Help- I do not understand DE credits

[Alice]

I have read about this and just seem to go in circles. 

How do you convert a DE class taken at a Community College into credits for a HS transcript? I've heard one semester of college equals a year of high school. Is that really true? And what about classes like Chemistry, surely one college semester of Chem does not equal one HS credit? Or for a language course, if you take two semesters of a language to you consider that equal to one year or two? 

 

[kokotg]

It's true! One semester=one year of high school=one credit

[kokotg]

...assuming we're talking about a DE class that's 3-4 hours credit, which most of them are

[BusyMom5]

Yes, every 3-hr CC class is 1 credit.  It can easily add up to 8-10 credits a year.

[Alice]

Maybe I should have been more clear...or maybe I'm just too confused to be clear. 🙂

I can understand the credit transfer but I think what I get confused about is what do people actually do as far as classes...

-So if my son takes ASL as DE next year and does two semesters, I can see that I can list that as Two Credits. And I'd list it on the transcript as ASL 201 and 202. But would a college see that plus his two previous years of ASL as 4 years of ASL or 3 years? I know the answer may be that it varies but I'm trying to figure out in general what people do. 

-Or if he does a one semester English DE credit....can I just call that a one year 11th grade English credit? Or would he need to do something else the second semester? 

[chiguirre]

Yes 4 semesters of college language classes equal 4 years of high school classes. That's why you get so many college credits for language APs.

Science is a bit trickier since the class that would equate to high school chemistry is probably a one semester non-major survey. The first semester of a two semester sequence will cover only half the topics in greater depth.

[chiguirre]

1 minute ago, Alice said:

-So if my son takes ASL as DE next year and does two semesters, I can see that I can list that as Two Credits. And I'd list it on the transcript as ASL 201 and 202. But would a college see that plus his two previous years of ASL as 4 years of ASL or 3 years? I know the answer may be that it varies but I'm trying to figure out in general what people do. 

-Or if he does a one semester English DE credit....can I just call that a one year 11th grade English credit? Or would he need to do something else the second semester? 

Is he taking the third semester ASL class or is he starting over? If it's the third and fourth semester, it should count as four credits of ASL. If he's starting over, it will be 2 credits because they overlap.

One semester of English comp or lit will count as a full high school credit.

[Bootsie]

DS took four semesters of a foreign language; we counted that as 4 years of high school foreign language.  He also took a DE biology class which we counted as one year of high school science.  

[mlktwins]

Thank you for posting this!  I was planning to myself!!!

Hope you don't mind if I just ask here 😋.

If I have a kid take DE US History, which would be 2 semesters of 3 credits each, then that would be 2.0 credits of history for the year?

[Lilaclady]

20 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

Thank you for posting this!  I was planning to myself!!!

Hope you don't mind if I just ask here 😋.

If I have a kid take DE US History, which would be 2 semesters of 3 credits each, then that would be 2.0 credits of history for the year?

Yes- correct. The weird thing with US history is that it is split into 2 for college classes. Even Apush only gets one college credit and it is the full history. 

[Clemsondana]

I've taught the same basic class at a community college in a different state and also at a homeschool co-op, where I was asked to teach however I wanted but to cover the topics described in the state standards. I compared standards from several states, and they are basically the same.  My full year co-op class has a few weeks of easy material that aren't in the college class, but what I taught at the college is what we cover from August (when we start) until mid-March.  The content required in high school that isn't in college takes 6 weeks of a 32 week year.  Students who have taken the CC class locally say that there is one section there that isn't in my class, so the difference seems to be a slight variation in the content rather than more or less.  College classes move a lot faster - usually there is less review and repetition.  For my subject (biology), most textbooks can be used to teach multiple courses - for intro, typically a class on molecular biology or a class on organismic/systems biology.  In college, those are the 2 semesters, each worth 1 high school credit.  In high school, some places cover them all very quickly but most states seem to focus on the molecular biology and teach the other content either in a middle school class (life science with dissection) or as an anatomy class or maybe ecology.  

