Anonymous wrote:The Early College Program has an entrance GPA of 2.75, and people seriously think this is the option that will provide a more rigorous cohort????

Anonymous wrote:The Early College Program has an entrance GPA of 2.75, and people seriously think this is the option that will provide a more rigorous cohort????

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in DE so IB is worthless.
My kid is in IB so DE is worthless.

Gotta love DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:Yep, it’s not DCUM unless the smug character feeling superior to the rest makes an entrance. We almost missed you!

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Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

That’s just speculation. You can demonstrate you can handle college level classes in more than one way. For top tier like ivy you won’t get any credit anyways, but you might place out of introductory classes. You can also take an exam placement.

You can call it speculation if you want but it is informed speculation. For kids aiming for top 30 schools, there is no advantage to DE at a community college unless your HS offers a limited number of AP classes. DE is useful if you plan to go to UMD and you want to try and graduate early. The AA degree in HS has you taking lame courses like PE and Health at MC. They also take basic classes like Intro to communications. Do you think top colleges are impressed with that?

I would think it would depend on the content and rigor of the class since Intro to Communications might actually be helpful for a Communciations, Marketing, or Mass Media major. Same w/ Health if you are panning a degree in Nursing, Allied Health, or even Pre-Med.

Communication is one of the easiest college majors. They really don’t care if you have already done intro to communications which is a much easier class at MC than any AP. Also, how do you not know that Health is generally a joke class. Some of you parents are pretty clueless

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

That’s just speculation. You can demonstrate you can handle college level classes in more than one way. For top tier like ivy you won’t get any credit anyways, but you might place out of introductory classes. You can also take an exam placement.

You can call it speculation if you want but it is informed speculation. For kids aiming for top 30 schools, there is no advantage to DE at a community college unless your HS offers a limited number of AP classes. DE is useful if you plan to go to UMD and you want to try and graduate early. The AA degree in HS has you taking lame courses like PE and Health at MC. They also take basic classes like Intro to communications. Do you think top colleges are impressed with that?

I would think it would depend on the content and rigor of the class since Intro to Communications might actually be helpful for a Communciations, Marketing, or Mass Media major. Same w/ Health if you are panning a degree in Nursing, Allied Health, or even Pre-Med.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

That’s just speculation. You can demonstrate you can handle college level classes in more than one way. For top tier like ivy you won’t get any credit anyways, but you might place out of introductory classes. You can also take an exam placement.

You can call it speculation if you want but it is informed speculation. For kids aiming for top 30 schools, there is no advantage to DE at a community college unless your HS offers a limited number of AP classes. DE is useful if you plan to go to UMD and you want to try and graduate early. The AA degree in HS has you taking lame courses like PE and Health at MC. They also take basic classes like Intro to communications. Do you think top colleges are impressed with that?

I would think it would depend on the content and rigor of the class since Intro to Communications might actually be helpful for a Communciations, Marketing, or Mass Media major. Same w/ Health if you are panning a degree in Nursing, Allied Health, or even Pre-Med.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

That’s just speculation. You can demonstrate you can handle college level classes in more than one way. For top tier like ivy you won’t get any credit anyways, but you might place out of introductory classes. You can also take an exam placement.

You can call it speculation if you want but it is informed speculation. For kids aiming for top 30 schools, there is no advantage to DE at a community college unless your HS offers a limited number of AP classes. DE is useful if you plan to go to UMD and you want to try and graduate early. The AA degree in HS has you taking lame courses like PE and Health at MC. They also take basic classes like Intro to communications. Do you think top colleges are impressed with that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

That’s just speculation. You can demonstrate you can handle college level classes in more than one way. For top tier like ivy you won’t get any credit anyways, but you might place out of introductory classes. You can also take an exam placement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Counselor is absolutely correct. The rest of you are ill informed. The ivy’s and next tier schools are not like UMD. They prefer AP and IB. And you should try asking some HS kids about their experience. They will tell you that AP classes are harder than CC classes.

Anonymous wrote:Montgomery College Dual Enrollment and the early/middle programs offer a lot of opportunity, but it's complicated and not well understood even locally, so I wouldn't trust out of state colleges to understand and appreciate it.
They know what AP and IB are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a private college counselor for my oldest who is a rising junior. We are fortunate as we can afford full pay at any US college. The college advisor told us that the top 25 colleges look more favourably at AP credits vs. MC credits. She discouraged my son from signing up for MC classes even though his MCPS HS heavily pushes MC classes. Obviously, a kid needing to graduate early from college (UMD) because of financial reasons might make a different choice

I’d strongly encourage you to ask for a refund from your college counselor.

I second this.

Anonymous wrote:Trying to fine tune the advanced coursework to make the student more competitive to colleges is misguided in my opinions. The goal is to demonstrate intellectual curiosity, drive and competence, AP, DE and IB are all fine for this purpose, although IB has some disadvantages compared to the other two.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Montgomery College Dual Enrollment and the early/middle programs offer a lot of opportunity, but it's complicated and not well understood even locally, so I wouldn't trust out of state colleges to understand and appreciate it.
They know what AP and IB are.

This! All of these provide kids with access to advance course work and potentially could be used for college. However what matters when applying to college is what the colleges and universities understand about the programs. This is why it would behoove MCPS to update their website to clearly explain these thing generally and more precisely on each schools website that offers a specialized program. Further they need local counselors, principals, APs, and department heads to clearly understand the options and be making recommendations thoughtfully to students.

It’s communication and proper academic advising that is really needed. In high school there should be Counselors in the wellness centers dedicated to well being(physical, emotional, mental health) and a separate set of counselors dedicated to academics (grades, support, advising, programs options with other teaching staff).