concurrent enrollment
 

I will graduate from a really small OK HS this May and will be attending OSU. Because my school doesn't offer many advanced or honors classes I did concurrent enrollment at a regional university. I'm really excited about going through formal recruitment, but I'm afraid my concurrent college credits ( I'll still be considered a freshman) will work against me. Do I have a reason to be concerned about this?

The only time it could work against you is if it bumps up your class standing to sophomore*. Since it isn't, you should be fine.

*Even then usually a clarification that it's class standing by credits and that you will be attending for 4 years covers you.

Thanks! Hopefully, I won't have to take as many hours a semester either which will give me more time to devote to my sorority over the next 4 years!

i don't know about all sororities, but zta has a requirement that members be enrolled as full time students-i.e., at least the minimum hours required to be considered a full time student by the university

^^ It sounds like she's concerned that the courses she took in HS will count against her when she gets to college (a la AP/IB course credit)

Yes - she's afraid she will be considered a sophomore and that won't give her the same chance she would have had she been a "normal" freshman.

At some competitive schools, she would indeed have the disadvantages that any sophomore has. It happened to one of our daughters. Since then, we have encouraged our children who do dual enrollment to stop shy of 30 hours, not because of the recruitment disadvantage but because of something worse--at a lot of schools, you're not eligible for first-year scholarships if you passed 30. You actually get discriminated against for excelling!:eek:

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!

Not dumb at all. Many students don't have the chance to do something like this (concurrent enrollment), depending on their location and/or their lack of means.

But the kids who do have access to these programs still deserve to be in the running for aid, should they need it.

Another crappy thing: in many districts if you choose dual enrollment, your diploma is downgraded from Advanced College Prep to College Prep.:eek: Yet in dual enrollment, you take and usually get credit for the college courses that Advanced College Prep students struggle through AP courses to get credit for.

For many years, other Spanish teachers/professors and I have advised high school students to either do dual enrollment (usually they test into at least the second semester of college Spanish if they've had 3 years in high school) or take a 4th year in high school and merely take the placement test when they start college. With 4 years, many students place into college Spanish at the junior level. Forget the stress of the AP course and test! What does that get you? If you score a 3, 4, or 5, you get into the second semester.

Sidenote: Is this designation a big deal? I was on the "Distinguished" track, but I never acknowledged that after graduating high school. Does it carry over into college in other places?

I've never heard of such a thing (ACP vs CP). And yeah, what does it really matter? You get into college before you get your diploma.

That's my point. I don't think a lot of them need it as much. The kids who are really strapped were working at McDonald's 30 hours a week instead of taking college classes. That's been my experience, anyway.

In some school districts, it's a huge big deal only we realized early on that it was only on the student's transcript (not even the diploma) and that the colleges didn't seem to care much about that--only the GPA and the standardized test scores. So our oldest did the Advanced College Prep thing and the rest have done either College Prep or College Prep with dual enrollment.

We're talking about full rides in some cases, not some $500 supplement! A lot of students know exactly which award they're aiming for at which school.

She said she's still considered a freshman, which suggests that she doesn't have 30 hours (or 24 or whatever the standard for that school is.)

But then, shouldn't they be done in only three years? If you have a year less to pay for, isn't that the same as getting a one-year free ride?

concurrent enrollment
 

K. I've only taken 15 hrs., so I'm still a freshman. I understand that I have to enroll in at least 12 hrs to be considered a full-time student, and at this point my unweighted H.S. GPA is 4.0 and my college GPA is 4.0, also. I still plan to attend college for 4 years (I've waited my whole life for this, why would I want to cut it short?), taking concurrent classes was not my way of finishing on the "fast-track". I've done community service, held student government positions, and been active in school organizations. My question was more about how the chapters may view my college credit. Is having completed these college classes going to cause me grief during recruitment?

Shouldn't, no. It should reflect well on you more than anything.

Thanks. I'm sure that I'm not the only PNM that will have college credits on their transcript. I wouldn't have thought anything about it, but an alumna suggested that I not tell any of the chapters. My recruitment forms specifically ask for college information and I felt like it would be dishonest not to include it. The chapters would find out anyway when they checked my grades with the university, and that would be way worse than being upfront. Anyway, her suggestion made it seem like it was a really bad thing.

Unless there's something I'm not thinking of that wasn't addressed upthread, I don't know why it would be a bad thing.

Pandora, as concurrent enrollment is pretty common in Oklahoma, I can't see this working against you. Surely this is something which comes up all the time.

You don't have to be below the federal poverty line to need financial aid.