AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2006 > May > 03 > Entry
Dual Enrollment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Someone mentioned this on the previous thread. It seems too good to be true. A motivated student takes a course at a nearby college and gets high school credit and college credit. Here’s the 411.
There may be a downside to Dual Enrollment. A couple of years ago I was doing one of those “Wow, it’s hard to get into UGA!” stories and a high-ranking admissions officer at UGA told me Dual Enrollment does not help toward college admissions the way AP and IB do. Why? For starters, college courses vary widely depending on institution and instructor, and there is no standardized exam or curriculum. Also, the admissions officer said his office had tracked kids who opted for Dual Enrollment over AP or IB and found they did not do as well in college as those who took AP or IB. He said he was especially unimpressed with Dual Enrollment courses taken at the local high school, when a professor comes to the school to teach a class of high schoolers. These courses tended to be not enough like “real college courses,” the admissions guy said.
Take this with a grain ‘o salt, just something to consider. He is just one person, and he left UGA for, I believe, Florida. I’ll put in a call to UGA and see if this is still their line of thought and report back…
Meanwhile, do you like Dual Enrollment? Parents? Teachers? Counselors? Admissions people? Kids? Tell us your experiences…
Comments
By SET
May 3, 2006 02:40 PM | Link to this
I did a dual enrollment at the beginning of 12th grade at UC Berkeley in 1972. I attended summer school each summer of high school because my parents wanted all of us out of the house - so by start of 12th grade I had my graduation requirements and UC admission requirements almost done. The dual enrollment program took HS students from the entire bay area - your HS had to agree to your placement (they had so many slots per school).
It was a good experience - what was most interesting in hindsight is that at that time anyone who started on the high school program at UC was “admitted” to the University for all purposes. So I didn’t have the experience of my classmates of shopping around for college, college tours, and waiting for acceptances. Did I miss something?
By December High School was even more of a joke than it would have been. I had done well at college - but only taking a one class at a time. So I took early graduation at HS and signed up for a full load of classes at UC for January. The year was a blur - I didn’t fully belong in either world. I didn’t live at college - commuting created problems. I was just gone mentally a physically from the entire Sr year of HS. Later at HS reunions I realized I’d missed the time with my graduating class.
Like every other choice you make at that age there is a price to pay for the dual enrollment. No one seemed to think there was at the time. “Isn’t this great!!?” I suppose I’d do it again. But I lost something in the process that I can’t quite put a price on. That’s life. Probably I was lucky the way I moved out of HS and into college as a non-event.
College was more stimulating by a large degree than HS. But commuting to college is not a good thing. Dual enrollment means more commuting than anyone.
By Jeff
May 3, 2006 02:58 PM | Link to this
I did Joint Enrollment back in the day. Became a junior at Kennesaw State by the time I walked across the stage at HS graduation. Dunno about how the transfer works out, but that depends moer on the school you do the program with than anything. I know a lot of kids that left KSU after HS grdaution, I know many that stayed. All in all it was a very beneficial program to all.
By Robert
May 3, 2006 03:14 PM | Link to this
I did joint enrollment while a senior in HS with a local Junior College (that is what it was way back then). While I did earn college credits, I think that in the long run it hurt me.
Why? Because as a freshman, I already had credits and was not pushed academically. I “coasted” my first year so that when I finally did have to take real classes my sophomore year at GA Tech, I just wasn’t ready. My GPA dropped like a rock during my sophomore year. I took my junior and senior year for my gpa to recover.
By MrLiberty
May 3, 2006 04:15 PM | Link to this
My High School english teacher also taught at the Junior College. He arranged to have his Advanced Placement english class qualify for credits both at the High School and at the junior college. A good grade in this class, combined with a great score on AP English, and American History, meant that I was fortunate enough to get out of the Humanities Core requirement at the University of California, Irvine campus. It also meant that I was a sophomore by my second quarter of classes. I know I didn’t miss anything because I knew plenty who had to take all of these classes. Basically they were just a “weeder” mechanism to get rid of biology majors (55% of the incoming freshman class).