Edited April 28, 2022 by Clemsondana

[mlktwins]

11 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

Yes- correct. The weird thing with US history is that it is split into 2 for college classes. Even Apush only gets one college credit and it is the full history. 

For boys who would do an APUSH course, but don't want to take the exam, it sounds like one semester of DE would be the better choice :-). 

[teachermom2834]

I think most colleges are very used to seeing this and it is best not to overthink. One semester of 3 or 4 credit hour class = one high school credit. It gets quirky with something like precal that is often spread over two semesters at cc so it would be, following that format, two college credits for what would be a one credit high school class. But I would just stick to the formula and have an extra math credit and let the college sort it out. De is so common the colleges are going to understand what they are looking at. I just stick to the formula. I had a kid take Spanish 1 at a co-op and then intro Spanish 1 and 2 at the local university. I know there is some repetition there. The college knows there is some repetition there. But when he self reported his academic record he listed three Spanish credits. It’s was just less confusing to stick to the formula. The college understands what they are looking at. If he was applying to a competitive college and he needed three true undeniable foreign language credits I would have had him go further in de with it. But I just stuck with the formula even if it looked like extra credits. I figured everyone understood what was happening and I wasn’t going to make individual determinations about how to count individual college courses.

It can look like a lot of credits but the colleges understand de and how it is counted. 

[bibiche]

Wait, so if kids takes two years of DE classes they will have enough credits to graduate? 🤯 (even if they take no other classes in HS I mean)

Edited April 28, 2022 by bibiche

[Farrar]

16 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Wait, so if kids takes two years of DE classes they will have enough credits to graduate? 🤯 (even if they take no other classes in HS I mean)

Well, not really. A "full load" of DE is usually 4 courses or maybe 5 per semester, but that would be a lot for a freshman just starting out and not something I would advise to even the most gung ho academic student. So really that's only 8-10 credits a year at most, so you wouldn't have enough after two years even if you took the absolute maximum. But you easily would after three. But there are lots of reasons not to graduate a kid early, so that's something to consider.

I don't usually advise that students take everything DE. But individual situations are individual.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Farrar

[Matryoshka]

2 hours ago, Alice said:

Maybe I should have been more clear...or maybe I'm just too confused to be clear. 🙂

I can understand the credit transfer but I think what I get confused about is what do people actually do as far as classes...

-So if my son takes ASL as DE next year and does two semesters, I can see that I can list that as Two Credits. And I'd list it on the transcript as ASL 201 and 202. But would a college see that plus his two previous years of ASL as 4 years of ASL or 3 years? I know the answer may be that it varies but I'm trying to figure out in general what people do. 

-Or if he does a one semester English DE credit....can I just call that a one year 11th grade English credit? Or would he need to do something else the second semester? 

Yes.  My two kids who did DE did one semester of college-level English to = 1 year of high school level English, and I did not require them to do any transcript-worthy "English" for the other semester. (all my kids did excellently on all their writing in college - they were well prepared - would've been different if I felt they needed the extra instruction).  Not only did the colleges they went to not bat an eyelash, but it got them out of freshman comp at the 4-year as well.  For foreign language, my youngest had already done years of German Saturday School - my other two did the German AP to document what they'd learned, but youngest is very foreign-language and test resistant, so instead she took German DE.  The CC had a self-paced foreign langauge program, so she actually ended up doing the second two semesters worth of German they offered (levels 3&4) in one semester - I gave her two credits for that, and that's also how it was listed on her CC college transcript, as two semesters of college credit.  And then I let her be done with foreign language. She also wasn't very interested in science, so I let her do 1 semester = 1 year of science as well.  This gave her lots of time to explore things she was interested in, and her grades improved as she became more engaged in the subject matter.

