High School without taking AP, CLEP or Duel Enrollment

[Bear23]

So what did you do with the time from pretty much all you can teach can be taught to the time they enter college?  My oldest has gotten the 12+ or whatever it is on yearly tests.  Slightly above average on PSAT test.  We cannot afford the AP classes or the duel enrollment classes. I could afford duel enrollment classes if my child attending the high school but we really prefer not to go that route.  She currently has her one yearly summer volunteering 'job' and she helps me with co op classes. There are the occasional church activities.

Do colleges really look and perfer those who take the higher learning classes? I feel bad that I cannot afford these classes but we are on a stricter budget and to go passed it I would need a job or my husband a second job.

[regentrude]

"Colleges" is a very broad spectrum.

Highly selective schools that reject more than 90% of their applicants do look for those things; I don't think an applicant stands a chance being admitted without demonstrating such level of work (unless some extraordinary gift in athletics or music, or a family legacy)

OTOH, colleges that accept most of their applicants will be fine as long as the standardized test scores are sufficient for admission.

It is not difficult to "get into college". It is only difficult to get into selective colleges.

 

You can also self study for AP without paying for a class and simply have the student take the exam. Colleges care far more about the actual AP test score than about an AP class that is not substantiated by a good test performance.

Edited November 24, 2015 by regentrude

[Jane Elliot]

So what did you do with the time from pretty much all you can teach can be taught to the time they enter college? 

 

 

Take a look at the rhetoric chapters in WTM. The recommendations there could keep a student busy learning for a lifetime.

 

We have also self-studied for AP exams, and that has gone really well for us.

[Mom2boys]

Having AP classes on his transcript helped my son earn academic scholarships. And with his AP and dual enrollment credits, he is able to graduate college a semester early. So taking AP and dual enrollment classes saved us money in the long run. 

[Jane Elliot]

Having AP classes on his transcript helped my son earn academic scholarships. And with his AP and dual enrollment credits, he is able to graduate college a semester early. So taking AP and dual enrollment classes saved us money in the long run. 

 

There are different ways to do this. One ds won a full-tuition four year scholarship to his top choice school before his AP exams (self-study, no classes) ever showed up on his transcript. Another son graduated college a year early because of AP and CLEP exams. He had a scholarship that was almost full. Neither of those boys ever took an AP class or dual-enrollment course. All I'm saying is, there's more than one way to earn those scholarships and graduate early. 

[KarenNC]

I asked the admissions presenter from Davidson College (a quite selective college) about whether they preferred to see DE or AP and was told that what was important was to explain in the application why the student took the ones they did (access, cost, specific goals such as our potential choosing of DE for the class experience over online AP). They want to understand the context, particularly for homeschoolers. 

 

That said, the student doesn't have to take an expensive AP class to take an AP test, and there are fee reductions available for the tests.  http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/waivers/guidelines/ap?excmpid=MTG54-ED-1-appub There are free online options for AP through edX.org  https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=AP.

 

CLEP tests are an option, accepted at something like 3000 colleges, but they probably won't be accepted at very selective schools. Each college usually has something on their website saying which tests they accept and how much credit is given. They don't appear to have any fee waivers, but the cost is pretty low ($80 plus admin fee, which was $20 for us). edX has prep for some of these https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=clep and check out http://www.free-clep-prep.com/  and the book "Homeschooling for College Credit" by Jennifer Cook deRosa  https://www.facebook.com/HomeschoolingforCollegeCredit/ (she also has Facebook pages for individual states).

[elegantlion]

My son did not have any outside classes and was accepted at a regional state school, which as Regentrude pointed out, is not a selective school. We had hoped to do some outside verification but we were in "just survive" mode for the latter half of his high school years. He had a decent GPA and an ACT score, together that earned him a small scholarship. In our situation the state school was cheaper overall than the nearest community college. He lives at home, which also saves on cost. 

[Janeway]

I have a friend whose son never did those things, but got in to SMU and Baylor Honors based on his SAT scores alone. He also got a lot of scholarships from both places, including an almost full ride to SMU.

[JanetC]

How old is your child? If there are three years of high school left and DD has outgrown your instruction, this is a serious problem.

 

Some sources of free classes to check out:

 

Edx.org

Coursera.org

Futurelearn.com

Your library: Great Courses videos, educational services subscriptions, etc.

 

Are you planning to send your DD to college? If you can't afford dual enrollment, then can you do early graduation and start at a community college with financial aid?

 

Yes, there are merit scholarships for kids with advanced level classes. It sounds like you can target schools that offer need-based aid, though.

[Corraleno]

So what did you do with the time from pretty much all you can teach can be taught to the time they enter college?  My oldest has gotten the 12+ or whatever it is on yearly tests.  Slightly above average on PSAT test.  We cannot afford the AP classes or the duel enrollment classes. I could afford duel enrollment classes if my child attending the high school but we really prefer not to go that route.  She currently has her one yearly summer volunteering 'job' and she helps me with co op classes. There are the occasional church activities.

Do colleges really look and perfer those who take the higher learning classes? I feel bad that I cannot afford these classes but we are on a stricter budget and to go passed it I would need a job or my husband a second job.

 

Regarding the bolded: do you mean that the "grade equivalent" score on something like the CAT 5 or the Iowa Test of Basic Skills is "12+" for certain subjects? Because that doesn't mean that the student has mastered 12th grade content and skills, it means that the student did as well as a 12th grader would do on that particular test.

 

ETA: Looking at some past posts, it seems that your DD is a 10th grader and you're talking about scores on 9th grade tests. Those scores just tell you that she did as well as a 12th grader would do on a test of 9th grade content and skills, not 12th. 

 

If you really don't feel like you can homeschool her beyond 9th grade, then I would really consider putting her in school and utilizing DE as much as possible. That will also save you a lot of money (possibly up to two years worth of tuition, room, & board) if she can transfer those credits when she goes to college.

 

Edited November 25, 2015 by Corraleno

[Tiramisu]

AP classes would have been of very limited help to my oldest dd because her major requires a very specific progression and even general ed requirements are specific to the major. It would have created unnecessary stress and expense for all of us if I had pushed the AP route with her. Based on her SAT scores, she qualified for the highest level of merit scholarship offered which brought down the cost to that of a state school.

 

If your dd's PSAT score is slightly above average, I think you may be best off putting some time into test prep rather than worrying about AP classes. I don't know how much AP classes will really compensate for SAT scores.

 

I have another dd who has plans to major in a field where she could get the major anywhere and the name of the school won't matter, so she will probably go to an inexpensive state school. I don't think I'd push AP for her either unless it was her choice driven by her interest. CLEP would seem a better choice in her case. There are quite a lot of choices for CLEP tests, the tests could be taken at anytime, and they would be accepted by state schools.