What to do about excess credits? and college questions.

[Miguelsmom]

My son started high school level courses in 6th grade. He then went on to do 5 years of high school/dual enrollment. (He did 5 years of high school because of his age and health problems.)  We did 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. In reality he does something every day. So he'll have completed over 45 full course classes. I know it will look weird having so many classes but do I put them anyway? He's earned them. So I'm inclined to keep it that way. I already sent his transcript to colleges. Will it look weird if I pair it down, now. Please don't roast me he takes 4+ full credit classes a semester, and 2+ in the summer. When he finishes a class he just moved on to the next one. Most of his classes for the last 3 years have been dual enrollment. His classes are a mix of at home, virtual, and dual enrollment. He has several interests Digital art, programming, web development, and creative writing.

He wants to take an bachelors (IA), certificate (digital media) and minor in college (creative writing). Will the college allow this? Will he have to explain why it'll help his future goals? Should he do that or just concentrate on finishing his bachelors fast. I'm in no rush to push him into adulthood.

[RootAnn]

It is no longer (maybe it never was) strange to have a lot of credits, even college credits, upon high school graduation.

How each college views them differs. Some might categorize him as a transfer student if he has a high number of college credirs, some might restrict how many they will accept, and some could accept them all (but might count some as general credits vs for helpful specific classes that count for his major/minor).

Don't change anything now. Just look into how each of the colleges he's applying to deal with those credits. If I remember correctly, he's only applying at a few places abd they are all in-state, right? Moving forward, it will help to see what credits will count for what. In Florida, you might run into the surcharge for excess # of college credits but I'm not sure how credits earned prior to high school graduation count against that number.

[maize]

In general it is recommended to only include the last four years on a high school transcript regardless of when high school level work started, that is what colleges typically want to see. Sometimes people add a section for high school level courses completed before high school, but most often this is limited to math and maybe science and/or foreign language. 

Since the transcript has already been sent though I don't think I would try to change it.

Check individual college policies with regard to how credits earned prior to high school graduation are treated. Most colleges will follow freshman admission and scholarship procedures regardless of the number of college credits, as long as they are earned before high school graduation, but a few may treat the student with a lot of credits as a transfer student.

Some colleges also have limits on the number of credits an undergraduate student can accumulate before being charged graduate tuition.

[Miguelsmom]

Yes he only applied to 2. He's stuck waiting until he finishes high school to see if they accept more of his credits. He's trying to get into a special degree that requires an associates  to apply which he will not receive until he graduates high school. A lot of his credits wont transfer unless he gets into the program he's hoping for. He went after an AS instead of an AA as 4 year school wasn't on his radar when starting. I don't regret him doing that. Though he's choose not to do the AA also because of the amount of classes he would have to take this year. He's considered FTIC. The website states excess hour surcharge does not count dual enrollment. So I'm hoping that it is true. 

Because of the excess credits charge he should just stick to getting his bachelors? I'd hate to see him rushed out at such a young age if he enjoys it. (He's currently 17. He'll be freshly 18 when starting college.)

[EKS]

If you want to pare down his high school credits, you could make each college class worth a semester of high school credit rather than a whole year.

[EKS]

37 minutes ago, maize said:

In general it is recommended to only include the last four years on a high school transcript regardless of when high school level work started, that is what colleges typically want to see. Sometimes people add a section for high school level courses completed before high school, but most often this is limited to math and maybe science and/or foreign language. 

I included all high school level classes that my sons took on their transcripts, and these classes included English and history/social "studies."  I arranged the transcript by subject and made a note of which courses were taken before their official ninth grade year.  I figure that if colleges don't want to see that stuff, they can simply avert their eyes.

[Miguelsmom]

3 minutes ago, EKS said:

I included all high school level classes that my sons took on their transcripts, and these classes included English and history/social "studies."  I arranged the transcript by subject and made a note of which courses were taken before their official ninth grade year.  I figure that if colleges don't want to see that stuff, they can simply avert their eyes.

That's what I was thinking too but now I worry that it looks padded. It's not, he did the work and has the college GPA to back it up. 

[maize]

21 minutes ago, Miguelsmom said:

Yes he only applied to 2. He's stuck waiting until he finishes high school to see if they accept more of his credits. He's trying to get into a special degree that requires an associates  to apply which he will not receive until he graduates high school. A lot of his credits wont transfer unless he gets into the program he's hoping for. He went after an AS instead of an AA as 4 year school wasn't on his radar when starting. I don't regret him doing that. Though he's choose not to do the AA also because of the amount of classes he would have to take this year. He's considered FTIC. The website states excess hour surcharge does not count dual enrollment. So I'm hoping that it is true. 

Because of the excess credits charge he should just stick to getting his bachelors? I'd hate to see him rushed out at such a young age if he enjoys it. (He's currently 17. He'll be freshly 18 when starting college.)

If dual enrollment credits don't count towards an excess credit surcharge I think he may be fine going for the bachelor's plus minor plus certificate path, he likely will have room in his schedule because of classes already completed.

