Jump to content

Menu

Awarding dual enrollment/high school credits on transcript


Recommended Posts

You will get mixed opinions on this but the standard in my area is that a 3 cr hr college class = 1 high school credit. I have never seen or heard of anyone in my area doing it any differently. You will get people respond that they counted it differently or their state has other standards. My opinion is that you should do what is the standard in your region. Any colleges your child applies to will certainly be used to seeing it either way.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You will get mixed opinions on this but the standard in my area is that a 3 cr hr college class = 1 high school credit. I have never seen or heard of anyone in my area doing it any differently. You will get people respond that they counted it differently or their state has other standards. My opinion is that you should do what is the standard in your region. Any colleges your child applies to will certainly be used to seeing it either way.

This is how it is here as well. My daughter is enrolled in public high school. She will begin dual enrollment this summer at the local CC. She will be taking English 1101 first summer semester & English 1102 second summer semester (3 credit classes). These will meet graduation requirements for both 11th & 12th grade English.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can easily make an argument for 1, or for 1/2. Both are done. Some (schools) do 3/4 credit for 4-5 credit college classes.

 

In most cases, I'd say 1. I might go for 1/2 if it were one of the very bright kids who has accumulated a ridiculous number of credits if you tally them that way -- I'd avoid recording 12 credits/year even if they did take 18 credits/semester at a college. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, I'm awarding a full year. As others said, some people do what their local school or their state does. I have no idea what the local school does. It doesn't matter to me.

I would worry about the external validity. Like, if people can see that you awarded a year for something public schools award 1/2 year for, are you concerned that it will undermine the credibility of the transcript?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would worry about the external validity. Like, if people can see that you awarded a year for something public schools award 1/2 year for, are you concerned that it will undermine the credibility of the transcript?

 

Yes, that is what I'm concerned about.  A class like AP government, which you can get college credit for, is only one semester at the high school so it would be .5 credit, but it's a 3 credit class for DE so it's confusing as to whether I assign .5 or 1 full high school credit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depends on the course.

I have awarded 0.5 credits for 3 hour DE courses when the material would have been covered in a semester of high school. For example, two semesters of algebra based physics cover what a good algebra based high school physics course covers in one year - so each semester counted 0.5 cr.

I have awarded 1 credit for  3 hour DE courses when the content covered compared to a full year of high school, or where the level of coursework was clearly far beyond the level of a high school course.

And I have awarded 1 credit for 4 hour DE courses.

 

ETA: There is no prize for having a large number of high school credits on the transcript. In all the discussions on this board over the years, I have never heard that to play any role in college admissions. So I chose to be conservative and avoid any appearance of padding the transcript.

Edited by regentrude
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I awarded 0.5 credits per 5 quarter units (which equate to 3.33 semester units) because in looking at the amount of work my son did for those classes, that's how much they seemed to be worth to me.  That said, our state law specifies that 5 quarter units = 1 high school credit, so that's what public schools do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would worry about the external validity. Like, if people can see that you awarded a year for something public schools award 1/2 year for, are you concerned that it will undermine the credibility of the transcript?

Nope. I live in a small town. Chances of a school other than the local state college or the state flagship seeing another kid from the area who has done DE are slim.

 

Regardless of my own personal situation, you either take a homeschool transcript at face value or you don't. If you don't, you often require or heavily suggest AP, SAT 2, it other scores to validate what the transcript says,at least in part. It should be obvious from those whether the transcript is trustworthy.

 

FWIW, we are not looking at highly selective schools and we may not have any SAT 2s or AP exam scores either. So, YMMV.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depends on the course.

I have awarded 0.5 credits for 3 hour DE courses when the material would have been covered in a semester of high school. For example, two semesters of algebra based physics cover what a good algebra based high school physics course covers in one year - so each semester counted 0.5 cr.

I have awarded 1 credit for 3 hour DE courses when the content covered compared to a full year of high school, or where the level of coursework was clearly far beyond the level of a high school course.

And I have awarded 1 credit for 4 hour DE courses.