Like the other poster, passing on all these classes did allow me to coast a bit, but being 16 as a college freshman, straight out of an all-boys high school, I had plenty of other things to keep me busy. Thankfully for the hard work I put in while in high school I was able to handle my difficult biology major while still finding plenty of time to party, go to the beach, etc. and still graduate with an acceptable GPA.
I would also have to agree with the poster who said that commuting to college was horrible. Agreed. The college experience is best experienced from a college dorm room or student apartment.
By OldSchool
May 3, 2006 04:29 PM | Link to this
We have several students dual enrolled at our area technical college. This works very well indeed. It is also one reason many high schools are dropping expensive CTAE (vocational) programs. If students can get the training at the tech college, why offer the same thing at the high school?
I will be working with the technical college instructor to better align our Engineering Drawing courses for next year. While dual enrollment may be iffy for academics, it works for technical students.
By V for Vendetta
May 4, 2006 08:04 AM | Link to this
As long as it’s a TRUE reflection of what a college course is like, then I have no problem with it, but as others have said, if it is dumbed down AT ALL, it can have serious consequences later on. Wow, that was a long sentence.
By Karen Armsby
May 4, 2006 09:44 AM | Link to this
Mr. Liberty, Good Morning and good comments!
My kids graduated in ‘00, 03, and ‘04 and I discouraged joint enrollment and encouraged AP classes for these reasons. 1. Commute time to and from college classes and having my teenagers on Atlanta highways more than I was comfortable with. 2. HS students get college credit from the joint enrollment classes, but depending on the college the students eventually enroll in, not all colleges will allow the transfer credits toward their requirements. 3. AP classes result in college credit IF the student scores according to the college’s requirement for AP equivalent credit. You can usually get the list of AP credit allowed off the college websites.
4. AP classes and exams are nationally recognized and so college admissions committees have an equivalent measure to assess rather than guessing at the quality of the joint enrollment college course taken. 5. I knew some joint enrollment kids who made poor choices of new older friends in their college classes, with resulting sex, drugs, and behavior problems at home. I know that can happen at high school, too.
6. I had two kids in HS sports and the joint enrollment schedule doesn’t always work well with the HS sport schedule.
By Jeff
May 4, 2006 10:46 AM | Link to this
All,
I know that in my case it was the actual college classes, with the same professors as everybody else. Only one of my JE classes was a solely JE class, and even that was with a prof that had other regular classes.
Was junior and senior year harder? Most def. But that is the case for everybody!
By Reader
May 4, 2006 12:29 PM | Link to this
Several girls in our regular circle of baby-sitters have gone this route. One big advantage I see to it is that it allows kids to see the difference between high school & college classes, while they still have a safety net in place. I’m thinking they may be less tempted by the party life when they go off to college if they realize from the beginning that college work is more demanding. As another stated, however, it can really eat into the traditional high school life. Very often kids drop out of sports or other activities. I personally wouldn’t allow my children to take more than one dual enrollment class at a time
By SET
May 4, 2006 12:49 PM | Link to this
Thinking of the earlier blog on teaching Chinese in High School…
Locally some of our High School Students dual enroll in the local Jr. College for Automotive Mechanics classes. they are tearing down engines and working on engine design problems while still 16 or 17.
The High Schools can’t afford to staff and equip such a program and placing the resources at the local Jr college better allows for screening of wanna-be’s.
I have seen that the Jr. College has their own Police Dept and can remove and bar from campus any “student” summarily for a day upon orders of an instructor, then indefinitely with the signature of the Dean.
They have a bounce technique that would be a marvel for any high school. The bounced “student” can have a hearing - with no attorney permitted - and can later appeal his or her exclusion to the elected board of trustees (Then sue in court if he or she has the funding). No one has been reinstated yet against the wish of the administration. So they keep the place real clean.
The Jr. Colleges here are adding one vocational school after another, and their graduates are in some cases starting at $60k a year. I’d love to see tighter co-ordination and dual programming between the high schools and the Jr. Colleges. As I describe what I have seen I realize that the selectivity (but they are not really selective) and the real discipline is what is making the Jr College deliver what the High Schools can’t.