"Too many credits" in a school year?

[ByGrace3]

This question is a bit backwards, since she has already completed all of this -- and she did it well, so it is not about "is this too much?" It is more of a, "does too many credits in a year look bad on a transcript?"

The specifics:

Dd completed the following this year for 9th grade

Omnibus 1 Credits= 3 (credits: 1 in Ancient World History, 1 in Ancient World Literature, and 1- Theology 1)

Geometry-- 1 credit

Spanish 2-- 1 credit

Biology-- 1 credit

Formal Logic -- 1 credit

Music -- 1 credit

PE-- .5 credit

Health-- .5 credit (doing this summer)

That's 9 credits and I didn't even include the .5 credit from driver's ed that she took through FLVS . . . (Should I include that?) Is that too many? I don't want her to not get credit for the work she has done . . . but I don't want it to look bad either. 

Since Health is being done in the summer would I put it as a summer class or tack it onto next year?

I think for 10th grade we have 6 core classes plus maybe 1 more (does anyone ever put a composition and Literature class on the transcript? She will be taking both outsourced.) plus I thought about letting her get another credit for music . . . so 6-8 credits.

[Kassia]

I wouldn't add the driving credit.  It doesn't add to her transcript and it isn't done in our public schools here (although I know it counts as credit in others).  I always count summer as credit for the following school year.  So, if she's taking health this summer then it would count for 10th grade, but I think 9 credits is fine either way and it doesn't look suspicious.

I counted literature/composition in with English as 1 credit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clemsondana]

In our state most people use umbrella schools, and none of the ones that I know of will count more than 8 credits in a year.  One student that I know typically did more, and they just slotted them into future years.  She's looking at a senior year that has 1-2 classes and then an internship or job because she can't count any more credits.  We are just starting 9th but may find ourselves in the same situation - I thought we had figured out 8 credits worth of stuff, but we're accumulating PE hours faster than expected, for instance.  With so many camps being closed, we're earning summer credits more quickly than planned, too.  

[teachermom2834]

I wouldn't put drivers ed on. I don't, personally, think it adds anything at all to the transcript. But I am the only one in my circles with that opinion so take it for what it is worth.

Nine is a lot but my ds had eight every semester and that was with combining two classes that each would have been worth a credit on its own and leaving off some things that i didn't think really added any depth to the transcript. (Such as co-op classes that were not as rigorous as the rest of what he did). So I totally believe nine is doable. My umbrella school, however, does not and wants to keep it to eight. 

I think you could put the nine if you really want to include everything. I, also, though, wouldn't hesitate to put the PE/Health credit on another year that maybe didn't have as many. I am generally a rule follower and honest to a fault but I am comfortable shifting some credits around. You also could document them in the summer and it would be clear that it was a summer class and that is why you have so many credits. 

So, in the end I think you have some options and it is fine multiple ways. You can document nine, list one credit as a summer class, or hold off and plop that credit on some other semester that might be "lighter" but in the end I don't think it will have much impact on the outcome of how any admissions rep would look at it. In the event it looked a little "padded" then decent test scores should back up the level of work. So proceed the way you feel best about it and don't fret! That is my .02 🙂

[Lori D.]

Agreeing with previous posters about not counting Driver's Ed., as colleges don't care about it, and it's more considered a life skill than an academic credit. Since DD already has a full load of very solid academic credits for 9th grade, no need to "pad" with a credit for life skills. JMO. 😉 

Also agreeing with previous poster that Lit. & Comp. are usually counted together as 1 credit of English. BUT... How long are each of the outsourced classes? For example, if the Comp. is just 8 weeks in each semester, then I'd probably combine with the Lit. outsourced class for 1 credit of English -- unless the Lit. class is rigorous/a mega-amount of work and includes additional writing. Without knowing the length and rigor of the 2 different classes, it's hard to advise.

Also, since you asked:
Summer courses are typically counted with the school year that they *precede*, rather than with the school year that the summer *follows* -- so I suggest counting this year's summer school class with 10th grade, rather than 9th, since that is more typical.

