Two years ago, my parents and I made the decision to enroll me in ISchool High, which is a dual-credit high school. Dual-credit high schools are typically charter schools that allow students to simultaneously take high school classes and college classes. This gives students the opportunity to earn college credits and a high school diploma at the same time, and some students even end up graduating with an Associate Degree. So, if you are an incoming freshman or a student who is thinking of taking dual-credit classes, these are some of the things you need to know.
Firstly, you should know the benefits of a dual-credit high school, which are:
Your money and time will be saved. When you transfer to a four-year university, you end up only having to do two more years of college because of the fact that dual credit allows students to get an Associate Degree. The average tuition for in-state colleges in the United States is around $11,000. So, a student who attends college for four-years is paying a total of $44,000 but, a dual-credit student who earned their Associate Degree will only have to pay half of that amount. This makes dual-credit high schools very popular with low-income families or families that have multiple kids since in the long run it saves a lot of time and money.
The transition between high-school and college is easier. Doing dual-credit allows high school students to learn what it is like to be on a college campus since they will know how to handle the complexity of college coursework and how to meet a college professor’s expectations.
Being able to work at your own pace. Since students are taking college classes alongside their high school classes, the classes that you are taking in high school are typically self-paced. Usually, self-paced classes mean that you will complete the lessons as fast as you want and schedule your own tests. Resulting in students being able to manage their time efficiently, which is an extreme long-term benefit.
Secondly, students need to understand the disadvantages regarding dual credit, which are:
Course difficulty. The reason for this is because you are taking college classes when you’re in high school, making it very troublesome for one to get good grades while maintaining other important aspects of your life. What a lot of people do not realize is that you should always prioritize your college classes over your high school classes because the classes you take in college will replace your high school ones, and raise your GPA.
Credit transfer. If you do decide to take dual-credit classes, you have to realize that some of your classes will not transfer to certain universities. For example, if I decided to go to an Ivy League school such as Stanford University or MIT, I would have typically lost at least two semesters of course work because a lot of my credits would not transfer. So, when signing up for classes, make sure to check that those specific classes transfer to the university that you want to go to.
Edited By: Khushi Kumari
Zane is a high school junior from Houston, Texas that goes to ISchool High and does dual-credit classes at Lone Star College. Her favourite subjects are science, specifically Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, and Algebra. After high school, she plans on getting a degree in Chemical Engineering and using that degree to make products environmentally safe and develop solutions to environmental problems.