are doing more, when in fact, they're probably learning, accomplishing and retaining less.

 

Those of us who are more stringent (ethical?) in our requirements for a credit may not find this a terribly level playing field.

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You asked how our local school system does the 32 credits. Well, our local high schools are on the block system. The students take four classes the first semester and four classes the second semester. These classes are two hours long instead of one (or whatever the equivalent is to two classes periods instead of one, may not be exactly two hours). Sounds like fun, huh? So, a student could earn an Algebra 1 credit the first semester and Algebra 2 the second semester, KWIM? I think its nuts!

 

Here the block scheduling is by day spread over two weeks. On week one, the kids take the same four 1 1/2 hour classes MWF and then a second set of four classes T/Th. The following week the second set of classes are on MWF, with the first set on T/Th.

 

24 credits are needed to graduate, but one could earn 32 with this schedule. Personally, I don't know what to think about it. Seems like it could lead to burn-out pretty easily.

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My teen will be graduating with 26.5 credits according to her transcript. However, I was conservative in how I regarded her community college credits.

 

I considered each 3 to 5 credit class taken on the quarter system to be equivalent to 0.5 high school credits. Our local state university, on the other hand, considers any 3 credit course to be the equivalent of a full high school credit. Had I used that as my standard, she would have had seven more credits bringing the total up to 33.5 credits throughout her high school years.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Our local school system requires 32, even though our state only requires 24. The church school that I umbrella under only requires 24 as per state guidelines, so I'm sure our number will fit somewhere between 24 and 32.

 

This is true for every high school around here as well. All of them do block scheduling and kids graduate with 32 credits. I think they may allow seniors to take fewer the second half of the year. Most have taken their hardest courses junior year and senior fall in order to look good to potential colleges, so spring senior year is a bit of a break.

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it depends on your dc's goals and interests.

 

HSLDA has a brochure that very succinctly explains the differences between the types of high school education. They divide the groups into General High School (20-22 credits); General College Prep (24-28 credits); and, Rigorous College Prep (26-30 credits).

 

What it boils down to is what your dc wants to do or where they want to go to college. For the ivy league colleges or competitive colleges, you'd probably want to go the rigorous college prep route (remember, your dc would be competing nationally with other dc for those spots). For cosmotology school, you could probably get away with the General High School prep. The key is making your dc as competitive (academically speaking) as possible for them for achieve their goals.

 

As always, just my $.02.

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  • 4 months later...

Whatever you deem appropriate. Between 24 and 32 seems best. This for schools who give 1/2 credit for a semester class and 1 full credit for a full year class. There are schools that give different points. If a full year class gets 4 credits and a semester class gets 2 credits, then obviously, a student may end up with 120 credits or something.

 

It's really not hard for a homeschooler to get over 32 if they count everything as a school subject and have a pretty rigorous course of study otherwise. Also, we chose homeschooling partially because it wasn't limiting. I HATED that there was absolutely NO way to take 4 years of Latin, dance, orchestra and math AND in the credits the school required otherwise. At home, my kids had the freedom of picking and choosing. My daughter did have on the higher side credit wise, though many things we did we chose not to limit by giving credit for them. There are better places on the college application for some things, imo.

 

Anyway, in the end, it's whatever you choose to do. That number is much less important than many other aspects of the transcript, imo.

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It doesn't matter what your local school system requires unless you live in a homeschool-unfriendly state that monitors such things. The only thing that matters is that you cover the minimum course requirements for admission to the university you plan to attend.

 

For instance, here are the minimum course requirements (MCR)for the UNC system:

http://www.cfnc.org/static/pdf/home/sc/pdf/min_course_requirements.pdf

 

If you have covered all these subjects (note they have specific math requirements), that's all the admissions office cares about in terms of number of credits.

 

MCR vary by state, and by school. Check to make sure you are covering everything they need. (For example, Clemson University requires 3 units of foreign language while our state schools require only 2. Some schools require more social science credits than others. Our state requires 4 units of math with one course past Alg. II that requires Alg. II as a prerequisite. Neighboring states, like VA, require only 3 math credits.

 

College admissions employees don't scan the transcript for anything but GPA, class rank (if applicable) and the specific math/science/foreign lang/social science credits they require in the MCR. Make it easy for them to match your course titles with the MCR titles they're looking for!

 

Sandra

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We needed 42 credits to graduate with a basic "core 40" diploma, and 47 to graduate with academic honors. It was very possible in 4 years because we had 7 class periods in a semester, and each semester was worth 1 credit per class period (excluding a study hall if you chose to take one). Most of the classes were 2 semester courses (like Alg, Geometry, some of the history classes), So by the end of it, you would have 2 geometry credits, even though you only took one geometry class.

 

I hope this makes sense! (This is in Indiana btw)

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We needed 42 credits to graduate with a basic "core 40" diploma, and 47 to graduate with academic honors. It was very possible in 4 years because we had 7 class periods in a semester, and each semester was worth 1 credit per class period.

Your 42 credits is equivalent to 21 credits in schools who give 1/2 credit for a semester class and 1 full credit for a full year class. So your 42 credits is not the one issue here we are talking whether it's possible to obtain. To make any sense whether getting 42 credits in high school is possible, it has to be whether you can get 84 credits in your school system where 1 credit is assigned for a semester class.

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Florida has a weird thing. The standard 4yr course is 24 credits required, BUT you can do a 3yr 18 credit route. The big difference is electives. In truth, the 18 credits are what you need for FL University Admissions while the 24 credits adds more "fluff."

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I don't have a minimum number required because it hasn't been necessary with the first two. I may have to rethink before the third since she would be the oldest to go to college and may very well be ready to leave a year earlier. But my first had 27 or 28 , I think. My next will have something like 24-26, depending on what she does her last year.

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