 

ETA: There is no prize for having a large number of high school credits on the transcript. In all the discussions on this board over the years, I have never heard that to play any role in college admissions. So I chose to be conservative and avoid any appearance of padding the transcript.

This is a really good point. As I am looking at CC options now, I have same questions. Math seems to be clearly one year’s worth of credit in one semester, but I am very confused about science and history.

For example, there are one semester survey bio, or physics, or Chem courses offers at our CC and I know homeschoolers who take them and claim 1 credit. Since those classes cover a standard high school course, it makes sense. Now what if we are interested in a science class that is for majors. There is a two semester bio sequence (they call it bio for majors) that covers what is arguably an AP course syllabus. In high school an AP course would be 1 credit, so if we assign 1 credit for two semesters of that bio sequence, it would make sense. On the other hand, it would make no sense to claim an easier one semester course as 1 credit and a harder bio course as half a credit each semester.

I wonder how much this even matters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

ETA: There is no prize for having a large number of high school credits on the transcript. In all the discussions on this board over the years, I have never heard that to play any role in college admissions. So I chose to be conservative and avoid any appearance of padding the transcript.

 

I did hear a University of Georgia rep say that they wanted to see a high number of credits, but I'm assuming he meant 'not the bare minimum.'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope. I live in a small town. Chances of a school other than the local state college or the state flagship seeing another kid from the area who has done DE are slim.

 

Regardless of my own personal situation, you either take a homeschool transcript at face value or you don't. If you don't, you often require or heavily suggest AP, SAT 2, it other scores to validate what the transcript says,at least in part. It should be obvious from those whether the transcript is trustworthy.

 

FWIW, we are not looking at highly selective schools and we may not have any SAT 2s or AP exam scores either. So, YMMV.

SATs often diverge from transcripts and grades are known to be a better indicator of study skills and future success than testing.

 

I think that you are right about the binary nature of the trustworthiness of the transcript but that doesn't mean "trust one homeschool transcript, trust them all!" Like with public and private school transcripts, admissions teams are familiar with the types of schools that pad transcripts / grade hard and yes that is why the SAT and class rankings are also required.

 

But an untrusted transcript is an untrusted education. And a great SAT score won't make up for that, because character and willingness to play the game matters.

 

It is not as though they think "well this makes no sense but the SAT is pretty good so okay." They will think "this person may have received an education with little reference to state, national or any outside standard. How sure are we about relying on SAT scores?"

 

Now if your local college has a 80% acceptance rate and you have a decent score you are right, no worries. But if your child is applying anywhere remotely selective (like 50% selective) I would mind the local norms. Nobody needs you to agree. They just need to know you are a basically informed person who is willing to play by the rules. They might disagree with the conversion themselves! But in an organization serving 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 students they cannot have too many special cases.

 

People who are not basically informed and not willing to play by most of the rules most of the time are a huge pain to work with and yes it does disqualify you from many life opportunities. There are times to break the rules--such as home schooling!

 

But then throw the Educational-Industrial Complex a bone and translate college credits like everyone else. It is not hard and provides a currency to your endeavor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But an untrusted transcript is an untrusted education. And a great SAT score won't make up for that, because character and willingness to play the game matters.

 

It is not as though they think "well this makes no sense but the SAT is pretty good so okay." They will think "this person may have received an education with little reference to state, national or any outside standard. How sure are we about relying on SAT scores?"

 

 

This does not make sense to me. We are talking about DE credits, so the quality of the education would also be substantiated by the transcript from the college that contains the grades of all these DE courses.

I would imagine these to be a much stronger transcript validation than the conversion formula for credits.

If the students gets As in his college classes, whether they translate into half or full highschool credits seems rather irrelevant.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If the students gets As in his college classes, whether they translate into half or full highschool credits seems rather irrelevant.

