High School Student/Full-Time College Student

My daughter just turned 16. She is really very intelligent and is interested in becoming a medical doctor. Even though she is still in high school, she wants to explore attending college online (taking 3 or 4 credit courses) while attending high school. Her baccalaureate degree interest is in biology, health science, pre-medicine, or any health related program. I’ve three questions related to this.

1. Are there any online, fully (state or regional) US accredited institutions that would allow her to do this? She is not interested in DETC accreditation at this time.

2. Would these schools consider a student that doesn’t yet have some sort of a high school leaving certificate.

3. Would she be able to apply for financial aid while still a high school student.

 

Q1 & Q2: I just checked the CSUDH and Coastline Community College catalogs and both have provisions for accepting high school students.
Q3: I have no idea - some time ago I heard such students did not pay tuition (in CA state schools).

So I suggest you review catalogs of schools that interests you.

I've not checked it out but perhaps she could study independently and take tests such as CLEP, DSST, and GRE for credit.

 

Maybe she could write the CLEP general education examinations that align with the courses she is taking in high school and maybe some additional outside reading? It would have been great to have such an option back when I was in high school during the Dark Ages.

 

You may want to check with a local community college. They often offer college courses concurrent with High School Courses. If your daughter's school has AP or IB courses, try and take them. You may also want to try and take some courses from the USDA Grad School or Penn Foster College, as they may not have an age requirement, and are good for ACE Credit. (Though not all colleges accept them...)

 

I believe there is a member on this forum, Shawn A, whose children attend the Clovis Community College and some other schools via DL, while still studying for their home-school diploma. Maybe you could send him a PM asking him to stop by this thread and give you some pointers. Clovis in particular has been discussed several times on this board as a cheap DL option, so you could also do a search on it.

 

Let me answer your questions:

1. Charter Oak will if she has earned 9 college credits. This can be done through CLEP, AP, etc. Clovis Community College will let her enroll as well; so will LSU Independent Study. I would also check with community colleges in your area. They deal with this issue all the time.

2. As long as you make it clear that she is dual-enrolled, there shouldn't be an issue.

3. No - she is not eligible for Title IV Student Aid until she is a high school graduate.

Let me know if I can help. My daughter first started at Clovis and Clepping when she was 14. She has accumulated 36 credits and will graduate with an AA from Charter Oak in June.

Shawn

 

My daughter just turned 16. She is really very intelligent and is interested in becoming a medical doctor. Even though she is still in high school, she wants to explore attending college online (taking 3 or 4 credit courses) while attending high school. Her baccalaureate degree interest is in biology, health science, pre-medicine, or any health related program. Kudos to your daughter!! My first question, does her high school offer Advanced Placement courses, and if so, is she enrolled in EVERY one open to her? That's the first step of building a competitive college application, not earning college credits.
I’ve three questions related to this.

1. Are there any online, fully (state or regional) US accredited institutions that would allow her to do this? She is not interested in DETC accreditation at this time. If she can't get AP classes, your next stop should be your local community college. MANY of them (over 90%) offer online classes, and there are possibly already programs in place for students like her. In some cases, there are programs called "Dual Enrollment" that allow her to double dip classes. Also, in some cases, these are free. The choices may be limited to 10 or so offerings, but this would be a great first step. I know she is 16 and can technically enroll in anything she wants, but the difference with this option- is that she is getting high school credit too.

2. Would these schools consider a student that doesn’t yet have some sort of a high school leaving certificate. Community colleges are open enrollment for people age 16+, and private schools usually have an application process for students like her.

3. Would she be able to apply for financial aid while still a high school student. No, but taking 1 class at a time shouldn't break the bank, and again, some dual enrollment programs are FREE. Even if she has to pay, earning credit locally (and this can mean online) allow her to put together an AS degree that is inside of an articulation agreement into your state college/university for pre-med/science, etc. She could be within a semeter of earning a fully articulating AS degree by the time she graduates high school! Articulation agreements are excellent ways to get into a 4 year college, and coming in with loose undergrad credits taken from here/there/CLEP/online don't have the same promise.

 

Just want to add to Jennifer's comments - she is right on with her recommendations. Since our family homeschools in a rural area in Wisconsin, we aren't able to use a lot of Jen's suggestions. That's why our daughter is going to earn the AA from Charter Oak - having the AA means A LOT more than having a bunch of loose credits around.

Shawn

 

Have you checked with the state you reside in? Many now offer free college programs. For example here in NC, we have NC virtual public schools and a program called Learn and Earn. Learn and Earn allow students to be enrolled in high school and to take college courses for free, so that they earn high school and college credit. In some cases the parents may have to just purchase the textbook. I would also check to see if there are any Early College programs in your area. we have one in the district where I work and if students remain an extra year after high school, they can earn a free Associates of Arts from a community college.

