SS in MD Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Hi all, Hope this topic hasn't been beaten to death, but I'm wondering if I could gleen from those how have btdt. Our oldest dd is a rising junior and she has done some APs and 1 cc course (this year). We are planning for next year and wondering do selective colleges like to see AP classes w/exam, or community college courses (i.e AP Chemistry or Chem 101 & 102 from cc)??? My dd is interested in biology/biochem/genetics major (at this point) and would like to keep her options open for upper tier colleges. So, can you give me some advice on this?? I don't want her to burn out, but don't want her to miss her opportunities either (with how competitive I hear college admissions are)... Many thanks for your help! Sangita dd(16),dd(14),dd(11),ds(8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegro Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 It seems that many times community college credits don't transfer at selective schools, while AP credits are much more widely accepted because they are standardized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwen in VA Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 It depends -- I have heard of one homeschooled girl who only did CC classes and is now at Princeton. Our experience -- 1) AP's are more standardized. The college folks know what a 5 on a given AP exam means, but an A from a CC may or may not indicate rigor, challenge, and knowledge. 2) Some CC's are weak. Some CC classes are weak. But some CC's are quite strong......... 3) Colleges DO like to see that a student has taken a class or two in a "real" classroom. Almost all of the colleges that my kids interviewed at mentioned how glad they were that my kids had had one or two "real" classes. But one fellow got into MIT with no outside classes whatsoever..... 4) The college my older kids attend will not accept any credits from a CC. Period. But some colleges won't give any credits for AP's either. So you need to research the colleges your kids are interested in. We do a mixture so that our kids get some "real" classroom experience but they are not dependent on the offerings of the local CC. And we prefer the rigor of AP's. We decided to NOT focus on which classes will give them more college credit. Instead, we focused on which classes provided them with the better / stronger / more convenient / more appropriate high school education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkateLeft Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 My daughter is also aiming at top tier colleges, and focusing primarily on chemistry and chemical engineering. After some deliberation and a whole lot of discussion with admissions counselors and professors, we choose to go the cc route. Here's our reasoning: 1. It's free. Our state pays books and tuition for academically qualified juniors and seniors to take college classes. We weren't restricted to a community college, but chose it for location reasons. Next year, she may choose to do dual enrollment at one of the many private and public universities around us. 2. We aren't concerned about transferring credits. MIT (among other top tier schools) does not accept transfer credits, however they DO want to see AP/IB/dual enrollment courses, because it demonstrates a student's desire to increase the difficulty of their course load. Our goal for dual enrollment is to show that my daughter sought out a more challenging progression for high school, not for her to transfer out of two years of college. It also validates earlier courses on her homeschool transcript. 3. CC lets us fit in more courses. She's taking as many science and math classes as she can, in order to demonstrate both interest and aptitude, and because it's what she wants to do. 4. Local AP classes are a year long, and transfer credit is dependent on an exam score anyway so there's no credit guarantees there either. She can still take AP exams. She just doesn't get the AP designation on her transcript. I took several APs, got 3s and 4s on my exams, and the UC gave me no credit at all, just exempted me from a couple of prerequisites. The CC also lets us keep as many doors open as possible. If she doesn't get a good merit aid package, or she just doesn't get in to the schools she'd like to attend, she can transfer to the U of M with two years of guaranteed transferable credit. I think each family's situation is different. We choose the best option for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS in MD Posted February 1, 2012 Author Share Posted February 1, 2012 Ladies, Thank you all so much for the informative posts. For us, cc is not free- it's pretty expensive ($176 per credit hr). But, yes, AP's are year long (unlike ps)... a mix sounds like a good idea for us. But, I had one more question - How many classes/credits should dd have per year in hs? Should I basically give dd 1 credit for each hs class and cc class? Should she have 7 or 8 classes per year (math, eng, history, science, foreign lang, 2 or 3 other classes?) I don't know if this is right? Especially if dd takes 3 or 4 APs and cc's next year, will it look "ok" to have 6 classes next year (3 APs, 2 cc and 1 at home)? Or should dd take more to keep her competitive with other dc? I really feel muddled here... (I belive in our state hs'ers need 21 credits for graduation, so no problem in meeting that requirement) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 My daughter, now attending a selective college, took four AP classes (one through PA Homeschoolers, three at a local homeschooling resource center) as well as about a dozen community college classes. We did this so that she had a broad set of choices to match her interests -- for example, she took the AP Latin exam due to her interest in Latin (Latin courses are not available at the community college), and she also took several Geology classes at the community college (there is no AP Geology exam and she is now minoring in Geology at college). But, I had one more question - How many classes/credits should dd have per year in hs? Should I basically give dd 1 credit for each hs class and cc class? Should she have 7 or 8 classes per year (math, eng, history, science, foreign lang, 2 or 3 other classes?) I don't know if this is right? Especially if dd takes 3 or 4 APs and cc's next year, will it look "ok" to have 6 classes next year (3 APs, 2 cc and 1 at home)? Or should dd take more to keep her competitive with other dc? I really feel muddled here... You'll get a variety of different answers to your first and other questions. I did not give one credit for each community college class -- our local community college is on the quarter, not semester, system. Rather, I gave one half credit for each community college class. (This in spite of the fact that our state university would give one high school credit per course.) I did this because College Algebra and Trigonometry (each a quarter long class at the community college) equate in my mind to a year long Precalculus class which would typically garner only one high school credit. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunshine State Sue Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 I know that at Georgia Tech, I can look up my CC and see what will/will not transfer. The same link provides which AP exams/scores give credit. Perhaps the schools your dd is interested in have something similar? I found it by searching undergraduate admissions for transfer credit. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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