[8filltheheart]

I have had kids receive 9-10 credits in a yr all the time.  They are taking that many credits, so I am giving them the credits.

[ByGrace3]

Thank you everyone! You all confirmed what I was thinking . . . but we are not the typical homeschoolers around here and it is hard to be so different than everyone we know. I had no intention of putting Driver's Ed on the transcript but then someone questioned that this week and I questioned myself.  

As far as English next year, I am still unsure how to handle that. If I combine them into an "English" credit, I would want to do that for 9th grade also to have it consistent. She did composition as a part of her lit course for 9th (and I also had her to an IEW Fix It book) -- next  year she will be taking American Literature at Schole (which will have some writing) and I am loosely planning several composition courses through Lantern English. (She needs some intentional work in this area). She will take anywhere from 2-4 8 week classes. 

Is it better to have English 1, 2, etc or to have Literature and composition classes listed individually?

Also, is one year of PE/Health sufficient? (Florida requires 1 year for public school students). Dd does Crossfit and sports so gets plenty of activity and exercise, but I wasn't going to count it as PE after this year, just as extracurricular . . . is that ok?

 

[Lori D.]

1 hour ago, ByGrace3 said:

... As far as English next year, I am still unsure how to handle that. If I combine them into an "English" credit, I would want to do that for 9th grade also to have it consistent. She did composition as a part of her lit course for 9th (and I also had her to an IEW Fix It book) -- next  year she will be taking American Literature at Schole (which will have some writing) and I am loosely planning several composition courses through Lantern English. (She needs some intentional work in this area). She will take anywhere from 2-4 8 week classes. 

Is it better to have English 1, 2, etc or to have Literature and composition classes listed individually?

For transcripts, I personally think in terms of "what is easiest for college admissions officers to see if my student has the requisite # and type of credits for admission". To me, seeing a single credit labeled as English, with a possible subtitle, is very clear. I would NOT list Lit. and Comp. classes separately with fractions of credit to each -- you can list in the separate course description document how the English credit was earned. I would only list Lit. and Comp. credits separately if all of your work came to more than a total of 1.0 credit towards English.

The key is to keep the transcript clean, clear, and streamlined, and include details on the separate Course Description document.

So, if your DD is doing a full year of Scole American Lit. AND 16-32 weeks of a separate Comp. courses, then I personally would do something along these lines:

9th grade:
1.0 credit = English 9: Ancient Lit. + Composition

10th grade: 
1.0 credit = English 10: American Lit
0.5 credit-1.0 credit* = Intermediate Composition

* = award credit depending on how many extra comp courses are taken; if your DD only ends up taking one 8-week course, I would just fold that in with the Scole American Lit. course; if she takes two to three 8-week Comp courses in addition to the full year of Scole American Lit., I would award 0.5 credit (see above); if DD takes four 8-week Comp. courses in addition to the Scole American Lit., then I would award a 1.0 credit EACH for Lit. and Comp (as above).


The Schole American Lit class has a full load of literature, and if they have 1 longer writing assignment every 2-3 weeks, then trying to also do an additional writing course may overload your student. But, YMMV. 😄 

BEST of luck as you plan for next year AND wear your administrator hat! 😉 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Lori D.

[8filltheheart]

I would only give 1 credit for an English course bc typically composition is included in an English credit.  I have had students earn more than 1 English cr in a yr bc they were taking 2 separate English courses (no different than when they have taken multiple history, science, or FL credits).  PE and health---I would follow whatever is standard for your state.  Different states have different requirements.  If the state requires it for their ps graduates, I would include it.  If not, I wouldn't bother.  

I don't outsource English, so I am not familiar with what you are describing, but could you take the composition course and incorporate it into a history class to assign history compositions as the output?  