32 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Wait, so if kids takes two years of DE classes they will have enough credits to graduate? 🤯 (even if they take no other classes in HS I mean)

Agreeing that usually a DE student doesn't take a full load of 5 classes, more like 3, maybe 4 per semester (as that's 6-8 high school credits a year, that's plenty).  Youngest dd that did mostly DE for high school (3.5 years at CC) ended up with an Associate's in Business by the time she graduated hs, which was all her GenEds, all the Business classes for the first two years at the 4-year she transferred to, plus so many extra college credits that she still only took 3-4 classes a semester at the 4-year and was able to graduate in just two more years with an Accounting degree.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Matryoshka

[bibiche]

32 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Agreeing that usually a DE student doesn't take a full load of 5 classes, more like 3, maybe 4 per semester (as that's 6-8 high school credits a year, that's plenty).  

Wait, isn’t 4 classes a full load? The only students I know who take five classes are masochist overachievers who want to triple major.

Thanks for the explanation, and congratulations to your daughter, graduating HS with an AD!

[Farrar]

Community colleges can be weird. Four is typically a full load, but at some it's more because students have these 1 or 2 credit requirements to take care of. And some are trimester schools where you would only take 3 because the pace is faster.

[Matryoshka]

17 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Wait, isn’t 4 classes a full load? The only students I know who take five classes are masochist overachievers who want to triple major.

Thanks for the explanation, and congratulations to your daughter, graduating HS with an AD!

An Associates Degree at the CC here is min. 60 credits, though some (I'm guessing more specialized ones) are up to 75.  

But taking the minimum, 60/4 = 15 credits/semester.  Yes, there are some 4-credit classes, but the vast majority are 3-credits, so a typical load, if you're going full-time as a college student and wanting to finish in 2 years, would be about 5 classes per semester.

[8filltheheart]

20 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Wait, isn’t 4 classes a full load? The only students I know who take five classes are masochist overachievers who want to triple major.

Thanks for the explanation, and congratulations to your daughter, graduating HS with an AD!

Schools often limit the number of hrs high school students can take DE. But, in terms of actual college enrollment, 4 classes might only be 12 hrs which is the minimum for full time enrollment. 15 hrs is pretty avg. 18+ is more unusual.

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, Lilaclady said:

Even Apush only gets one college credit and it is the full history. 

At some schools, that will depend on the score: a 4 gets credit for one course, but a 5 will get credit for both semesters of US history.

[regentrude]

34 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Wait, isn’t 4 classes a full load? The only students I know who take five classes are masochist overachievers who want to triple major.

It is nominally "full-time" student (for financial aid and tax purposes); however, you don't graduate in four years with only 12 hours per semester (most courses are 3 credits). 
Most of my advisees take 15-17 hours. The overachievers take 21. Failing students on academic probation are limited to 13.
 

Edited April 28, 2022 by regentrude

[kokotg]

Fwiw, 4 classes/semester is the norm at my kid’s college (macalester). 

[Matryoshka]

9 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Fwiw, 4 classes/semester is the norm at my kid’s college (macalester). 

UNH does that too; it resolves the credit problem by making virtually all its classes 4 credits, rather than just things like lab sciences and Calc, which seems to be the norm at most schools.  Seems like kids at those schools end up taking less classes to graduate, as the total # of credits needed is still 120. I know UNH classes are not somehow universally more rigorous than the ones at our state U's. Seems a bit hinky, if you ask me...

Edited April 28, 2022 by Matryoshka

[Clemsondana]

2 hours ago, bibiche said:

Wait, so if kids takes two years of DE classes they will have enough credits to graduate? 🤯 (even if they take no other classes in HS I mean)

You might also struggle to get those weird requirements that some states have - health, personal finance, PE, etc.  And, for courses that you only need a 1/2 credit of (gov/econ) that wouldn't be an option.  

And, having started looking over a few prospective degree plans as my high schooler looks at colleges, most semesters kid would either be taking 5 classes or be taking multiple classes with labs to bump them to 4 hours.  From my CC teaching days, 12 hrs is full time for financial aid purposes, but usually students need 15 or more to graduate.  It fits interestingly with high school credits, since some of the umbrellas locally don't want to accept more than 8 credits/year.  For that, 4 classes each semester would be all that counts.  

