Answer: Absolutely 100% yes. There is no duplication when the first course is high school credit and the second is college credit. Now, let’s split hairs.
Duplication of Credit
Colleges do not award credit twice for the same course. For instance, if you took Biology 101 at the community college and then later took Biology 101 at the university, your student would only get credit for one of their attempts.
Confusion for HS4CC parents comes when the title of a high school course is similar to a college course the teen is takes for dual enrollment.
High school credit does not duplicate college credit, so you’ll want to award credit for all credit earned, even when the course is in the same subject.
High School Transcript
- 11th grade Biology, 1 credit
- 12th grade BIO111 General Biology 1 with Lab, 1 credit
- 12th grade BIO112 General Biology 2 with Lab, 1 credit
When your student uses their time in high school to learn a subject and take an exam worth college credit, you are awarding high school credit for their learning (no matter how formal or informal) and not the exam. In these two examples below, a student took a standardized exam for biology (AP / CLEP) but no second entry is made since the student didn’t take a college class. In both cases, only 1 entry is recorded.
High School Transcript
Example: Student took an official Advanced Placement course and AP exam and is recorded as 1 entry as follows:
- 11th grade Advanced Placement Biology, 1 credit
Example: Student used homeschool biology curriculum and took a CLEP exam and is recorded as 1 entry as follows:
- 11th grade Honors Biology, 1 credit
Here’s where it gets tricky…
The college will decide whether or not they’ll award college credit for credit by exam (Advanced Placement / CLEP) so while your student absolutely can TAKE additional college classes in biology after they’ve done AP or CLEP, and you absolutely can RECORD it on their high school transcript as a separate entry, if their college does accept AP/CLEP for college credit, then the college will not give them credit for both the AP/CLEP and a college biology course.
High School Transcript
- 11th grade Advanced Placement Biology, 1 credit
- 12th grade BIO111 General Biology 1 with Lab, 1 credit
- 12th grade BIO112 General Biology 2 with Lab, 1 credit
College Transcript:
- AP exam General Biology, 8 credits
or
- BIO111, 4 credits
- BIO112, 4 credits
Pro Tip: If you get to choose which entry to have on the college transcript (you may not) my advice is to choose the course instead of the exam because it (1) is more recent and dates may matter, (2) includes lab credit which may matter, and (3) carries a letter grade which can boost your GPA.
Parent Question: What should my teen wear to their dual enrollment class?
“My son has his first in person class at the community college tomorrow… Should he avoid anything? We’ve never spent anytime in a public school setting.”
Parent Question: We want to use dual enrollment, but what if she gets a bad grade?
A parent from our Texas Homeschooling for College Credit Facebook group asks “Hi, I’m new to this. I would like to help my 9th grader to start her classes thought dual enrollment. My question is if she doesn’t get a good grade that will affect…
Parent Question: How do you start a CLEP plan when you don’t know where your child will be going to college yet?
There are two schools of thought on how to do this. I’ll explain both and give my recommendation as to which is the better option.