[Aloha2U]

I’ll offer a different opinion. Different colleges may have different expectations. My job is to account for every credit my ds has earned in our homeschool, as they reflect what my ds has done with his time, and he’s earned them. Furthermore, our local public schools include driver’s education on their transcript, so this is what I’m also doing. I just don’t include the grade in the GPA and state as much in the course description. (His credit count and courses for this year are similar to yours.)
 

I would not recommend moving credit for a summer class to the next year, but perhaps it depends on what your local schools do. Ours credits summer classes to the school year they follow, especially in the case wherein the student is required to take summer school in order to pass on to the next course in the next year. In my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to postpone credit to the new school year when it was technically completed in the previous. Also, you don’t yet know what the future may hold. But again, this could depend upon your local area.
 

All that said, I will never title a course as English (1,2,3,4, or 9,10,11,12). It was recommended that as homeschoolers we can and should use more descriptive and accurate, as well as interesting, course titles. And I agree. My young man has composition courses (i.e., Classical Composition, Pre-Rhetoric, Rhetoric I, Rhetoric II—Senior Thesis) that consist of writing, grammar, etc. and entirely separate literature courses (i.e., Ancient Literature, British Literature, Modern Literature) that consist of reading and analyzing literature and writing terms papers. Each are full year courses, so he earns two English credits per year. This seems similar to your situation.

Although I may refer to our local public school as a guide, I am not a traditional educator. I am a classical homeschooler, which is reflected in his courses and my records. 

[MamaSprout]

We put the credits on whatever year they make sense. Dd is both finishing up things from last year and working on things for next year this summer. CLEP prep for a subject test that didn't happen (last year), Policy (part of government for next year.) If the whole course is done during the summer, I do note it in parentheses on the transcript.

ETA- she has another class, Music Theory that is almost done- probably two weeks left on it- but I won't put it one her transcript until next year because a.) I know she won't get it done this summer and b.) we're running into the same problem as OP of it looking like she used Hermione Granger's time-turner to do her classes because she started art and p.e. last summer.

Edited June 18, 2020 by MamaSprout

[Guest]

 

19 hours ago, ClemsonDana said:

In our state most people use umbrella schools, and none of the ones that I know of will count more than 8 credits in a year.  One student that I know typically did more, and they just slotted them into future years.  She's looking at a senior year that has 1-2 classes and then an internship or job because she can't count any more credits.  We are just starting 9th but may find ourselves in the same situation - I thought we had figured out 8 credits worth of stuff, but we're accumulating PE hours faster than expected, for instance.  With so many camps being closed, we're earning summer credits more quickly than planned, too.  

FWIW, we’re with a cover school that tends to be on the conservative side in what they count, but they have counted more than 8 credits every year of high school, and did bring up more than foreign language and math from 8th (because she had college credits). She has 35.75  credits right now going into her senior year. 

I counted things like piano and PE on transcript to meet requirements and then turned it into an extracurricular after that, and Herpetology is an extracurricular, not a class. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by dmmetler

[teachermom2834]

2 hours ago, dmmetler said:

 

FWIW, we’re with a cover school that tends to be on the conservative side in what they count, but they have counted more than 8 credits every year of high school, and did bring up more than foreign language and math from 8th (because she had college credits). She has 35.75  credits right now going into her senior year. 

I counted things like piano and PE on transcript to meet requirements and then turned it into an extracurricular after that, and Herpetology is an extracurricular, not a class. 

Our umbrella has made notes on our transcript review that more than 8 credits isn't recommended or that more than one English credit isn't possible (???), etc. but then when I actually request they do it, they do it. Also, they claim to be really picky about honors designation but I know someone who just called and pretty much demanded it for the same co-op classes that I left off the transcript because I felt like they were middle school level and they went back and changed it all to honors for that student.  I went back and changed some of my son's courses to honors and they approved it so quickly they obviously weren't being too discriminating.  I know my dd will have several high school credits before high school and if I decided I wanted them on the transcript I'm pretty sure the umbrella would do it. But then again, if they ever wouldn't document things the way I wanted, I would just pull my dc, register with the LEA, and write my own transcript. So, I don't feel too restricted by their guidelines. 

