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Pros and Cons of Dual Enrollment

Demand for dual enrollment, also called concurrent enrollment, is growing in our high schools. In fact, one in five community college students are high school students. 2.5 million high school students took a college course in 2022-23, many of those were in California. It is not uncommon for students to earn an AA before they have even graduated high school. These college-level classes are marketed as being rigorous and as granting college credits while counting double for high school credit. What’s not to like?

What is it?

There is plenty to like, but, as with everything, it is important to know all the facts. Dual enrollment is defined as when high school students take college-level courses. This can look several different ways. A high school student might enroll in a college course on their own to explore classes and interests beyond what their high school offers. If the student wants high school credit, the high school might need to approve the class . This option is often used when a student has maxed-out available courses in a certain subject. In another scenario, a high school might have an agreement with a college to have a course taught on the high school campus. These courses follow the college curriculum and might be taught by the college’s faculty or by a high school teacher who has been trained in the curriculum and certified by the college. Another option is high school “articulation” when a community college reviews a high school’s Career Technical Education (CTE) curriculum and decides to grant college credit for the coursework.

Each of these iterations of dual enrollment come with their own considerations. Who is teaching it? Who pays for it? Is the college credit transferable? Is it better than taking an equivalent Advanced Placement class? The fact that there are so many questions and a lack of consistency leads many to be skeptical of the value of these courses.

Why Does it Matter?

The ability to offer college courses gives high schools the opportunity to offer practical career-oriented classes and/or more advanced classes that they might not have otherwise been able to. These, however, come at a price usually shouldered by the district but sometimes shared by the parents. Unfortunately, not all districts or the families they serve have room in their budgets for this expense. This creates an accessibility issue as dual enrollment options are typically more prevalent in wealthier districts.

A commonly asked question is how taking college courses factors into admissions. The answer can vary widely between institutions. There is consensus that these courses are more advanced than standard high school classes and choosing to take them demonstrates a student’s desire to go above and beyond the minimum requirements. It shows they have taken advantage of all opportunities available to them. But which is viewed as more rigorous when there is an equivalent AP course? The UCs do not have a preference among the various forms of advanced coursework, but that is not universal. Community college courses are generally considered easier than AP courses, and unlike the AP, the curriculum is not standardized. These facts can be a consideration when a transcript is being evaluated.

What about that elusive promise of college credit at the end of the course? The college credit awarded is often not transferable to the college or university where a student eventually enrolls. Credit is more widely granted for high AP test scores, but colleges have different policies about that as well, and it can depend on the course and the test result. In other words, not all AP courses or test results are treated equally. Additionally, students often elect to not take the AP test thus eliminating all possibility of getting credit.

For these reasons and more, at the end of the day if asked which class a student should take next year, I am most likely going to say, “It depends.”

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Do You Know the Secret Sauce?

The answer to that question along with how open you are to new information might fundamentally change your college admissions process. Many students and their parents enter the college admissions season with an abundance of misconceptions. One of the most striking examples is what students think that the colleges are prioritizing when they are making admissions decisions.

NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) teamed with Harris Polls to do a study on students’ perceptions about the college admissions process. The results provide needed insight into the student perspective. Everyone involved in college admissions should consider what the students are thinking so that corrective action can be taken to assure college-bound students know what is expected of them. They should have the appropriate tools to plan according to these expectations.

Students’ Common Misconceptions

Unfortunately, the poll results show many discrepancies between what students think they need to present to colleges and what colleges are actually looking for. Over 56% of those polled believe that GPA in all courses and test scores (SAT/ACT) are the most important factors. Extracurricular activities came in next at 34% and application essays at 33%. Another 1/3 of those surveyed also felt that grades in college prep courses were an important factor. Students felt that the least important factors are course rigor, teacher recommendations, interviews, demonstrated interest, and at the bottom, the counselor recommendation.

What Colleges are Assessing


Compare that with what colleges report that they are primarily assessing when reading applications. An overwhelming number of colleges (76%) listed GPA in college prep courses as the most important factor. Overall GPA and strength of curriculum came next. 26% of students felt strength of curriculum mattered compared to 63% of colleges. This is a problem as students throughout high school inappropriately weigh predicted grades over challenge when making course selections. After those three heavy weights, come other considerations such as character attributes (28%), essay (19%), and measured interest in attending (16%). Surprisingly, colleges rank test scores at 5%. This, of course, cannot be evaluated without context and the winds are always changing on this. It could vary significantly between schools, but I do think it is an indicator that students who overwhelmingly think it is the second most important factor need to evaluate it in context. If a school requires it, it is probably significant as it could verify the legitimacy of a high GPA. It would never, however, be more important than, say, strength of schedule. On the other hand, many ”test optional” schools are truly that, test optional. For those, it may really be closer to that 5% on the importance scale. It could be higher, though, as some are test optional in name only. That is when insider knowledge of a school’s admission process can be really helpful.