[bibiche]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

Fwiw, 4 classes/semester is the norm at my kid’s college (macalester). 

Yes, the schools I am most familiar with have four classes as a full load, three minimum (you won’t finish in four years doing this), and five max (generally considered ill-advised). It’s interesting to read about different systems.

[chiguirre]

3 hours ago, bibiche said:

Wait, so if kids takes two years of DE classes they will have enough credits to graduate? 🤯 (even if they take no other classes in HS I mean)

Most 9th graders are not going to be ready to jump into a full CC curriculum. But, it's very possible to slowly accumulate the classes needed for a AA or AS over the 4 years of high school especially if they take CC classes during the summer. For example my dd took Eng Comp 101 and Film Appreciation the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. Neither of these classes was very difficult if your student has strong writing skills so it was feasible to take them early in high school. 

@Farraris right that you probably do not want to graduate a kid early because it will be very difficult for them to have the ECs to shine for selective admissions. They also have to know what they want to major in immediately if they already have all their gen eds done.

But, having 60+ credits in the bank means that a degree is closer to finishing. It gives your student breathing room if they want to do a gap year or try out a different career that doesn't require a degree. It feels less risky to put off college if you're already 1/2 way done than if you don't have any credits. 

[Matryoshka]

Just now, bibiche said:

Yes, the schools I am most familiar with have four classes as a full load, three minimum (you won’t finish in four years doing this), and five max (generally considered ill-advised). It’s interesting to read about different systems.

Yep, here 3 classes would be below minimum,  because only 9 credits.  Even one or two 4-credit added wouldn't get you to the 12-credit minimum for a full-time student. 

I routinely took 6 classes (18 credits) as an undergrad,  as did one of my kids.

[bibiche]

1 hour ago, Matryoshka said:

UNH does that too; it resolves the credit problem by making virtually all its classes 4 credits, rather than just things like lab sciences and Calc, which seems to be the norm at most schools.  Seems like kids at those schools end up taking less classes to graduate, as the total # of credits needed is still 120. I know UNH classes are not somehow universally more rigorous than the ones at our state U's. Seems a bit hinky, if you ask me...

Harvard’s a bit hinky too, by that standard. 😉

[Matryoshka]

Just now, bibiche said:

Harvard’s a bit hinky too, by that standard. 😉

UNH is, well, not Harvard. By any stretch.  Vanilla state school, not at all as well ranked as our flagship, which has 3-credit classes as a standard. 

[kokotg]

2 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

UNH does that too; it resolves the credit problem by making virtually all its classes 4 credits, rather than just things like lab sciences and Calc, which seems to be the norm at most schools.  Seems like kids at those schools end up taking less classes to graduate, as the total # of credits needed is still 120. I know UNH classes are not somehow universally more rigorous than the ones at our state U's. Seems a bit hinky, if you ask me...

Mac's classes are definitely more rigorous than the DE ones he took at a large public university near us....but that's a small sample size. I feel like most of the schools he looked at (mostly small LACs) were 4 classes/semester, but I'm not really sure. Back when I went to college, UGA was still on quarters, and we took 3 classes at a time, but they met for an hour every day.

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

Mac's classes are definitely more rigorous than the DE ones he took at a large public university near us....but that's a small sample size. I feel like most of the schools he looked at (mostly small LACs) were 4 classes/semester, but I'm not really sure. Back when I went to college, UGA was still on quarters, and we took 3 classes at a time, but they met for an hour every day.

Yeah, an LAC might well be more rigorous.  UNH, however, is... a large public university.  Decent enough, but not some tippy-top one.

If your school back in the day was on quarters and you took 3 classes at a time, that's 12 classes a year, same as if you took 6 classes per semester, no?