I get annoyed with them for that stuff but then I look at what the homeschoolers I know do as far as padding transcripts, calling everything honors, etc. and I get that they are trying to curb that. 

I do think these things are all pretty apparent to admissions folks, though. @dmmetler dd is such an impressive candidate no one will doubt that she was capable and driven to do the work she did. My ds's transcript is backed up by high test scores and extracurricular awards and achievements that show he is driven. The student I mentioned above who does have a very padded all honors transcript doesn't have the test scores or essay writing skills to support it. I think admissions can figure all that out. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by teachermom2834

[Guest]

I had much the same response. My approach with them is to listen, nod, and do it anyway. And they have always approved it. I find it humorous that I have seen the same person who was so against early college for DD now, on the school's Facebook group, stating they they have seen it work quite well for some students.

I did have a point at which they complained about DD's grade level (specifically, that we decided an arbitrary graduation date based on when she would run out of college classes locally that were of interest, which put her graduating "early")-until I pointed out that the college was more than willing to let her matriculate at any time, and she could easily transfer with an associate's degree vs a high school diploma. I think they realized that all they were going to do was to lose 4 years of fees and being able to claim DD's scores and accomplishments. 

FWIW, there is at least one school on both our DC's lists that was well disposed towards that particular umbrella, so I guess they are picky enough to keep colleges happy. I suspect at least part of that is self selecting, though. If you need high test scores to get a good scholarship as an out of state student, you probably aren't going to have the marginal ones applying when the standards for automatic scholarships in state are so low. A lot of the "padding the transcript" homeschoolers I know here are planning to take advantage of the Promise anyway, and as DD puts it, she is pretty sure the community college would accept her pet snake if he slithered in with an ACT score beginning in a 2. 

 

[8filltheheart]

24 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

. I think they realized that all they were going to do was to lose 4 years of fees and being able to claim DD's scores and accomplishments. 

So glad we moved OOS. It is nuts.  Like they selected her curriculum and were her teachers. 🤢I dont get how they can claim anything. Just crazy.

[ByGrace3]

So it seems like the general consensus is that 8 is typically the cap but there are exceptions. I think I will let Health count for next school year since she will be completing it over summer but since her first aid/cpr training got canceled and she will have to do that during the school year, she is technically completing it then. I also could count .5 credit of music for 9th and .5 for 10th. That would give her 8 credits for 9th grade and 7 for 10th. 

I wasn't planning on bringing anything up from 8th though I know we "can." Spanish 1 and Algebra 1 being the top contenders there. 

Thanks everyone for the input! 

We have not done standardized testing since 4th grade so I am a bit nervous there . . . I had good intentions lol. She is signed up to take the Sanford 10 online as a practice run this summer and then will probably take the PSAT next year. 

Poor firstborn child . . . 😉

[ByGrace3]

I am also undecided about the "honors" designation. Biology was very much an honors workload imho, but is designated "college prep" not honors, though there is also a lower level option offered by that provider. Geometry was designated honors. I very much believe her Spanish work should be designated honors, but 2 things- it is a mom taught class, and our county does not offer a Spanish 2 honors class (only Spanish 3) does that matter? The guidance counselor at the school I work at will not designate a Spanish honors track for 1 or 2 because the county does not have "code to go with it." It is encouraged around here to put the local public school id number for each class on the transcript. Outside of our 2 local options, I cannot see that being helpful, am I wrong? Is that generally done?

I know this is outside the scope of the OP but you all are a treasure trove of wisdom! 

[Lori D.]

28 minutes ago, ByGrace3 said:

I wasn't planning on bringing anything up from 8th though I know we "can." Spanish 1 and Algebra 1 being the top contenders there. 

We included a section on the transcript of "High School Credits Completed Before 9th grade" -- that's where we put things like Algebra 1 (or Biology or above, or foreign language). We chose to include the credit but not the grade. Others include both. Others include neither credit nor grade, but just list those high school credits completed prior to 9th grade for clarity. And others do as you are thinking here, of not bothering.

