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[soyouwannabeacollegestudent]

So You Wanna Know About Dual-Enrollment

- November 17, 2017 - 

Hey guys! This is a subject I'm very passionate about because I had the great opportunity to do this when I was still in high school, and thought I would share some of the pros and cons with y'all.

- TL;DR - 

(I personally think these should go at the beginnings of lengthy posts, so here ya go)

Dual-enrollment is taking college classes while you’re still in high school.  It gives you guaranteed college credit if you pass, and usually sets you on a degree path sooner than your peers.  It does a better job of prepping you for a full-time college career than the AP classes I’ve experienced, and is less stressful overall.  It also lets you take really interesting and exciting classes you wouldn’t normally be able to take as a high school student.

What is it?

Dual enrollment is being able to register and attend courses through a local or online college while still being a high school student.  More and more school systems across the US are working with their local community colleges to make this possible for their high school juniors and seniors.

How do I do it?

This will probably vary from school to school.  Usually, you will be required to be a high school junior or senior with a high enough GPA (this will differ between schools, but may also differ between the classes you want to take at the college), a class schedule at the high school that is compatible with a class schedule at the college, and a way to get back and forth from the two campuses.  Some schools also require that you’ve taken a certain number of high school pre-requisite classes (i.e. Freshmen and Sophomore English), but the pre-reqs may depend on the college courses you want to take, i.e. in order to take Anatomy and Physiology, I had to have already taken high school biology, but not necessarily high school physics. 

Why Should I do it?

It’s free! Usually... I have yet to hear of a dual-enrollment program where the cost of the college’s tuition isn’t covered either by the college, or by the high school’s school system.  This usually includes the cost of textbooks and any other fees, but those may differ depending on the classes you’re taking at the college.  It is understood that the high school student will be responsible for covering the cost of any damages to rental textbooks or equipment used at the college.

You also get guaranteed college credit if you pass those courses.  With AP courses, you can get the graduation requirements for high school met, and you may get the chance at earning some college credits, but that all depends on your national AP exam score.  If you bomb the exam, you just get the high school credit.  Even if you score really well on the exam, some colleges are very picky with how they will or won’t accept your AP credits.  Some schools only take 5s, most will take 4s, and some will take 3s, but it’s never a guarantee.  It also depends on your major or program with that college.  Some programs require that you still take their version of chemistry, even if you got a 4 on your AP chemistry exam.  

On the other hand, if you spend your time in college courses through dual-enrollment, and you pass those courses, those passing grades go to a real and legitimate college transcript as well as your high school transcript.  In addition to that, which is very impressive to already have as a high school graduate, most schools within the same state as the community college you were dual-enrolled in will take your community college credits as full credits.  This is true for my state, but it may not be for yours.  It also only applies to state schools; private universities don’t have to take my community college credits in full if they don’t want to.  For example, if you take anatomy and physiology at my community college, you can earn up to 8 credit hours for both semesters of the two-part course.  All 8 of those credit hours will transfer to any state school in my home state as 8 credit hours.  If I were to try and take those 8 credits to a school outside of my state, due to them being community college credits, I would more than likely not receive credit for all 8 hours.  However, if you are enrolling in a specific program or major at the school you’re trying to have accept these credits, in or out of state, that specific program may still require that you take their version of anatomy and physiology for whatever reason they want.  

If you are looking at schools outside of your state for after high school, see if your community college is part of a transfer credit program.  Several of the bigger schools nationwide are part of some kind of transfer credit program, where they agree to take as many of your community college credits in full as possible if your community college is part of the same program.  The community college I’m currently attending is part of programs like this across the country.

Even so, by taking college courses, I had 2 years’ worth of classes on my official college transcript by the time I graduated from high school.  This would set me up as a transfer student, which has its own benefits that I won’t elaborate on here.  Regardless, it looks fantastic on other school and/or job applications.

How a College Course Differs from its High School Equivalent

Teachers:   In my experience so far, all of the teachers at my college genuinely love the subject they teach, and they are really really good at teaching it.  Their eyes light up while they’re teaching and when we understand the material, they get excited when we get excited, and they are willing to look at things from different points of view to help us better understand the concepts they’re teaching.  If they can’t help us get a grip on the material, they have a handful of colleagues they can refer you to in an effort to make it click.  

Contrast this to my high school experience - teachers who look as miserable as their students, teachers droning in a monotone from powerpoints they’ve used for the last ten years, teachers not understanding their material because this class was just dropped on their laps two weeks before school started; you get the point.  Not all of my high school teachers were like this, and most of them started out the semester sincerely wanting to make the best of it, but any light they had would quickly peter out as material they enjoyed got lost in a sea of disciplinary action, disrespect, and apathy.  

Students: In my college courses, for the most part, the students truly want to be there and do their best.  There are a few reasons for this.  They’re usually paying thousands of dollars to be there, they’re usually a little bit older and understand what they should and shouldn’t be doing (i.e. coming to class hungover), and it’s a second chance for most of them who weren’t able to do college right the first time.  This leads to fewer disciplinary issues, better concentration, and usually, really helpful classroom and study group discussions.  There’s a lot less drama, competition, and pettiness as well.

Workload: This one may seem counter intuitive, but in my experience, the college courses are so much easier - in class, on tests, and in homework load.  My AP courses seemed out to kill me, while my college courses, which were supposed to be harder, were a breath of fresh air.  I was staying up until 3am for AP English, not anat and phys.  I was stranded in misunderstanding until the early morning hours with my high school pre-cal class, not my college one.  AP classes are advertised to help prepare you for what college is really like, but it’s really just an overload of unnecessary stress.  While there still is homework for my college classes, it’s nothing compared to what was expected of me in high school.  The tests (usually) don’t try to trick you and screw you over on purpose, they are really just seeing if you understand the material.   

In closing, I loved my dual-enrollment experience, and if I could go back, the only thing I would change would be to take college classes instead of APs.  It really helped set me up for the rest of my college experience, and it did so in a much better way than any AP class I ever took.

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