Credits used to be "credit-hours", and a class that meets 3x/week for an hour or 2x/week for 1.5 hours would be 3 credits.  Classes with a lab get an extra credit hour.

[kokotg]

8 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

 

If your school back in the day was on quarters and you took 3 classes at a time, that's 12 classes a year, same as if you took 6 classes per semester, no?

 

They called it quarters, but that was counting a summer term. So mostly people took 9 a year.

[Farrar]

15 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

UNH is, well, not Harvard. By any stretch.  Vanilla state school, not at all as well ranked as our flagship, which has 3-credit classes as a standard. 

Right, but the whole 4 credit thing is the standard for most of the SLAC's and most of the more selective privates. Not just Harvard. I think UNH is trying to fit in with those schools.

The idea behind the whole 4 credit thing is not that the class is harder, but that you spend a bit longer hours on it and cover a bit more material. I mean, yeah, it's all smoke and mirrors, but whatever.

[Matryoshka]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Right, but the whole 4 credit thing is the standard for most of the SLAC's and most of the more selective privates. Not just Harvard. I think UNH is trying to fit in with those schools.

The idea behind the whole 4 credit thing is not that the class is harder, but that you spend a bit longer hours on it and cover a bit more material. I mean, yeah, it's all smoke and mirrors, but whatever.

Well, yeah. State school content for private school prices.  I am *not* buying that UNH's classes are at that some elevated level that covers more material than, say, the ones at UMass.  And then y'know, for the same # of credits, you get one class less a semester.  Now, for someone like my youngest, who just wanted to take the minimum number of classes to graduate and get working, no harm no foul, I guess. But for someone like me and one of my kids, who were hungry for classes and wanted to make the most of their time there, I'd be annoyed.  Especially if they have a credit cap where they made you pay more for exceeding the limit.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, Matryoshka said:

Well, yeah. State school content for private school prices.  I am *not* buying that UNH's classes are at that some elevated level that covers more material than, say, the ones at UMass.  And then y'know, for the same # of credits, you get one class less a semester.  Now, for someone like my youngest, who just wanted to take the minimum number of classes to graduate and get working, no harm no foul, I guess. But for someone like me and one of my kids, who were hungry for classes and wanted to make the most of their time there, I'd be annoyed.  Especially if they have a credit cap where they made you pay more for exceeding the limit.

Honestly, my experience comparing UMass and UW 3 credit courses with Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Amherst 4 credit courses when I was an undergrad was that the SLAC 4 credit courses WERE more work and time overall. But you could make an argument that's because the caliber of education is higher at those schools. I'm not sure I totally buy that, honestly. But *shrugs* I think it's just hard to compare. And no set up is going to be exactly the same and exactly comparable. 

[Alice]

Thanks everyone for the responses. 

The main thing I’ve gotten out of this discussion is that I probably don’t need to overthink it. 😀 Which is and of itself helpful. My oldest didn’t do DE classes at all for various reasons. He did a lot of AP classes which kind of served the same purpose. So this is all new to me even though I’ve gotten one kid through HS and into college.  We are definitely looking into DE for his brother, my rising 11th grader. For him, the purpose would be more to have an outside experience than to either get college credit that transfers or to look towards selective schools. He is definitely not looking at selective schools. He’s smart but has never enjoyed traditional academics. His transcript is going to embrace the weirdness and individuality of homeschooling. We live in VA and have basically no requirements as far as reporting to the state. (It’s not none, but it’s about as easy as it gets.) So for high school I’ve been comfortable having them do the work that seems to equal a credit and then calling that something on the transcript that sounds reasonable. We don’t have to worry about number of credits so I just try and make sure they are taking about what the local PS students take so it will look normalish to a college. 

I’m thinking about ASL because he has taken it online and would prefer an in-person class now. He’s taken two years from Open Tent. I know the CC has a placement exam or something that he could do to see what class he would take. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has to somewhat repeat part of it but he has done very well and two teachers have commented that he’s a natural. It’s one of the few classes he likes and he has a solid A...so I’m hoping he wouldn’t be put in an Intro Class. That said, the local CC only is offering a few in-person ASL classes next year so we’re looking at other in-person options.

