Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Early College vs. AP Classes

Anyone have experience with an Early College Program? I have been looking into Early College Programs online wondering if they might be a better fit for my son than AP Classes in the upper grades of high school. I have found some resources online but unfortunately I can't find any programs locally.

No experience as this is 5+ years in the future for us, but our local uni has some "distance learning" courses for some 1st and 2nd year courses, so it's possible to do some of these self-paced online courses without sending your kid to campus with the regular classes (except there's a proctored final exam on campus of course).

Some high schools offer dual enrollment, partnering with one or more local college/uni. You may wish to check with your local school to see if such an arrangement exists in your area.

Summer courses are also an option, Davidson offers some: THINK

Depending upon the student, CLEP exams may be another way to earn college credits.

I know some detail about two-- there wasn't one close to US either, so we were looking at a major move in order to make it happen, and well, that didn't happen.

I'm WAY less than impressed with a lot of the quality of distance courses. It's fine for credit recovery, but they are (even at the post-secondary level) mostly hit-and-miss at about a 50-50 rate when it comes to being engaging and authentically thoughtful.

I think that a lot depends on your student's particular learning style. Autodidacts seem to do okay with online courses. But recognize that it will definitely be missing the live instruction/interaction component-- no discussions in real time, for example. For some students, that's fine, but for others, it's a big deal. (My dd is one of the latter, let me say that up front-- her ideal learning setting is Socratic.)

Do you have a local college or community college? Many of those institutions are willing to allow high school students to take credit coursework quite early. My DD was taking community college (non-credit) classes at 10 and 11, for example-- though they DO want a parent to be either in the room or in the building, we've found.

Summer session classes would be another good option, though for HG+ kids, I think that the issue is to make high school more challenging and meaningful via differentiation.

We've used the following strategies there:

a) acceleration-- 3y worth

b) AP coursework-- DD has really enjoyed her AP classes, most of which are taught by the best/brightest TEACHERS. That's my insider tip about that.

c) dual enrollment-- but just WHAT this is varies tremendously-- in my DD's case, it is just classes that her high school teachers teach that have the "approval" of the local post-secondary institution

d) many extracurriculars (this is important come college-time, anyway)

e) summer enrichment (internships, etc.)


Some of the early college programs which are residential might be a possibility for some high schoolers. I know that one of the longest running of those is in Seattle at UW. They recruit 14-15yo into that program, and have for decades.

There is one modeled after it in TX, as well. (I know that there are others, it's just that those are the two that I know about.) The students in those programs are housed TOGETHER; they are really supervised quite differently than other college students on the campus, being so much underage.

Thanks. One can take classes at the local community college but there is no Early College programs with our local district. The district claims it's honors math programs are more challenging than the community college classes. There is the possibility of taking classes through extension at the local university but only for classes above AP Classes. Not quite the same as a 'Early College' program.

I will look more at the UW and Texas programs. I know of more than one person who has attended Bard Early College @ Simon's Rock. And a good friend has a son who attended a program in Reno, NV that they loved, but that is only available to Nevada residents.

Bluemagic, if you don't mind me asking, what is the name of the program in Reno?

I'd be careful with early college. You don't want him to be something other than a freshman when he goes to college full-time since most merit awards are only for freshmen. My middle kid got a ton of info from Simon's Rock - just looked expensive and I would rather spend the money on a private college when she reaches college age.

Around here, HS classes would clearly be more challenging than community college classes. There are also three 4-year colleges within a mile of our HS - taking a course or two at those schools would be fine, but I would avoid true early college programs (just my opinion).

In Ohio, students have three options: AP coursework with exams for college credit, Early College (classes taught at the high school by high school faculty for which students receive both high school and college credit), and PSEO (Post-Secondary Enrollment Option where students take some courses at a local university while in high school and receive both high school and college credit).

I can only speak for English (which I teach) and math and history (because I work closely with faculty in those disciplines). We have found PSEO students far outperform AP students in our classes, despite the fact that PSEO students are still in high school and AP students are high school graduates. Certainly, the fact that we are an open-admission public university affects these outcomes. It's also important to note that we are looking at a general student population (we have no way of knowing if a student has been identified as gifted, but it's clear to me that most aren't gifted but simply high-achievers.)

When my DD is in high school, I want her in PSEO classes. One reason is the performance difference, but the other reason is related. I think PSEO students perform better because they take courses designed and taught by faculty who are experts in the field not courses designed by a non-profit that acts like a for-profit corporation.

I think PSEO students perform better because they take courses designed and taught by faculty who are experts in the field not courses designed by a non-profit that acts like a for-profit corporation.


I agree.

I had seen the same pattern in AP versus early college campus students, by the way, in STEM (where I taught).

My oldest daughter took AP homeschool classes during 9th and 10th grades and finished up through a local charter school that has an early college program, so we've experienced both options. I have to say that in general the AP courses/exams were more time intensive then the actual college classes and they were quite spendy as we ultimately had to pay for the AP class, test, transcripts, and a fee to have the college accept the credit; seriously, it was more expensive than just taking those darn classes at the local community college. I do believe that some colleges look more favorably at AP credit though.

The early college program was basically free, so in that sense, it was great. However, going to community college, especially in an urban setting, has it's own distractions and my daughter was too immature to care about attending classes, getting good grades, etc. In hindsight I wish we wouldn't have placed her in an adult learning environment before she was more mature. We've seen some kids really surprise us and thrive in the early college environment and others fail miserably. Like most opportunities, there are pros and cons.

Have you checked with all your local colleges, many times they have early admittance type programs that aren't free, but set up for high achieving high school age kids.