 

But, in the question I am asking, say a DE student takes a 3 credit course in government and a 3 credit course in psychology.  You could count this as 2 full units of high school social studies or just 1 depending on if you award 1/2 or 1 credit per course.  If you awarded 2 units of high school social studies, but the college you apply to sees it as only one, now you are one full year behind on your social studies requirements.  If you do that with multiple subjects, then you are really behind.  That is my concern.  

 

Hope I'm making sense!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But, in the question I am asking, say a DE student takes a 3 credit course in government and a 3 credit course in psychology. You could count this as 2 full units of high school social studies or just 1 depending on if you award 1/2 or 1 credit per course. If you awarded 2 units of high school social studies, but the college you apply to sees it as only one, now you are one full year behind on your social studies requirements. If you do that with multiple subjects, then you are really behind. That is my concern.

 

Hope I'm making sense!

I would say as long as a high school offers it as a full year course, you are OK. In our high school AP Psyc is a one year course and equivalent to a one semester college course. That is a solid 1 credit. Same with US Government class.

However, US History and World History are taught over the course of 2 semesters at a local CC. I would personally award one credit to both of those classes because content covered over two semesters at a CC is equivalent to what is covered over 1 year in high school.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't worry about the credit part at all. I prefer that my student does a certain number of semesters of a subject, if possible, regardless of the source. I wouldn't do math for just half the year because the provider was the college, ideally.

 

The colleges see what the student has taken and will determine for themselves whether it meets their standards, That's the part you need to concern yourself with, whether your student's preferred school or post-high school program will consider the transcript adequate. Now, if you have some sort of outside entity that you are answering to re: graduation, the credit part comes into play. But if you are an independent homeschooler, YOU determine how much coursework is enough to declare the student graduated.

 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is not as though they think "well this makes no sense but the SAT is pretty good so okay." They will think "this person may have received an education with little reference to state, national or any outside standard. How sure are we about relying on SAT scores?"

 

Now if your local college has a 80% acceptance rate and you have a decent score you are right, no worries. But if your child is applying anywhere remotely selective (like 50% selective) I would mind the local norms. Nobody needs you to agree. They just need to know you are a basically informed person who is willing to play by the rules. They might disagree with the conversion themselves! But in an organization serving 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 students they cannot have too many special cases.

 

People who are not basically informed and not willing to play by most of the rules most of the time are a huge pain to work with and yes it does disqualify you from many life opportunities. There are times to break the rules--such as home schooling!

 

But then throw the Educational-Industrial Complex a bone and translate college credits like everyone else. It is not hard and provides a currency to your endeavor.

 

Actually, many universities have a specific person designated to read homeschool applications, so exactly how the local PS in each homeschooler's individual district handles DE credits is not likely to be something the application reader is familiar with, or really cares about. Is someone who has less than 10 minutes to assess a homeschooler's application going to spend a lot of that time trying to look up how the local PS credits that specific DE course from that specific provider? No. They'll look over the transcript, the test scores, the counselor letter and LORs, and the student's essay, and decide whether that student is a good fit or not.

 

The only "outside validation" of DS's homeschool transcript was two online DE courses (for which I awarded a full credit each) and an ACT score. No APs. No SAT2s. No problem. He was accepted with significant merit aid to his first choice school (with a 42% acceptance rate). I'm sure no one cared one whit whether the local PS would have credited his online ASU classes as 0.5 or 1.0 credits.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found it easier and less stressful to just do what our local public school district does.  I could make many arguments for all kinds of credit, but just being able to say, "That's what they do in this district" made my life easier.  I did the same thing with extra quality points for the GPA.  That decision cut off hours (and probably days) of agonizing on my part.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is from the state of Georgia's Dual Enrollment/Move on When Ready information sheet:

 

"How much credit will students receive?

Beginning in 2010-2011 the conversion chart is as follows:

1 to 2 college semester hours will earn one-half high school unit, while 3 to 5 college semester hours will

earn one full high school unit. Postsecondary quarter hour credit shall be converted to high school unit

credit as follows:

1 to 3 quarter hour credits will equal one-half high school unit, and

4 to 8 quarter hour credits will equal one full high school unit."

Edited by FriedClams
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...