One of the main reasons I started this thread I had also thought about Chemistry for him but weirdly the local CC only offers Chem for majors which he has not had enough Math for (they want you to be done with Algebra II and he would be taking Algebra II) or one semester of the Chem for non-majors without a second semester. I felt like it would look weird to only have one semester of a Chem class but it sounds like that might be valid to count as a full high school credit, depending on the colleges he’s applying to. 

The other reason that I’ve thought about CC classes for him is that he has ADHD and seems to do better with a college type of schedule where he has fewer classes to focus on at a time. So it might work for him to do English one semester and History another. It sounds like it would be valid to do that and count each as one credit. 

I’m still figuring it out but this discussion has been helpful, so thanks to everyone who chimed in! 

[Matryoshka]

40 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Honestly, my experience comparing UMass and UW 3 credit courses with Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Amherst 4 credit courses when I was an undergrad was that the SLAC 4 credit courses WERE more work and time overall. But you could make an argument that's because the caliber of education is higher at those schools. I'm not sure I totally buy that, honestly. But *shrugs* I think it's just hard to compare. And no set up is going to be exactly the same and exactly comparable. 

Well, yeah. That's again, comparing elite LACs to large public, and I already said a few times upthread that that seems fair. I'd say at selective LACs that's equivalent to Honors classes at State U's, which are also usually 4 credits - I also took courses at Amherst, and that seems fair. 

I am here commenting specifically on this scheme at UNH for all their regular-level classes, another large public university with a lower ranking, an 85% acceptance rate, and lower avg SAT/ACT scores.  You're telling me they have Harvard/Smith level academics that warrants 4 credits each for Intro to Theater, Freshman Writing, and Intro to Humanities?

Are other avg big state U's are doing this? Not sure. I still find it sus.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Matryoshka

[teachermom2834]

31 minutes ago, Alice said:

T

One of the main reasons I started this thread I had also thought about Chemistry for him but weirdly the local CC only offers Chem for majors which he has not had enough Math for (they want you to be done with Algebra II and he would be taking Algebra II) or one semester of the Chem for non-majors without a second semester. I felt like it would look weird to only have one semester of a Chem class but it sounds like that might be valid to count as a full high school credit, depending on the colleges he’s applying to. 

The other reason that I’ve thought about CC classes for him is that he has ADHD and seems to do better with a college type of schedule where he has fewer classes to focus on at a time. So it might work for him to do English one semester and History another. It sounds like it would be valid to do that and count each as one credit. 

I’m still figuring it out but this discussion has been helpful, so thanks to everyone who chimed in! 

IMO- all of this is absolutely fine especially since you said you aren't looking at selective schools. One semester of chem for non-majors, one semester of English, and one semester of History would be three full high school credits the way I count them.

My boys went to average schools (Oglethorpe University, University of South Florida, and University of Tennessee). All respectable but not super competitive and they all were given nice scholarships/admitted to honors programs, etc. I would have zero qualms with de for those classes the way you are thinking for those kinds of schools, for reference. 

[bibiche]

38 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Well, yeah. That's again, comparing elite LACs to large public, and I already said a few times upthread that that seems fair. I'd say at selective LACs that's equivalent to Honors classes at State U's, which are also usually 4 credits - I also took courses at Amherst, and that seems fair. 

I am here commenting specifically on this scheme at UNH for all their regular-level classes, another large public university with a lower ranking, an 85% acceptance rate, and lower avg SAT/ACT scores.  You're telling me they have Harvard/Smith level academics that warrants 4 credits each for Intro to Theater, Freshman Writing, and Intro to Humanities?

Are other avg big state U's are doing this? Not sure. I still find it sus.

