Dual enrollment seems misguided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I've never understood it myself. My kid takes a lot of APs. Why does he need a subpar community college course? He's aiming for a selective college. If he doesn't get in anyway, he'd rather spend his time in high school rather than shuttling back and forth to a community college.

This actually sounds like OP write this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll take a gander - because you are succeeding in a college course. Most of College is really an executive function test and I would think if you show maturity in high school this would reflect well upon your college career. Also there is a financial incentive. If you go to MoCo community college, for instance, UMD HAS to accept your c.c. Credits - so you are ‘ahead’ of the game and can graduate a little earlier. UMD College Park is Harvard for most middle class kids...

What I don’t get is why most kids just don’t sit the GED in 10th grade (if they want to graduate early) and just enter Community College in the junior year of high school. That makes more sense than getting one credit free a semester while in high school.

I don't know how it works in different MD counties, but where we live, dual enrollment isn't free and each class is 3 credits, so I don't know what you mean by getting one free credit a semester.

B/c if the four year university the kids ends up transferring to ends up accepting the credits, they aren’t paying for - as an example- a year of that school. I think that’s the point the person above was trying to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"To be blunt OP, it doesn’t make sense to you because you are living in a different universe than they are. I don’t mean that in an insulting way."

OP here. Thank you. I get what you're saying. The parents I know who are supportive of their kids doing these programs are mainly those who didn't graduate from 4-yr schools or who came here as adults from other countries. They're all in upper middle class school districts where most kids are college bound and feel they're giving their kids the best shot at life. I feel like they're being misled into thinking this is going to put their kid on the fast track to college, as in they think it will help their child get admitted to the flagship state school. These are kids who might have been accepted to that flagship had they stayed on campus and taken the fourth year of French, math, or history, etc... that the more competitive schools want to see on the transcript.

To graduate, all kids need four years of math and history (science and English), so I still don’t get your point. Some dual enrolled kids will take a fourth year of a language and some won’t. Some non dual enrolled kids will take a fourth year of a language and some won’t. Neither is right or wrong and neither is doing a disservice to their kids.

How many parents of kids taking dual enrolled classes do you know, where you also know the parents’ college education track OR their age at their immigration to America?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll take a gander - because you are succeeding in a college course. Most of College is really an executive function test and I would think if you show maturity in high school this would reflect well upon your college career. Also there is a financial incentive. If you go to MoCo community college, for instance, UMD HAS to accept your c.c. Credits - so you are ‘ahead’ of the game and can graduate a little earlier. UMD College Park is Harvard for most middle class kids...

What I don’t get is why most kids just don’t sit the GED in 10th grade (if they want to graduate early) and just enter Community College in the junior year of high school. That makes more sense than getting one credit free a semester while in high school.

I don't know how it works in different MD counties, but where we live, dual enrollment isn't free and each class is 3 credits, so I don't know what you mean by getting one free credit a semester.

B/c if the four year university the kids ends up transferring to ends up accepting the credits, they aren’t paying for - as an example- a year of that school. I think that’s the point the person above was trying to make.

I'm the PP you're replying to and I was responding to the last paragraph, which is why I said, "getting one free credit a semester."

[Anonymous]

Not all kids are eligible to take AP classes so this is a great program for kids who are not eligible or prefer this path. Many of us will struggle to pay for college and graduate school. I support this path as we can than more comfortably pay for graduate school as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"To be blunt OP, it doesn’t make sense to you because you are living in a different universe than they are. I don’t mean that in an insulting way."

OP here. Thank you. I get what you're saying. The parents I know who are supportive of their kids doing these programs are mainly those who didn't graduate from 4-yr schools or who came here as adults from other countries. They're all in upper middle class school districts where most kids are college bound and feel they're giving their kids the best shot at life. I feel like they're being misled into thinking this is going to put their kid on the fast track to college, as in they think it will help their child get admitted to the flagship state school. These are kids who might have been accepted to that flagship had they stayed on campus and taken the fourth year of French, math, or history, etc... that the more competitive schools want to see on the transcript.

To graduate, all kids need four years of math and history (science and English), so I still don’t get your point. Some dual enrolled kids will take a fourth year of a language and some won’t. Some non dual enrolled kids will take a fourth year of a language and some won’t. Neither is right or wrong and neither is doing a disservice to their kids.

How many parents of kids taking dual enrolled classes do you know, where you also know the parents’ college education track OR their age at their immigration to America?

All of the dually enrolled students I know have college educated (4 year degrees or more) parents who are from the US. Many of those kids also take AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Depends on your situation. I know of some low income kids that got two year degree in high school and then two years at a university and graduated at 20 with next to no debt. Not stupid, however much some schools and some parents may pretend otherwise.

Name the school and source for your assertion or it’s not credible.

NP here.

