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This is currently the approach used by my daughter's school (and a lot of others in Tennessee), dual enrollment. She has some high school classes and takes a few others at the local community college.

Next year she will be a senior and have one morning class at her high school, and the rest will be college. She should finish her Associate's (2 year) degree two semesters after graduating high school.

Some more academically gifted students have managed to graduate high school and finish their two year degree simultaneously.




>Some more academically gifted students have managed to graduate high school and finish their two year degree simultaneously

I did that, it's not as useful as it seems.


It's more useful than graduating high school and then having to go through two years of mediocre undergraduate courses, no?

What did you find non-useful about it? Did you end up having to take just as much undergraduate coursework to make up for some perceived deficiency?

I'm genuinely curious.


1) Pointless if you want to go to a top school. I don't go to one, so

2) Most dual enrollment programs restrict what coursework you can take. Near zero intersection with my CS coursework, though I did get my general ed requirements done.

3) It's community college, it's not something you can put on a resume.

With the credits I got I'd need to do a heavy schedule to graduate even in 3.


Thanks for the honest and useful response. It'll help me as I counsel my kids on what their options are and what they should do.


I agree with @akhilcacharya and had the same reasoning (ended up not doing the AA in high school for the same reason).

More restrictive set of courses for the AA means you're taking classes you don't enjoy for a requirement you don't need. The "name value" of a community college AA also isn't as great, particularly for kids who want to go to a higher-ranked public or top private university for undergrad.

That being said, if you know you want to go to a local/state school where the credits will transfer easily, getting the AA early can be great. I know people who graduated early but still received all 4 years of scholarship money (direct deposited in their bank).




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