Continuing on this rather off-topic topic…  I have a good friend who did her undergrad at UNH before getting her doctorate at Harvard. Clearly that program and the others she was accepted into didn’t find UNH “sus.” 😉  I think it’s just a different system. Different doesn’t mean better or worse, just different.

[regentrude]

59 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

 

I am here commenting specifically on this scheme at UNH for all their regular-level classes, another large public university with a lower ranking, an 85% acceptance rate, and lower avg SAT/ACT scores.  You're telling me they have Harvard/Smith level academics that warrants 4 credits each for Intro to Theater, Freshman Writing, and Intro to Humanities?

The number of credits for a course says absolutely nothing about the level or academic rigor. It is solely a measure of time spent in class.

So sure, any backwoods college can teach a 4 credit class on any given topic. It means nothing besides the students having 4 × 50 minutes of class a week.

EtA: case in point: the only 5 credit math class at my school is remedial. Because the kids who place this low must meet daily.

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by regentrude

[Matryoshka]

24 minutes ago, regentrude said:

The number of credits for a course says absolutely nothing about the level or academic rigor. It is solely a measure of time spent in class.

So sure, any backwoods college can teach a 4 credit class on any given topic. It means nothing besides the students having 4 × 50 minutes of class a week.

EtA: case in point: the only 5 credit math class at my school is remedial. Because the kids who place this low must meet daily.

That's just what I was saying upthread about credits used to be tied to 'credit-hours', but I don't think this is the case for the selective LACs where I've seen this (and can give them that their classes are more rigorous per hour taught),  and definitely not UNH.  Their 4-credit classes still meet 3x weekly for 50 min, not 4. (or 2x weekly for 100 min).  Just double-checked their course catalog to make sure I wasn't misremembering.  Credit inflation, rather than grade inflation...

Edited April 29, 2022 by Matryoshka

[teachermom2834]

28 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

That's just what I was saying upthread about credits used to be tied to 'credit-hours', but I don't think this is the case for the selective LACs where I've seen this (and can give them that their classes are more rigorous per hour taught),  and definitely not UNH.  Their 4-credit classes still meet 3x weekly for 50 min, not 4. (or 2x weekly for 100 min).  Just double-checked their course catalog to make sure I wasn't misremembering.  Credit inflation, rather than grade inflation...

I have seen this as well. Credit hours not matching up with hours spent in class. I thought surely it was a misprint the first time I saw it but it is no longer universally the case. 

[Alice]

13 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

I have seen this as well. Credit hours not matching up with hours spent in class. I thought surely it was a misprint the first time I saw it but it is no longer universally the case. 

Well, as a Chemistry and Biology double major I never really understood how we got 4 credits for a class with lab when it equaled 6 hours in class (3 lecture, 3 lab). Basically the 1 "extra" hour was for the 3 hour lab. It didn’t really matter in the long run but it always made me skeptical of the whole idea that credit hours matched to hours spent in class. 

[teachermom2834]

5 minutes ago, Alice said:

Well, as a Chemistry and Biology double major I never really understood how we got 4 credits for a class with lab when it equaled 6 hours in class (3 lecture, 3 lab). Basically the 1 "extra" hour was for the 3 hour lab. It didn’t really matter in the long run but it always made me skeptical of the whole idea that credit hours matched to hours spent in class. 

Well labs always did count less than lecture time. But it was somewhat standardized. My ds took a 3 credit hour summer class a couple summers ago that met for just ten weeks and just twice a week for an hour each time. No making sense of that. I had a kid in a four credit hour class that met the typical MWF class for 50 minutes that was always just 3 hours “back in the day.”

[regentrude]

5 hours ago, Alice said:

Well, as a Chemistry and Biology double major I never really understood how we got 4 credits for a class with lab when it equaled 6 hours in class (3 lecture, 3 lab). Basically the 1 "extra" hour was for the 3 hour lab. It didn’t really matter in the long run but it always made me skeptical of the whole idea that credit hours matched to hours spent in class. 