Just throwing in there that you have options for those courses. They would NOT be included under the 9th grade heading, however. 😉 

[Pistachio mom]

I counted Omnibus credits as honors for history and literature because of the amount of reading and composition included. My daughter also did the self paced lectures.

Another consideration is to combine logic with composition; we did that.

I have been told that it is not unusual for fine arts students to have a lot of extra credits that they really do earn. Also, in competing for scholarship money - I have also been told that students who take a challenging load even throughout the senior year have a better chance at school money.  My daughter graduated with an extra 12 credits or so that she actually earned. If the student's test scores reflect the grades, more credits should not be a problem.

I agree that drivers ed could be left off. You could list it as an extracurricular if you wanted to. Like Lori mentioned above, we did an "early high school" credits section to the transcript to include the foreign language and high school English grammar and comp.

[EKS]

Someone probably already said this, but to avoid the too many credits thing, you could simply arrange the transcript by subject.

ETA: My older son's transcript had 32 credits listed, and my younger son's has 39.5, and they both got into their first choice (fairly selective) schools.

Edited June 19, 2020 by EKS

[Lilaclady]

I think another point to consider is that adcoms look at the increase in rigor from year to year. You don’t want to have a student with 10 credits in 9th, 9 in 10th, 8 in 11 and 7 in 12 showing decreasing Number of credits. This may signal that the student is not able to handle increasing workload.

My student’s credits were about the same but with slight increase at the end. She graduated with 36 high school credits but did not have more than 8 in one year even with dual enrollment. She had some from middle school that counted. 

 

[ByGrace3]

7 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

I think another point to consider is that adcoms look at the increase in rigor from year to year. You don’t want to have a student with 10 credits in 9th, 9 in 10th, 8 in 11 and 7 in 12 showing decreasing Number of credits. This may signal that the student is not able to handle increasing workload.

My student’s credits were about the same but with slight increase at the end. She graduated with 36 high school credits but did not have more than 8 in one year even with dual enrollment. She had some from middle school that counted. 

 

Do the number of credits matter that much? As opposed to the rigor of classwork/courses? My dd wants to dual enroll junior and senior year. I am not a huge proponent of it, but she has given me valid reasons and I am inclined to follow her lead in this decision. The community college classes will imho be a significant step down academically from what she is doing at home and in her live online classes. She is looking at a degree in Physical Therapy so has a lot of schooling ahead of her, and dual enrolling makes sense for her.  That said, I have no idea how the credits will work out. She will have 9 credits for 9th and probably 7 or 8 for 10th . . . maybe I will shoot for 8 so it looks closer? I am still a bit clueless about DE so not sure how that all works and how many she will take. 

ETA: I am fairly certain only 24 credits are required for Florida graduation requirements. 

Edited June 21, 2020 by ByGrace3

[Lori D.]

On 6/21/2020 at 7:07 AM, ByGrace3 said:

Do the number of credits matter that much? As opposed to the rigor of classwork/courses? My dd wants to dual enroll junior and senior year. I am not a huge proponent of it, but she has given me valid reasons and I am inclined to follow her lead in this decision. The community college classes will imho be a significant step down academically from what she is doing at home and in her live online classes. She is looking at a degree in Physical Therapy so has a lot of schooling ahead of her, and dual enrolling makes sense for her.  That said, I have no idea how the credits will work out. She will have 9 credits for 9th and probably 7 or 8 for 10th . . . maybe I will shoot for 8 so it looks closer? I am still a bit clueless about DE so not sure how that all works and how many she will take. 

ETA: I am fairly certain only 24 credits are required for Florida graduation requirements. 

I really would not worry about total credits each year (unless there's a sudden drop from 9 credits one year and only 4-5 the next, LOL). If one year the student has 9 credits, and the next year, when taking harder courses, the student "only" has 6-8 credits, you're fine. As long as the student is advancing in rigor, and is meeting admission requirements -- that is really what colleges will be looking for. And if it is a selective/competitive university, then they will be looking for things that make the student stand out -- advanced level of work; possible AP tests or DE; and interesting courses, extracurriculars, and life experiences that make the student stand out.

