Stop Allowing Dual Enrollment To Affect High School GPA/QPAs (Suggestion #2)

Suggestion #1 on how to make immediate improvements for WSFCS this coming year can be found here.

Here’s Suggestion #2: do not allow courses taken at the local community college have influence on the transcript at the home high school.

No, I am not saying that we should keep students from taking dual-enrollment courses. What I am saying is that courses passed through community-college programs should have their own transcripts and not be reflected on high-school GPAs and QPAs.

This is not to judge the veracity or the rigor of an online dual enrollment class. Those who take them to increase odds of receiving admission to a four-year school will eventaully find out if their courses prepared them. In fact, call up the admission offices of UNC-Chapel Hill or NC State or UNC-Greensboro and ask how they see dual-enrollment courses. Ask them if taking an online course asynchronously while still in high school is more academically sound than say a year-long, in-person AP course at the home school. Then make the decision.

However, what many students are doing is taking dual enrollment courses to boost GPAs and QPAs for class rank.

WSFCS automatically gives “AP” level credit on high school transcripts for courses taken at the community college. Students can boost their ranking quickly and seismically through courses never taken at the actual high school (or Career Center). Plus, they can have their transcripts updated more often than those who take all courses at the home school.

What should happen is that students who have dual enrollment receive TWO DIFFERENT transcripts: one from the home school and one that documents the courses taken at the community college. If a course at the community college fulfills a course requirement for high school graduation, then that requirement is met. But the grade made at the community college does not affect the GPA/QPA of the high school transcript. Another transcript from the community college where the course was taken will have that calculation.

If a student then wants to apply to college after dual-enrollment, then the student would submit two transcripts for admission.