Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Middle Students receiving credit for HS course

I guess I'm a bit confused as to what the up side is to not giving HS credit to MS students who are taking HS classes. The advantages are many. If a HS requires a MS student to repeat a class they've already taken in MS that's flat out damaging. The more HS credit a student has on their HS transcript when applying for college admissions and scholarshipes, the better, especially if they're core classes.

DD9 is in the same situation. She is in 6th taking Algebra 2 at the high school. They just can't give her HS credit cause she's not in high school yet. She will earn the grade and it will be on her middle school transcript. But I figure by the time she gets to high school she'll take community college math. Right now it's doesn't seem like a big deal..I'm not sure.

Just a word of caution about high schoolers taking community college courses, some of the CO state universities won't accept CO community college courses for credit. I'm not sure about placement. I have a friend who had her HS kid take Calculus at the local community college. Colorado School of Mines would not accept the course work for credit (BTW, they don't accept IB for credit either). I am not sure how they determined placement. I've heard that CU Boulder accepts some courses but not others. Not sure, about CSU. It appears to be on a school by school basis.

I wouldn't expect a college to except a community college math course for credit. I would hope they would accept it as a math requirement from HS.

I have some knowledge of how Mines gave out credit on entrance, but it's old knowledge so don't take it for truth today, but it might be helpful in thinking through how we plan for our kids during high school (or middle schoolers taking high school courses etc). At the point in time I have experience, the individual department chairs at Mines had the discretion to determine how placement was granted. The math department, for instance, gave full course credit for a 5 on the AP Calc exam, while the Physics department only gave 1/2 semester credit for a 5 on the AP Physics exam - so a student who took a full year of AP Physics in high school (which at that time included mechanics + electricity & magnetism) would only place out of the first semester mechanics class and would have to repeat the e&m semester, even though they had mastered that work first time around. I can also understand why Mines might not accept community college credits in core classes due to being the cc courses having less rigor. OTOH, they did at that time grant credit for cc courses in areas that weren't core.

I think that when your child is still in middle school or early high school and you don't even know yet which college they will apply to or what course of study they want to pursue, it can get really frustrating trying to think ahead through whether or not your child will get appropriate placement at the college level for the work they are doing now or will do because of a course choice you make now. College/university placement requirements vary from institution to institution, and there is *no* way of knowing for certain that the same placement policies that are in place now will be in place 3 years from now. Plus what happens if you make all your decisions based on one university's system, only to find that when your child is a senior they get a full ride scholarship to a different and very prestigious university that has an entirely different policy? You can make some educated guesses about what to do but you can't bank the weight of a decision about the coursework on what might happen with first year college course placement.

JMO, but I think it's much more important to meet the needs and wants of your child now, and if that means you risk them possibly having to repeat a class in college, that's a risk worth taking.

polarbear

I only mentioned it because the OP seems frustrated that her MS is not getting credit for a HS class. I just wanted to point out that she may have the same problem with a "college" level class taken in HS. I totally get that community college may not be as rigorous, etc.

eta: I've also heard of some craziness where our local school district won't give HS credit for classes taken at local universities because the professors are not accredited by the school district.

Yep. In my DD's school, Honors and AP classes are weighted.

College coursework, while accepted for credit, IS NOT.

Ergo, a student who plays the game and takes all "honors" high school classes gains significantly in the class rankings sweepstakes over one who take COLLEGE coursework from sophomore year on.

(Insane. Completely INSANE.)

Also just want to reiterate that algebra I, geometry, and algebra II look to become "mandated" high school graduation requirements under the coming storm-- Common Core. This is already true in some states. (Mine being one of them.)

I'd be very, very wary of allowing my child to NOT have those on a high school transcript at this point, if s/he is taking them at that high school but earlier than a graduation cohort year. The problem is that you don't KNOW ahead of time what standards will be imposed on a particular graduation cohort until your child is in 9th grade and assigned a cohort year.


The thing about "exceptions" to those kinds of rules is that while the promises are seemingly easily made... sometimes the exceptions themselves are NOT as easily made as they sounded. (Oh, sure we can do that {in two years}-- no problem! Becomes "I'll have to call {Mr. X} at {state agency Z} and find out what we can do under state law... be aware that we may have no choice but to {do this thing we were promising you wouldn't have to do}...")

Community colleges have a dual mission -- to grant two-year associate degrees and to prepare students to transfer to four-year colleges. I WOULD expect a 4-year state university to grant credit for non-remedial courses taken in community colleges in the same state, as spelled out in an "articulation agreement".

The College Board has an AP Credit Policy Info site http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/apcreditpolicy/index.jsp which links to school-specific sites.

Harvard has a system of online placement exams that students take over the summer, math and writing being required http://placement-info.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do . Probably many other universities do as well.

I wouldn't expect a college to 'accept' a community college math course for credit.

I just don't think Harvard (or a like university) should accept a calculus class taken at our local CC.

I read anecdotal story on the web about a girl that took the highest math she could and then went to take math courses at UConn while in high school and then gained entranced to Ivy League. They said they wouldn't accept the course from UConn and made her retake the class. BUT when she was among the top in the country she realized she was way behind even taking the math from a good university.

Like Polarbear said...I can't really plan what will happen in the future and where she'll be.

I think most colleges these days require students to take a math placement exam, many also require a foreign language placement exam if the student has foreign language credits and plans to take such classes in college as a continuation. This would seem the logical way to determine if the AP or college credit class attempting to be transferred should be accepted.

Many colleges are cutting back on what they'll allowed to transfer, they're also demanding higher AP test scores in order to be transferred. Likely colleges are feeling the funding crunch too, less classes taken means money out of their pocket.