Different people count DE differently, but for sure a 4- or 5-unit course that takes 1-semester = 1 year/1 credit for high school. Many people also count 3-unit 1-semester course each as 1 year/1 credit for high school. So if your student is taking 3-5 classes of DE per semester at the community college (CC), then she would be earning 6-10 credits per year for 11th/12th grades. 

Sounds like the plan is to use DE to knock out college credits in advance of attending a university. If that is the case, you will definitely want to do some research:
- Be sure to check that the CC courses WILL be accepted as transfer credits by the future university
- AND check that those DE credits will *count towards the degree program* at the university -- and won't just be considered "elective" credits (which will do nothing towards knocking out required credits for the degree program in advance)
- If the CC credits won't be accepted for transfer, or if the CC courses will be a significant step down in rigor, then you may want to look for a different DE option -- possibly online from the future university, which would be a seamless transition into the university credit-wise or through AP or CLEP tests, rather than DE (or, DE from your particular CC)

Note: if CLEP (credit by exam) would be a preferred option for granting credit towards the future degree program at the university, check out Modern States for free prep and reimbursement for testing fees.

Other things to check with the future university:
- Would the future university be more accepting of AP test scores or CLEPs for credits toward the degree program, rather than the DE?
- Does the future university have a maximum on total number of transfer credits (that would be DE credits + AP test credits + CLEP test credits) before it knocks the student out of freshman status? Some universities have no limit, some cap it at 60 credits, 36 credits, 24 credits, or even as low as 12 credits.

(side note: why freshman status is important: the most scholarships, and scholarships that are renewable (good for more than just 1 year), and are for the largest amount of money are awarded to freshman. If your student exceeds the maximum allowable transfer credits for the university's policy, then the student will come in with "transfer student" status -- there are far fewer scholarships for transfer students, and they are usually for a smaller amount of money, and are usually 1-time awards.)

And things to check out about the future degree program of physical therapy:
- Does the future university prefer that the student take the science classes at the university, rather than at a CC? (Some engineering and science, nursing/medical degree programs prefer, or even require, the students take the pre-requisite science credits at their school, rather than as DE.)
- Is the future physical therapy program set up in such a way as it will *require* 4 years for the Bachelor degree? (Some engineering, architecture, and science, nursing/medical degree programs are set up so that courses must be taken in a certain order AND the courses are only offered in one semester, so the student can't get through the program in a shorter period of time than 4 years.)

Finally, you might want to check out some of the linked past threads on these topics of dual enrollment, AP,  CLEP, etc. in the big pinned threads at the top of the High School Board:
"High School Motherlode #1" -- page 2 has info on all of the tests, and compares options such as AP, CLEP, and DE
"High School Motherlode #2" -- page 5 has info on dual enrollment

I know that college still seems a long ways off, but if your plan is to do DE to knock out credits in advance in order to reduce costs or shorten overall time in college, then it is critical to be doing your research now to see if that is even a possibility. You don't want to have done a bunch of DE classes expecting it to have reduced time/cost, only to discover the university doesn't accept the credits.

BEST of luck as you plan not only for next year, but also for college! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Lori D.

[TCB]

I haven't read all the replies so someone may have mentioned this, but I wonder if it might be better to count some of that as extra-curricular activities. I never counted music as a for credit class but always as an extra curricular. It helped balance out my dd's transcript. We also did not include any lighter, what you might call "fluff" classes, whereas the local school has a number of those that they include.

[ByGrace3]

4 hours ago, TCB said:

I haven't read all the replies so someone may have mentioned this, but I wonder if it might be better to count some of that as extra-curricular activities. I never counted music as a for credit class but always as an extra curricular. It helped balance out my dd's transcript. We also did not include any lighter, what you might call "fluff" classes, whereas the local school has a number of those that they include.