 

This response is based on the assumption that you are in Florida as indicated on your registration at this site and that your daughter is a high school student in Florida. The perspective that I bring to this thread is that of a current high school guidance counselor in a Florida public high school.

If your daughter is intent on earning college credit while in high school, the most logical method would be through dual enrollment. I cannot imagine a public high school in Florida not having a dual enrollment option available with the local community college. In my district, students may take dual enrollment classes at the community college or on-line through the local CC. Other schools in our district offer the DE courses right on their own campus. There are three advantages to DE …
1. The credits apply to their high school graduation requirement
2. The credits apply for the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship
3. The district pays for the tuition and for the books.

In order for credits to apply for high school graduation a district must have an articulation agreement with the specific college granting the credit. The accreditation of the college does not matter. We have two colleges in town, the local community college and another small business college that is also SACS accredited. We had some students take courses at the business college in the evening. Could they do this? Sure, however, because we didn’t have an articulation agreement with the college we were not able to grant credit for their work there.

The downside, any course work she takes either through dual enrollment or from some other college becomes part of her college record. I have seen some really smart kids do poorly in dual enrollment classes. And one shouldn’t forget that graduate schools want to see grades from all colleges attended. This point was brought up at a recent State University Admissions (S.U.S.) workshop.

Each year, the Admission Directors from all the Florida Public Universities travel to several of the universities to give the guidance counselors some insight as to what was new at their university “normal dog-and-pony show stuff’. There is always a panel discussion at the end of their presentation. During the panel discussion, the admission director from the University of Florida talked about dual enrollment and made a statement that went something along this line “If a student gets a “B” in an A/P Biology class, it is just that, a “B”. If they get a “B” in a DE biology class, and then applies to medical school that “B” could be the difference between being accepted or rejected.”

One thing to consider when taking DE classes (in Florida), not all college credit classes are equal. The 3 credit ENC1101 Freshman Comp Skills will substitute for a 1 credit high school English class both for graduation and for Bright Futures. 3 SH Social Studies classes normally carry only .5 high school credit. Science classes will only generate a full high school credit if they have a Lab. Likewise the Foreign Language Classes must be 4 SH in order to substitute for a 1 credit Foreign Language Class.

 

Thanks..

Thanks to everyone who contributed their response to my questions. I do appreciate you very much. I am in Florida, Viera/Orlando area, to be exact. As soon as I get a second, I'll look into this further. My daughter is harassing me to do it and won't allow me to rest until I do what I promised.

 

Your profile says you are pursuing at a DBA at Argosy in Tampa. If that is so, when I lived in Florida a couple of years ago, my friend was able to take 2 college classes per semester as a HS senior for free.

Have her look at some independent study courses from LSU, OKstate, Wisconsin, South Carolina, etc.

 

Hi Shay,

I sort of had a similar problem myself with my daughter who just turned 18 in July and is now a pre med student at a state university. She actually went into freshman year with 12 AP credits and this summer she took 5 clep exams that will make her a Jr by the end of freshman yr. Her school also has a articulation agreement with the grad school she wants to attend. She wants to get a Doctorate in Pharm. So she will spend her senior yr in grad school and still be able to graduate from her original university. So she actually will be shaving off 2 yrs from her under grad. The Pharm school will allow you to enter if you have all pre med prereq's done and it is an excellerated program so she can be done grad school in 2 yrs 10 months.

Allison

 

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We always talk about how AP/CLEP shaves off time, but without even knowing where your daughter is a student, I'm wondering about the $$$$$ savings! Consider a lot of the debt young people take on so early in their lives, this is a very wise financial move IMO. She shaved off how many thousand in tuition, campus housing costs for 2 years, books... and will be in the workforce 2 years earlier than her classmates. This has to be a benefit up near $100K.

 

Jennifer,

My daughter is saving at least $25,000 a year for each of the 2 years she will not have to attend. So that is $50,000 right off the bat. She will be taking classes this summer so she will not have such an unbearable load next fall. Also by becoming a jr she will recieve the state science grant and another local grant for science majors. So that equals at least another 8 to 9 thousand in free grant money. We love free money!

 

She will be saving $50K and 2 years of her life to start with. Also she will be a jr and the state has 4,500 in grant money for science majors along with another grant that is offered for science majors. So she will be recieving 8 to 9k in free money just for being a jr in college. Along with her scholarships and other money she receives, next yr should only cost her approx. 5k. It's grad school that will kill us.