When Michaela Kron entered New York University in 2008, she already had a few college credits under her belt. She'd earned high marks on her Advanced Placement exams and tested out of nearly a year's worth of classes at NYU.
"I realized that I could arrange my schedule so that if I took a couple of summer courses, I could graduate a year early and save a ton of money," she says. That was especially helpful since her only aid was a small merit award, hardly enough to dent the more than $41,000 in tuition and fees that NYU charged in 2011-2012, the year she skipped.
Participating in classes and exams through AP – and other college equivalency programs – can do more than give bright high schoolers the chance to explore favorite school subjects, work with challenging teachers and stand out on college applications. Some high-achieving secondary students can test out of college credits, even graduating from college early and saving a semester or more of tuition money.
Here's what to know.
• Students can earn credit in several ways.After enrolling in AP or International Baccalaureatecourses, which demand more rigor than traditional high school courses, students can earn college credit by taking a related exam in the spring.
The details of the programs vary. Students in the IB program can earn a special diploma, which may fast-track them to sophomore standing at some colleges, or certificates for taking individual exams. AP classes offer more of an a la carte approach. And students don't always need to take the courses to sit for the exams.
Students may also explore dual enrollment at a local college in which they earn both postsecondary and high school credit and take a real college course. The credits earned from dual enrollment "tend to be more portable," meaning that they translate more easily to college credit, says Kristin Klopfenstein, founding executive director of the University of Northern Colorado's Education Innovation Institute.
• Transferring credits can be a challenge."The earning of [college] credits is an entirely different conversation from the transferring of credits," says Phil Trout, college counselor at Minnetonka High School in Minnesota and president-elect at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Credit transfer policies vary by university – and can even vary by department within a single school, says Klopfenstein. The College Board, which administers the AP exams, provides a credit policy search tool, but students may have to keep digging or consult with an adviser to get the full scoop. IB is launching a new similar tool this summer, says a spokeswoman. In the meantime, students can download an index of university policies.
And some universities have tamped down on accepting certain credits. Brown University doesn't accept AP test scores for credit although some departments allow students to waive introductory courses. It does, however, accept IB scores for course credit under certain circumstances. Dartmouth Collegestudents can use AP scores for credit or to skip courses but not for graduation credit.
Read the full story at U.S. News and World Report.
Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at the StanfordGraduate School of Educationand co-founder of Challenge Success
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
