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Early college high school vs just doing college classes early?


Dmmetler
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DD12's community college is starting an early college program next year, and the director of the new school wants to talk to us because he thinks she might be a good fit. The EC program will be on a different physical campus than the one she currently attends, which is much less convenient. And, it sounds like they want her in the fall, which would involve another grade skip on paper. But it would potentially give her a cohort of kids closer to her age, who are having a similar experience, even if a few years older. That might make it worth it.

 

Any suggestions as to what to ask? What to look out for?

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DS18 is on the home stretch of his early college career. He'll graduate in May with an AS degree and then a week later will get his high school diploma. Overall it's been a wonderful experience for him. Lots of support and mentoring from the teachers, guidance counselor and other support staff, and with the exception of a couple of kids all of the students have seemed to be very engaged academically. Most of the cons are probably things you've already thought through since she's already taking classes--mature class content probably being the main one. I'd say the school support and the ability to make lasting friendships with his classmates have been the main advantages over just enrolling for classes. DS is 2e (ASD-1) and the social skills he's learned from being able to interact with a group of friends has IMO been as valuable to him as the college experience has been. The EC teachers and staff have also worked consistently on teaching the kids how to advocate for themselves in a college environment, which I think has been very helpful for DS.

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The early college program my district run was 3 high school course + 3 college courses per year before they change the program. Now it is for 10th and 11th graders and the full details are not out yet as this fall's 10th grader would be the 1st batch under the revamped program.

 

The early college program our car mechanic's child participates in will get her a AA/AS as well as a California high school diploma when she graduate. She will still be applying to the state universities as a freshman and not a transfer.

The FAQ page from her program http://www.geca-gusd-ca.schoolloop.com/FAQ

 

This is how it works for San Mateo Middle College which is for 11th and 12th graders. They have compulsory classes to fulfill high school requirements http://collegeofsanmateo.edu/middlecollege/curriculum%20.asp

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I would ask if there have been kids as young as your DD. If there have been, have they been allowed to continue in the program once others age out?

 

You might already know this, but how highly specific are the classes? Will there be the ability for her to branch out into more than one elective a year? One of the most fun things about college are discovering odd electives and things you never thought could be fun. I had no idea of what anthropology was before taking it my first year of college.

 

It sounds like currently your DD is allowed to participate in the social programing as well. I would want to see if that could continue or if they have cohort specific social events.

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What classes would be offered?

Is there a set catalog/sequence for the early college students, or will they be allowed to select freely from the entire catalog offerings?

A prescribed list of classes would be immediately the deal breaker for me.

 

Also: how do your DD's long term plans mesh with the program:

How long is the program? Two years and then earn an AS? Four years and a BS/BA?

Would she have her BA at 16? What then?

If not, is there a guaranteed transfer?

Is there any chance your DD would want to attend a selective four year college? Would being very young be an obstacle to that? Will being a transfer student give her a shot at admission at all?

If she wants to transfer to a different institution, how would having been a full time student (in the Early college program) affect financial aid?

 

Socially: does she get along better with kids slightly older than her, or with adults? For my DD, the age difference to the regular college students was wonderful; she always related better to significantly older kids and found two very close friends who were college seniors when she was 14. For her, socially this was needed; being with other teens would not have been a good fit.

 

Edited by regentrude
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Transportation time...we could not make it work due to the college schedule...Classes and labs were so spread out that ds could not continue his sport or music. The math and science classes he needed were scheduled at the same time, so that was the dealbreaker as the other courses could be had DE.

Also watch the schedule. late evening lab or ensemble followed by a 730 am class might be too much if you have a long commute.

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This would be the first year, so I suspect they are making it up as they go along. DD is the youngest student they've ever admitted-the next youngest started at 14. Early college just isn't common around here until DE funding starts at junior year, and the two middle college consortium programs both have kids doing just high school classes until 11th grade, and limit it to the 12 credits a year funded by DE.

 

DD's current plan is to do the classes that would transfer for both a math/science teaching degree and a biology degree, plus anything else that looks good (there is a biotechnology cluster she wants to do on top of the general bio, for example). She doesn't necessarily want a BS by 16, because the schools she would want to go to all would require living on campus or us moving. Most of the schools she's considering are state U's in the SE USA that have good field bio and ecology research, often with their own field stations and similar programs. Many have good merit aid, and many, even out of state, have pretty generous credit acceptance from the CC. None are super competitive-an ACT in the mid 30's or better is enough to put you in either guaranteed merit aid or competitive for it. And all have faculty doing research in areas she is interested in who have basically told her "when you go to college, come to us. We have (sea turtles, gopher tortoises, indigo snakes, Rattlesnakes....)".

 

 

Right now, she is really getting along well with the adult students and seems to be accepted as just another student on campus. Most of her friends are international students, who are, if anything, older than the typical undergraduate. She occasionally gets questions about her age, and the general response is "good for you!". She loves the social interaction and that she can do things like go to lunch with group of native Spanish speakers and students taking Spanish to work on conversational skills, participate in discussions on urban education and politics, and just have that "vibe". I honestly don't know if she'd like being around high school kids as much as she thinks she does-and if she hits restrictions like "9th graders can only use the library with teacher supervision" (as was the case for one of the schools Arcadia posted), I think she'd find that untenable. She's very excited about homecoming this weekend, for example. She also wants to try out for the cheer team next fall.

 

 

One thing that I can see might be a benefit is that I'm a little worried about her transfer vs freshman status. If she's in an official early college program, and it makes it possible to get an AS or two but still be considered a freshman, that may be worth considering.

