About community college credits...

[Whitneyz]

If my dd takes Elementary Spanish I her first semester at the community college nearby which is a 3 credit course does that count as a year for high school? Is that too rigorous for a high school student? She's actually almost done the first level of Rosetta Stone Spanish her 9th and 10th grade at home.

If it counts as a high school credit and they allow her to take up to 2
courses per semester, than she could cover quite a bit of high school in her last 2 years of school completing it at the community college, right? Does that make sense? Others must be doing this?

Thanks,
Whitney

[LoriM]

Not for foreign language...one semester of college Spanish is not a full year of Spanish. So, while she will only need four courses of college Spanish to meet the general education requirements for most BA or BS degrees, you shouldn't count that as four "years" of Spanish. Personally, I'd designate it as "Spanish III" and "Spanish IV" on her high school transcript, since she's already done "Spanish I" and "Spanish II" in her 9th and 10th grade years.

But yes, you certainly can count *other* courses as a full credit for high school. My daughter actually graduated from high school with an associate degree, but our CC doesn't limit the students to 2 courses per semester. My younger dd is currently taking five courses at the CC.

HTH,

Lori

[Janet in WA]

In our state's dual enrollment program, a one-semester (3 credit) or one-quarter (5 credit) cc class is awarded a full high school credit (the equivalent of a full-year high school class). So, regardless of whether anyone thinks a one-quarter cc Spanish class equals the content of a full year of Spanish at a high school, it is still counted as one full high school credit.

[kate in seattle]

:iagree:
that's certainly how it works in WA state.

and who am i to argue with governmental credit granting agencies?

[LoriM]

Well, I'll add that I was stingy with CC credits in the high school transcript, and my daughter still graduated high school with a ridiculous number of credits. LOL! Since "dual enrolled" didn't mean "hands off" for me, I set the standards for my high school (and didn't really care what the local government schools did). In our house:

Spanish 111/Spanish 112 (six CC credit hours) = Spanish II
Spanish 211/Spanish 212 (six CC credit hours) = Spanish III
Spanish 161 (Cultural Immersion, travel abroad, plus coursework, writing intensive) = Honors Spanish IV

Some other courses I combined for 1 credit in high school were English 111/113 = English III, English 231/232 = Honors American Literature (and was separate from her English IV credit).

So, anyway, YMMV, but I required much of my daughter in high school. :)

[Kareni]

Our state university also considers one three credit community college course (on the quarter system) to be the equivalent of one high school credit. That seemed a tad too generous for my taste, so I equated one three to five credit course as being the equivalent of 1/2 of a high school credit.

I decided to do this based on math classes. My teen took College Algebra (a 5 hour class) and Trigonometry (a 4 hour class) which I equated to one year of high school level PreCalculus thus 1/2 credit for each component. If I had used their method, this would have been equal to two high school credits. You can start to see the disconnect!

Regards,
Kareni

[K-FL]

Our system doesn't limit the # of classes under dual-enrollment (but they do limit what classes they'll pay for) so dd#1 will finish her AA when her peers are graduating hs. I did count 1 semester of cc as 1 hs credit. In the big scheme of things, IMO, it won't really matter what I put on her hs transcript since they'll require a college transcript sent anyway.

[Ellie]

If my dd takes Elementary Spanish I her first semester at the community college nearby which is a 3 credit course does that count as a year for high school? Is that too rigorous for a high school student? She's actually almost done the first level of Rosetta Stone Spanish her 9th and 10th grade at home.

If it counts as a high school credit and they allow her to take up to 2
courses per semester, than she could cover quite a bit of high school in her last 2 years of school completing it at the community college, right? Does that make sense? Others must be doing this?

Thanks,
Whitney
One semester of college credit equals one year of high school credit.

I can't give you an exact number, but I can tell you that there was a large number of hsers in Calif taking c.c. courses, including my two dds, and we all gave our dc one year's high school credit for one semester of c.c., regardless of how many credits were earned at the c.c.

[mjbucks1]

I would just also like to add that when I was in college (I graduated 15 years ago), I was a biology and biochemistry major. We covered my first year of high school chemistry in ONE QUARTER, and my second year of high school chemistry in the next quarter. The third quarter was then new material. This was just my experience, but college does move quite a bit quicker than high school...not that we should necessarily judge our schooling by the public school standards. I for one would like for my childrens education to be a bit more rigorous.