Hours never matched credits for labs and for ensemble performance.
But for lecture/recitation classes, it tended to be pretty accurate

[Clemsondana]

9 hours ago, regentrude said:

Hours never matched credits for labs and for ensemble performance.
But for lecture/recitation classes, it tended to be pretty accurate

In addition to being a science major with a lot of labs, I got most of my free electives from band (marching and concert).  My senior year, my advisor told me that I should quit since the hours weren't counting any more.  Another professor overheard and pulled me aside and said 'Don't quit.  You need that'.  I turns out that he had been a band guy, too.  I loved every minute and am so thankful that I did it, but...yeah, between the labs and the band, it's no wonder that a lot of people's college memories that involve afternoons with TV or movies or frisbee are quite different from mine.  I think i chose the most time-consuming way possible to earn my degree.  🙂 

[Dmmetler]

My kid who did a lot of DE almost graduated high school by accident midway through junior year because of ticking the boxes. I caught it and the cover school was fine NOT graduating a just turned 15 yr old. But yeah, you get a ton of credits quick via DE. 

[Aloha2U]

On 4/29/2022 at 11:18 AM, Alice said:

Thanks everyone for the responses. 

The main thing I’ve gotten out of this discussion is that I probably don’t need to overthink it. 😀 Which is and of itself helpful. My oldest didn’t do DE classes at all for various reasons. He did a lot of AP classes which kind of served the same purpose. So this is all new to me even though I’ve gotten one kid through HS and into college.  We are definitely looking into DE for his brother, my rising 11th grader. For him, the purpose would be more to have an outside experience than to either get college credit that transfers or to look towards selective schools. He is definitely not looking at selective schools. He’s smart but has never enjoyed traditional academics. His transcript is going to embrace the weirdness and individuality of homeschooling. We live in VA and have basically no requirements as far as reporting to the state. (It’s not none, but it’s about as easy as it gets.) So for high school I’ve been comfortable having them do the work that seems to equal a credit and then calling that something on the transcript that sounds reasonable. We don’t have to worry about number of credits so I just try and make sure they are taking about what the local PS students take so it will look normalish to a college. 

I’m thinking about ASL because he has taken it online and would prefer an in-person class now. He’s taken two years from Open Tent. I know the CC has a placement exam or something that he could do to see what class he would take. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has to somewhat repeat part of it but he has done very well and two teachers have commented that he’s a natural. It’s one of the few classes he likes and he has a solid A...so I’m hoping he wouldn’t be put in an Intro Class. That said, the local CC only is offering a few in-person ASL classes next year so we’re looking at other in-person options.

One of the main reasons I started this thread I had also thought about Chemistry for him but weirdly the local CC only offers Chem for majors which he has not had enough Math for (they want you to be done with Algebra II and he would be taking Algebra II) or one semester of the Chem for non-majors without a second semester. I felt like it would look weird to only have one semester of a Chem class but it sounds like that might be valid to count as a full high school credit, depending on the colleges he’s applying to. 

The other reason that I’ve thought about CC classes for him is that he has ADHD and seems to do better with a college type of schedule where he has fewer classes to focus on at a time. So it might work for him to do English one semester and History another. It sounds like it would be valid to do that and count each as one credit. 

I’m still figuring it out but this discussion has been helpful, so thanks to everyone who chimed in! 

Have you considered the CLEP route (instead of DE or AP) for Math and Chemistry and... ?

[Arcadia]

On 4/29/2022 at 11:18 AM, Alice said:

 

The other reason that I’ve thought about CC classes for him is that he has ADHD and seems to do better with a college type of schedule where he has fewer classes to focus on at a time. So it might work for him to do English one semester and History another. It sounds like it would be valid to do that and count each as one credit. 

My slower DS16 thrives on two DE classes per quarter. The quarter system was better for him because it doesn’t feel so drag out and the finals cover less stuff versus the finals for a semester class. Quarter is about 12 weeks and semester is about 16 weeks locally.
For ADHD, the community colleges’ disability office tends to handle better than my local school districts.