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One thing that I can see might be a benefit is that I'm a little worried about her transfer vs freshman status. If she's in an official early college program, and it makes it possible to get an AS or two but still be considered a freshman, that may be worth considering.

 

We're in NC where early colleges are very common. DS looked at several state and private universities (the private schools were still in state and so of course very used to early college students). All of them treated him as an incoming freshman as far as scholarship eligibility, merit and need based aid. Early college is so common here that the university that will likely be his choice has separate orientation dates for those students.

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The program director just called. He stated flat out that DD isn't their target student-their target student is a motivated kid, not necessarily a smart one (his words). The plan is to basically use the college developmental classes to get the kids College ready by junior year, running special sections of them for the early college kids (so high school Algebra, geometry, writing, etc, but at a college pace), with the goal of getting the kids solidly ready to place into college classes (and also having some of the high school courses required for graduation). Courses will largely be taught by college faculty, but advising and other similar roles will be a dedicated staff. Then, the last 2 years, they'll really work on their associates, finishing up remaining high school credits officially as DE students. The goal is to graduate with an AA. The program is a charter school, and tuition for college classes will be paid by the school district under the charter for classes that don't qualify for DE. Textbooks will be loaned out for core classes.

 

As he says, DD doesn't need most of the first 2 years-she already has met the standard that they want their juniors to be at. Having said that, he thinks that they may be able to work something out, basically letting DD substitute college courses for the developmental ones, but letting her have the social access to the program, and where possible, placing her in classes with other program students. He's thinking that they may be able to give her high school credit by exam to help tick those boxes. And he does think it would be best to start with the first cohort, which would make her 2 years younger than the other new students, but in another year,the gap between her and their average freshman would just plain be bigger,

 

So, where we stand is that he is going to talk to the college and see what they can do, and see if maybe they can come up with something to make this work for DD.

 

All told, it may be worth fighting traffic for.

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I will also say-it's kind of nice talking to someone who already knew the situation. Apparently the college pulled a list of contact information for all enrolled students with birthdates that indicated they would still be in high school, and DD's came up. Apparently she was the ONE fully admitted, as opposed to DE, student on the list-and also the youngest. So the whole conversation was "I really want your child in my program. How can we make this happen?".

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Sounds like the normal high school accel track. Good for them to figure out how to get it described to be politically acceptable.

And more importantly, paid for. The opportunity to get 60 paid for college credits vs the 24 that DE would cover, with transportation and books/materials provided is something that a lot of the kids here just plain don't have. Eother you have parents who can drive you (to a magnet to do IB or AP Capstone or to a college to do DE), and, for DE, pay for everything beyond base tuition for that 24 credits (when a book can easily cost more than the tuition for the class) or you're stuck with the basic high school options. The difference between the top district magnets and the bottom schools can be close to 20 ACT points (seriously, we have whole schools where the average is in the teens).

 

I'm not sure they can be flexible enough to work for DD (and for us, paying tuition for CC classes or good online classes and my driving her to local classes is not a big issue), but I think it's a great option to add to the mix.

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Sounds like a great opportunity.  I might ask if she could have the option of going for 5 years instead of just 4 so as to undo the year skip.  (Get it in writing so you have it 4 years later, of course.)  If they really want her, they'll probably agree to it.

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Don't fee bad,.students here have no magnet,and everything not needed for the Regents Advanced Dipoloma is pay to play..families can and do move in orderto find public schools with accel and dluble accel tracks. Very few are outside of NYC and Westchester.

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We talked to an admissions rep that mostly deals with transfers for one of the state schools today. He says that if she applies as a freshman and includes high school transcripts and test scores, she will be accepted as one, so long as there is not a time that she's taking college classes after graduating high school before she enrolls with them. Early college is new in the state, but enough neighboring states have it that they have had kids in that situation before, and the merit aid would be far better for DD as an incoming freshman than a transfer (she would give up the guaranteed acceptance that she would get as transfer, but that is unlikely to be an issue for state colleges). He suggests going ahead and doing the AA degrees because there are often caps on the number of DE hours accepted, and since DD plans to double major, she may hit them, but with the AA transfer paths, the agreement says they WILL accept those pathway classes.

 

This isn't a school that is high on her priority list-they don't send herpetologists to present at conferences and are a much more urban college than the ones she prefers, but that was kind of reassuring to hear.

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DE is big here. They are starting programs like the one you describe for motivated at risk kids. I would directly talk to the colleges that she is interested in and ask if she had an AA with potential extra credits how she would fall. I would not mention her age, just say that you have a student. I would diminish my talking with colleges she doesn't care much about. I found them to just overwhelm me with options. That might not be the case, but so much of this is specific to each place, I would be leery.

 

Around here, the extra credits would get her pulled from freshman status. It is very much a game where the student has to follow "The Way" or the trnasfer agreements/AA status/enrollment all goes haywire. More than likely, if she just has a straight AA, many colleges view that as a positive. It would be any extra that is iffy. Perhaps I read your comment wrong, and that would not be the case. Then just forget what I said :)

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I think that's kind of the goal here. One thing I've noticed in talking to schools (and it kind of jibes with my experience as a teacher, who worked in Title I schools and in the University lab school )-the schools that serve a more at-risk population are willing to try to come up with something individual for a kid to meet their needs. The schools that don't tend to try to fit every kid into their mold, even when they simultaneously talk a big game about individualization.

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