Today we’re talking about dual credits for your high school student. For those who are in the diaper stage with your babes, just tuck this post away for a few years from now – which really will be the day after tomorrow. Trust me on this one. My kids were going to be seven and under forever. I had it all worked out. And then, without asking, our oldest turned 18 and graduated high school. Who does he think he is? ;)
Because several have asked about homeschooling through high school, I wanted to share one of the best tips we’ve learned so far. Whether you home, private, or public school your kids – I encourage you to check out college class options for your high schooler. Dual credits rock!!
First, what is a dual credit? It’s this magical thing that means your child can take a college class during high school and get both a high school credit for it and a college credit – at the same time. It is marvelous, saves time, saves money, and saves kids from taking a biology class twice if in fact biology is not their favorite sport.
Our family has learned and continues to learn about this through trial and error. We originally started our oldest son as a junior in high school in one college class (Basic Speech) for three reasons:
1) It’s a little bit hard to do a speech class as a home schooler. Not impossible – just challenging since he had a class size of one.
2) We wanted to ease our home schooler into a classroom to prepare him for full time college days.
3) We’d seen other home school families put their high school kids in a college class or two during high school and we liked that they ended up getting some college credits out of the way. It looked like a good idea.
Twenty-four college credits by high school graduation with our oldest son later, I have this to say: Good idea, nothin’. Getting dual credits is a great idea. Fantastic. Marvelous. Wonderful.
See, here’s the thing: Many of the classes our kids take in high school they end up taking again their first two years of college. (Science, Math, English, History, etc.) This can be good. Some kids need to take them twice. There is no one-size-fits-all plan. But after experiencing so many positive results from pursuing dual credits with our oldest, we have decided that if it is possible, our other kids can also knock out quite a few college gen-eds out of the way while they are in high school.
How to go about getting dual credits for your high school student
If your child is in a public or private school, it is likely that the school provides some options for upperclassmen to take classes which give them college credit. Check and see!
For homeschoolers – you’ll have to see what college options are available in your area. Here’s what we did:
1. Our local college offers high school students the option of taking one class per semester at a 75% discount. Yes please! During his junior and senior years of high school, Asa took four semesters of on-campus classes (Speech, Psychology, and American History 1 and 2).
2. His senior year, he wanted to get more credits checked off the list. Since we’d maxed out the “one class per semester at a discount” at our local college, we signed him up for two classes per semester online through a Nebraska community college (English Comp 1 and 2, Human Biology, and Business Technology).
Phew! These classes were tough!! Especially the online classes. We don’t regret doing this, and Asa is so thankful to have these classes out of the way – but college level courses aren’t a cake walk. Asa had to work his tail off, and found that the online classes were extremely intense since there was no classroom instruction and because there were many, many deadlines to meet each semester.
Because we transitioned Asa into college classes while he was still at home, not only did he save almost an entire year’s worth of college tuition – we are much more confident that Asa is prepared to tackle full time college work while living on campus. We are so grateful that God led us to work toward dual credits for him.
Taking what we learned while doing this with Asa, our second son Justus (who will be a sophomore in high school) will begin his first college course this fall. And so it begins with son number two. Hold me.
Any questions? (Not that I’ll be able to answer them.) Other moms of high schoolers: what has your experience been with dual credits?
Oh yeah! I can completely relate. We’re too rural for in-person college classes during high school but my two did a combination of online college classes and AP classes which, with high enough scores, translated to more college credits. The cost of the AP test is far, far less than one credit at the state university.
These are great ideas Laura! It was wonderful for our kids to go to college with many gen-ed credits already earned. There are so many college classes and venues available now for the high school student. It is really amazing. I’m so thankful your boys have that opportunity.
Another thing to be mindful of is are these credits necessary and will they transfer. Especially if your child is going into a specific program or knows which college they are planning to attend. The registrar’s office at your college of choice is your friend in figuring this out! It’s a shame to work through a college level class and find out it wasn’t needed.
YES! That is super important to make sure the credits will transfer. It would be so disappointing to only get an “elective” credit for these gen eds he worked so hard for!
We loved dual enrollment classes. My kids all got to the point where they wanted somebody other than mom to teach. I loved that they got a full high school credit in one semester and a GPA boost (our colleges award an extra point to the GPA for dual enrollment courses). I appreciated outsourcing higher maths, lab sciences and foreign language. It also helped them learn to juggle final exams, multiple professors and syllabi before getting to the university. My kids also loved taking some electives like pottery that we couldn’t do at home.
Congrats to Asa! I have a freshman headed off to school this fall as well and was so glad that she participated in dual enrollment. Her high school guidance office was very helpful and our state colleges (and many private colleges) have a lot of information on their websites. Ditto on the comment to take a look at your child’s preferred schools & majors and find out their policies on dual enrollment & AP courses. For example, my child’s college accepts ENG 101 but not ENG 102. Their second ENG requirement is a writing class in the 200 level. Also, at her college, all majors do not require Calculus but they all need Statistics. So glad she took the dual enrollment Statistics course and not the AP Calculus offered at the school. Great article!!
Yes! My oldest just graduated this year from high school and earned an AA at the same time from our community college! My second will be a junior this year and has 11 college credits that he earned his freshman and sophomore years. This year he will take all his classes at the college and if all goes as planned, he too will have two graduations at once. Such a time and money saver!
We also did dual credit with our homeschooled daughter. We started with one class (sign language) when she was 15. She ended up graduating from high school and getting her two year associate’s degree at the same time.
This was a great time to work with her in choosing classes and instructors as well as helping her navigate social situations. I think it’s a great idea!