Generally, extracurricular is how I would designate them, but Florida requires at least one fine art credit, so she is at least going to knock that out this year with a "music" credit.

[MamaSprout]

2 hours ago, ByGrace3 said:

Generally, extracurricular is how I would designate them, but Florida requires at least one fine art credit, so she is at least going to knock that out this year with a "music" credit.

We didn't do this with dd's main instrument, but used some voice lessons she wanted to try and will use a music theory book she's finishing up as fine arts credits.

[Alice]

We are counting Driver’s Ed as a .5 credit because it took so many hours (not just in the car but online classes, etc). Just a ridiculous amount of time. And the schools around here count it fairly standardly. On the other hand, we aren’t counting PE/Health/Music in credit hours on the transcript even though he did them all as part of life or extracurriculars. I think in general my thought is that if the transcript looks fairly standard, colleges aren’t going to care that much beyond the core classes. At least that’s what I hope. 

For honors, I only designate things as honors that are outside classes that have specifically been designated that way by the teacher (an AP online class) or that are widely regarded that way in the homeschool community (AoPS and Lukeion). I plan on writing something in my counselor statement or homeschool description that says that we worked to what I would consider honors level in our homegrown classes but that we chose not to designate them that way on the transcript. 

We listed classes taken in 8th grade on the transcript that were highschool level (Latin 1 and Algebra) but didn’t include them in credit hours or GPA. 

[katilac]

On 6/17/2020 at 1:14 PM, ByGrace3 said:

This question is a bit backwards, since she has already completed all of this -- and she did it well, so it is not about "is this too much?" It is more of a, "does too many credits in a year look bad on a transcript?"

I didn't have driver's ed, PE, or health on our transcripts, because I couldn't imagine a college caring about that. If the student has 6-7 solid academic credits, what is PE going to add? Also, it would have messed up my beautiful one-page transcript 😄

I did not put composition and literature as separate credits, except for when they took composition at the university. Then I listed our homeschool English credit and the university composition credit. 

On 6/17/2020 at 3:04 PM, ByGrace3 said:

 Is it better to have English 1, 2, etc or to have Literature and composition classes listed individually?

Also, is one year of PE/Health sufficient? (Florida requires 1 year for public school students). Dd does Crossfit and sports so gets plenty of activity and exercise, but I wasn't going to count it as PE after this year, just as extracurricular . . . is that ok?

 

We listed like so: English 1, Ancient Literature; English 2, Medieval Literature; and so forth. Only composition at university was listed separately, along with our homeschooled English credit. 

On 6/18/2020 at 4:01 PM, ByGrace3 said:

I am also undecided about the "honors" designation.  

I used to google for syllabi to get a rough idea of "honors" for various subjects. Like "10th grade English honors" and so forth, and look at several different ones. There is a lot of variance, and a general rule of thumb is: would this be honors in my local school district? 

On 6/21/2020 at 9:07 AM, ByGrace3 said:

Do the number of credits matter that much? As opposed to the rigor of classwork/courses? My dd wants to dual enroll junior and senior year. I am not a huge proponent of it, but she has given me valid reasons and I am inclined to follow her lead in this decision. The community college classes will imho be a significant step down academically from what she is doing at home and in her live online classes. She is looking at a degree in Physical Therapy so has a lot of schooling ahead of her, and dual enrolling makes sense for her.  That said, I have no idea how the credits will work out. She will have 9 credits for 9th and probably 7 or 8 for 10th . . . maybe I will shoot for 8 so it looks closer? I am still a bit clueless about DE so not sure how that all works and how many she will take. 

ETA: I am fairly certain only 24 credits are required for Florida graduation requirements. 

No, I would not worry overmuch about having more credits in sophomore year versus junior year, you just don't want to show a slide in rigor. 

Is the CC her only choice? Almost all of our local universities allow DE. 

A semester course of DE is usually counted as 1 high school credit, so her number of credits may not even go down.