One school that has an expanding program like this is Montgomery College. Beyond just Dual Enrollment classes for HS and a Middle College program at a couple of HS (with classes at the HS), there is now an Early College program. Students spend their 11th and 12th grade year taking classes at an MC campus and complete their HS diploma as well as an AA or AS 2-yr degree. It's a pretty impressive list of programs, including Business, Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Nursing, Biology, and Biotechnology.
https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/high-school-students/dual-enrollment/degree-and-pathway-programs/early-college-program.html

There are transfer agreements already in place with many universities, including University of Maryland, College Park, which has some guaranteed transfer programs.
https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/transfer/agreements-and-information/index.html

I know of two kids who recently dropped out of an MCPS magnet program to complete an Early College program. Although the AS/AA can be used to transfer to another school and graduate early, it doesn't prevent kids from applying as a freshman to schools that won't accept the transfer credits. Students don't have to be at their HS to run around and do the typical HS athletics and clubs activities to demonstrate passions and leadership. There are plenty of other ways to show that. Dual enrollment isn't "misguided". It's just another way to show academic strength and move forward on a degree pathway with guaranteed credits at many schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I've never understood it myself. My kid takes a lot of APs. Why does he need a subpar community college course? He's aiming for a selective college. If he doesn't get in anyway, he'd rather spend his time in high school rather than shuttling back and forth to a community college.

If he'd rather stay at the high school and take APs, then he should do that.

For my kid, there was no shuttling back and forth as all the classes were at the community college which was much closer to us than the high school. And dual enrollment turned out to be a great option during the pandemic as a number of the community college teachers had offered online classes for years and were very skilled at teaching them.

[Anonymous]

Dual enrollment was invented to prop up community colleges as their enrollment numbers have been suffering for the past decade. It also fills in the gap from our lagging k-12 system. Community college is simply what 11th and 12th grade was a decade or two ago.

If your student attends a rigorous k-12, dual enrollment is not attractive or necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dual enrollment was invented to prop up community colleges as their enrollment numbers have been suffering for the past decade. It also fills in the gap from our lagging k-12 system. Community college is simply what 11th and 12th grade was a decade or two ago.

If your student attends a rigorous k-12, dual enrollment is not attractive or necessary.

Source?

100% false. I taught several classes at NVCC, the earliest of which was in the mid 90s. There were a few dual enrolled kids in my classes back then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dual enrollment was invented to prop up community colleges as their enrollment numbers have been suffering for the past decade. It also fills in the gap from our lagging k-12 system. Community college is simply what 11th and 12th grade was a decade or two ago.

If your student attends a rigorous k-12, dual enrollment is not attractive or necessary.

Source?

100% false. I taught several classes at NVCC, the earliest of which was in the mid 90s. There were a few dual enrolled kids in my classes back then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dual enrollment was invented to prop up community colleges as their enrollment numbers have been suffering for the past decade. It also fills in the gap from our lagging k-12 system. Community college is simply what 11th and 12th grade was a decade or two ago.

If your student attends a rigorous k-12, dual enrollment is not attractive or necessary.

Why not? Do rigorous k-12s offer Linear Algebra and Differential Equations? I have a gifted math student who started with DE classes in 10th grade, when he took a more advanced Calculus, then Linear Algebra, then Differential Equations. These were not offered at his school at the time.

My other son took DE classes in Gen Ed subject matter after the debacle that was the online AP exams in 2020. He had to take one of the exams twice when he wasn't able to submit his answers the first time and it was hugely stressful. We didn't want to take the risk the next year. Another benefit for DE classes, as opposed to AP, is that the course is covered in a semester, rather than a year. That means you can take two DE courses in the time it takes for one AP class. The semester nature of DE classes was appealing last year when high schools used the semester-based block scheduling, which meant that if you had an AP class in the fall, you didn't take the AP exam until the Spring

Finally, in my county, students receiving FARMS take these DE courses free of charge. Everyone else pays half of what the courses would be at CC. Maybe it's not the best path for the very top schools, but most schools do accept these classes for credit and the cost savings is huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dual enrollment was invented to prop up community colleges as their enrollment numbers have been suffering for the past decade. It also fills in the gap from our lagging k-12 system. Community college is simply what 11th and 12th grade was a decade or two ago.

If your student attends a rigorous k-12, dual enrollment is not attractive or necessary.

NP-AP classes aren't "necessary," either.

And, I'd like to see the source of this info, too.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Big fan of DE classes. For an undecided student entering college it opens up slots to be able to take other general eds and expand their horizons to help decide what they like. So instead of taking english and history his first year (state school), he took those in high school and is now able to take a huge variety of classes not available and he is having a great time his first year.

He would not have passed AP exams, and we didn't have to pay the money for them. DE is good for a lot of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"To be blunt OP, it doesn’t make sense to you because you are living in a different universe than they are. I don’t mean that in an insulting way."

OP here. Thank you. I get what you're saying. The parents I know who are supportive of their kids doing these programs are mainly those who didn't graduate from 4-yr schools or who came here as adults from other countries. They're all in upper middle class school districts where most kids are college bound and feel they're giving their kids the best shot at life. I feel like they're being misled into thinking this is going to put their kid on the fast track to college, as in they think it will help their child get admitted to the flagship state school. These are kids who might have been accepted to that flagship had they stayed on campus and taken the fourth year of French, math, or history, etc... that the more competitive schools want to see on the transcript.

Nope. Advanced degrees/non-immigrant family here. Like pp's have said, I don't think we can explain this so I give up.