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 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