My public high school offered distance learning classes when I was a senior. I got English 1 and 2, Government and Economics done at my high school in a teleconferencing classroom while earning dual credit. I also took a Humanities course one night a week at the local junior college and an online class. I ended up with 18 college credits when I graduated and it was wonderful.
My son is a senior at a public high school this year. This will be his second year of dual credit classes. We have learned so much! He found that he needs the structure of classroom attendance for rigorous classes, but online courses are OK for creative writing, etc. He has learned that college requires a lot of self discipline, but it is worth it to him to forgo the social aspects of high school in order to have his AA when he graduates high school.
He wants to serve a 2 year mission for our church (young men are eligible at 18 in our religion). This means there will be a 2 year break in schooling for him. So nice to have his Associates degree squared away before leaving!
I’m familiar with the advantages of dual credit, and our oldest is enrolled this fall at the local community college for speech. But I’d love to hear from some who maybe had a less-than-wonderful experience. What pitfalls and problems to we need to be aware of and watching for?
Here are a few things I didn’t address in my post, regarding the not-so-wonderful:
Asa had a very rough experience with his online English teacher. She slapped an F on his first assignment because he did everything she asked…except for one thing. No grace, no explanation, just F. That’s how the semester began and while he learned to read and re-read her assignment guidelines to avoid more Fs, her explanations were vague at best. I could go on and on, but definitely, this experience was not wonderful.
Thus, he learned how to deal with difficult people (and I suppose he learned a little bit of English stuff too). He learned to call his teacher and ask for specifics. And here’s the best thing that happened through this: at first when he called her, she was short with him and acted annoyed. He continued to talk respectfully and kindly. By the end of the conversation, she softened and became helpful. I have no doubt that Asa’s kindness and respect made all the difference.
Beyond that, since the online classes where through a secular school, we were shocked by some of the assigned readings. They were filled with bad language and fairly graphic content. He handled it maturely, but wow. We didn’t see that coming. On a positive note, we were glad he was experiencing this while still at home instead of being hit head on with that type of thing later.
So…we don’t have regrets, we highly recommend dual credits, we will continue with our other boys what we started with Asa – but definitely many of these experiences were very challenging. It’s the dual credits that rock. Getting them can be another story. :)
But I tell you what, Asa is much more prepared to deal with a full time college load and to deal with college professors on his own without mom and dad going to bat for him. (Yeah, I can’t tell you how hard it was to avoid being “that mom” through some of Asa’s experiences with his online English teacher. He had to handle it himself since it was a college class. Yowza.)
Yep, my kids have done this too. Here is Ca. it is free to take college classes while still in High School. Yes, please! Plus my daughter got a Presidential Scholarship for the same Jr. College for her 2 years there. It was such a great experience. Definately a plus! Glad you informed others too!
We had to pay out of pocket for our home educated son’s AP and dual enrollment courses, but our state recently changed its program. Ohio residents, please check the Ohio Department of Education web site at https://www.ohiohighered.org/ccp. The deadline has passed for 2015 applications but it never hurts to plan ahead for next year!
My son did this too from junior high on even though it meant getting a number of signatures to permit it since he was really underage. By the time he entered college he had accrued almost a year’s worth of credits most of them in computer science and computer languages none of which his Christian day school offered and he had been running the computer lab at his school for 4 years. Since his focus was computers and business it shaved a year of college and also landed him a job programming as soon as he turned 16 that he had summers and part time during the school year. He says he accomplishes more when he has more to do because he’s more focused. Yes, he still had time for youth group, running sound for church, helping with junior church, doing year book, keeping his grades up and fixing things and cooking with his beloved Gram.
Asa will do well in college after the schedule he’s been keeping. It’s great when the credits count but learning to pace and discipline yourself with the harder expectations presented by college is a real blessing too.
Hi Laura! My son will be a jr. the in the fall.
My nagging question is.. How do you add the dual credit and still do a full load of highschool? Do you omit a subject? Or take that subject instead in college during high school?
My son wants to be a physics major, so he already has a pretty full load.
thanks!
Lisa
The college credit is a part of the full load of high school work. For instance, instead of taking a regular senior English, Asa took college English as his senior English class. Then it counted as his high school senior English class and his freshman in college English class – at the same time.
Does that make sense? They don’t take college classes in addition to all they are doing in high school (ugh, that would be tougher than this already is!). If your son goes to private or public school, you’ll have to see what they offer and go with that. If your son homeschools, you can look into these options locally to see how you can sync up some of his classes to get him both high school and college credits at the same time. ;)
Amen to not repeating classes – especially if you already aced them at the high school level. Such a waste of money and time!
Another tip – if your child isn’t quite ready for the college experience yet: I live in Wisconsin, which, under state law, allows homeschooled children to take up to two classes per school year at their local public school. This would be a great option for those classes where a child might learn more in a group setting or for subjects where mom and dad don’t have the skill set to help their child. Or for classes where mom & dad don’t have the equipment – like shop classes or classes that require expensive technology.
Worth looking into – just call your state’s department of public instruction to find out what the statutes are in your state.
My oldest daughter graduated from Ohio State a year early because of this program, and my son is taking 40 hours of credit with him to EMU in Virginia this fall. It’s completely free and so worth it! My next-in-line daughter can’t wait to start her college career!
My son is 16 with ASD. He wants to homeschool next year and take college classes at the local community college. He has been accepted into the college. My concern is about how to help him schedule his time. He really needs structure and if we homeschool, I’ll have to provide it for him. Can you tell me how your kids’ days were scheduled while they were taking college classes in high school? How many classes did they take each semester and what did they do with the rest of their time?
:-) thanks!