[Kassia]

One of my sons entered college with a lot of DE credits and he ended up picking up a minor and taking a lighter schedule each semester.  It would have been difficult for him to graduate early even with the credits because he was going into engineering and couldn't start the engineering classes in high school (they weren't offered at the colleges we had access to) and they were sequential so he needed almost the full four years of college.  It worked out well for him.

My daughter will graduate high school with 85 DE credits.  She plans on using the full four years of college even though she could graduate early.  She will likely do the same as her brother - lighter course load and add a minor.  Depending on her major, she could do a fast track and earn her B.S. in three years and her Master's in the fourth.  We'll see.  

[CinV]

4 hours ago, maize said:

If dual enrollment credits don't count towards an excess credit surcharge

In Florida, any college credit earned before high school graduation does not count towards excess credits.

[Farrar]

I have seen transcripts that could raise red flags around excess credits... things like having all your basic lab sciences at honors level all covered in one school year at the same time as maintaining a rigorous schedule across the board. Stuff like that is definitely going to raise eyebrows. And I agree that even if it was at high school level, I wouldn't necessarily include middle school courses on the transcript unless they fulfill key requirements that aren't fulfilled in other ways. That can look like padding. I'd mention it in the counselor letter instead - that your student has been doing high level work for many years.

But generally seconding the above wisdom that kids often have a lot of credits now, especially kids applying to elite schools. When they include DE credits and are backed up with good test scores, I don't think most schools will bat an eyelid.

[Miguelsmom]

All core classes he's completed at most 2 per year. He did not do honors (besides online electives) because he's not academically focused. He scored A/B in regular classes. DE he's a solid B+ students. So it's not like it's all honors A's courses. I would consider him an average student that needed a strict schedule. So I'm going to leave the transcript as is.   

[GoodGrief]

I agree that you should not change anything now that the transcript is sent.

In general, most colleges just want to see high school work from the previous four years. "High school level" work can cover a pretty wide range of rigor. Foreign language might be an exception if the student needs middle school credits to total 3 years of language taken. It might make sense to show science and math courses if the student's level isn't clear from more advanced classes taken later. For example, I did put my daughter's 8th grade Alg 2 on there because some schools/scholarships required evidence of an algebra course. I did not bother to list Alg 1 or geometry. or the lower level physics/bio/chem classes she took in 6th-8th grade.

Some credits might look better listed as extracurricular hours, depending on what the student has going on. My daughter had a ton of music/dance/PE hours because of her interests. In 9th grade, I made some of that actual academic credits because her homeschool charter required a certain number of fine arts and PE credits for graduation. Once that requirement was met, I just made them extracurricular.

Dual (college) enrollment classes should be listed because the college is going to need official transcripts from the colleges where these were taken. They may or may not give him credit for them, but the grades will follow him to college.

[catz]

I dropped some stuff done as middle school as more rigorous stuff came to the foreground.  I think including too much can muddy the waters.  That said, his transcript definitely had over our state's graduation requirements and was more similar to a rigorous local college prep private school.  Lots kids do high level work in middle school.  I'd include it if it shows important continuity.  Like in a foreign language for instance.  Or possibly if it showed an important graduation requirement.  Like you did American History in 8th.  And then did more specific/odd social studies classes in high school.  Otherwise I'd package the transcript to show the most rigorous work of the last 4 years.  

Edited January 6, 2020 by FuzzyCatz

[Guest]

Just make sure that you are not forced to graduate early-not a big deal for independent homeschoolers, but if you register with a charter or cover school, it might be. 

 

In DD's case, we counted nothing for high school credit before 8th grade, and called the year she started college classes for credit 8th grade. (In 8th grade, she got credit only for college classes).Even with that, she had finished the top diploma the cover school Offered by the end of her first semester junior year. The cover school was willing to let her take the extra year after I pointed out that she was still 14. She'll graduate with a ridiculously large number of high school and about 70 college and university credits. There are a few high school graduate requirements from "Before high school" listed on the transcript for completeness, without credits granted, specifically Geometry, Algebra II, and Biology with Lab. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by dmmetler

[GoodGrief]

23 hours ago, dmmetler said:

Just make sure that you are not forced to graduate early-not a big deal for independent homeschoolers, but if you register with a charter or cover school, it might be. 

 

That's a great point. There was some discussion about that with our charter as one daughter's credits added up, which honestly had not occurred to me before. I purposefully held one must-do graduation requirement to senior year to hold them off if necessary.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, GoodGrief1 said:

That's a great point. There was some discussion about that with our charter as one daughter's credits added up, which honestly had not occurred to me before. I purposefully held one must-do graduation requirement to senior year to hold them off if necessary.

I accidentally filled in the "must do's" because they were also must-do's for the community college, so I figured she might as well get them checked off for high school. I discovered that was a mistake when she was on the graduation list in May to graduate in December, and we hadn't done more than visit a couple of colleges, since I mentally was thinking of her as a rising junior, not a 2nd semester senior!