All in all, there is a disconnect between what colleges value and what applicants think they value. I hope that this data will help families plan and put things in perspective. The secret sauce is challenging yourself in high school course selection and working hard to achieve good grades in those challenging classes. Writing ability, interest in attending, recommendations, and quality of extracurricular activities follow in level of importance.

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Cold, Hard Facts About College Admissions

Many are sick of hearing me say, “That school is a reach for everybody. ” Some of my colleagues call such schools “moonshots” or “lottery schools” hoping to convey to students that it is extremely unlikely that they will be accepted. It is a bitter pill to swallow for hard-working “A” students to be told exactly how small their chance of acceptance is. Why is it that so many deserving and capable students must lower their expectations? It is basic math.

Here are Some Numbers

Let’s start with Ivy League schools. As a reminder, the Ivy League is a NCAA athletic league, not a descriptor for academic prowess. The term, however, is used more often to describe their esteemed educational opportunities than to discuss their hockey teams. These eight institutions are perfect examples of schools that I refer to as “reaches” for everybody. I imagine that while students and their parents are outwardly sobered by the fact that Columbia and Harvard each have an admissions rate of about 3.4%, inwardly they are saying, “Then I still have a chance!” 

Here are the cold, hard facts. There are about 27,000 public and private high schools in the U.S. There are, therefore, 54,000 valedictorians and salutatorians in the U.S. Combined, the Ivy League schools make offers of admission to about 20,000 high school students. So, if class rank was the only criteria they used, they would have to turn away 7,000 valedictorians and every salutatorian. This isn’t even taking international applicants into account.

Harvard tweeted in 2022 that they had 2,000 available slots in their freshman class. 8,000 of their applicants had perfect GPAs and 4,000 applicants were ranked first in their class. Additionally, 18,000 applicants submitted SAT scores of 700 or higher in the reading/writing section and 20,000 scored 700 or higher in the math section. 

The same math applies to more than just Ivy League schools. Application numbers are often driven by popular published rankings which is where research for many students begins and ends. This results in top U.S. and international students applying to many of the same schools. Prestige is important to these academically motivated students. It is what they have worked for, but it also means that they are competing with many of the same people at each of the colleges to which they apply. So what can be done to mitigate the problem?

Amend Your Plan of Attack

While students can take a shot at any school they want, they and their parents should get excited about additional, more attainable choices. How do you do this? There are a number of ways.

First, list the attributes of those pie-in-the-sky schools that appeal to you. From there you can research and find schools that have those same ideals be it majors, geography or research opportunities. Creating your own ranking system based on knowing what you want from your college experience, is the first step in insuring that you land at a school that is a good fit.

If you are fortunate enough to be going to visit colleges, don’t just plan to go to the dream schools, see some in that area that you know less about. This country is filled with “hidden gems,” and you might discover your treasure. Go prepared with a list of questions to ask to help you learn more about each school. You might discover that a school not previously on your radar has some amazing opportunities.

Parents play an important role. They typically have a good deal of influence over their children’s attitudes about colleges. Talk up the attributes of “target” schools. Be open-minded so that your children will be as well. As their students’ cheerleaders, parents can help their children swallow that bitter pill of the realities of selective admissions. 

Anne Murphy is an independent educational consultant. Contact her to learn more about college admissions, and how she might be able to help you with the application process.

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In the Spotlight: Personal Statements

little bird with yellow chest

Each Spring, birdwatchers in coastal San Diego know it is March when they see Hooded Orioles returning to their feeders. Last year I even saw some Robins and blue Scrub Jays. I would like to be a birdwatcher someday, but for now I am an educational consultant and application essay coach. As such, I mark March by the release of the Common App personal statement prompts.

This year Common App announced at the end of February that the prompts will remain unchanged for the 2024-2025 application cycle. In the last year there has been a lot of conversation about the evolving role that this personal statement plays in the application along with speculation that the prompts would change. The widespread use of AI has given counselors and admissions folks pause. Will more and more applicants use AI to write their essays? If so, and there has been little evidence indicating that this is a wide-spread problem, what will the fall-out look like? Duke University recently indicated that they will no longer be using application essays to evaluate writing skills but will still be looking to learn something about the applicant’s values or character. This focus is in line with what the objective of the essay has always been, not only for Duke but for every college that requires it. Colleges are looking for hints as to what this applicant will contribute to their campus.

For high school juniors, the challenge is to write (themselves!) a story that effectively reveals who they are as a person. It should be new information and not a rehash of the activities section. This is about who they are, not what they have done. It does not need to be a unique story. It does not need to have fancy vocabulary and intricate sentence structure. These can overwhelm the essay and smother the writer’s voice. Authenticity is paramount.

Importantly, relax. Don’t believe the people in the YouTube videos who post about their essay that got them into their university. An essay alone has never gotten a student into a college. It is additional information and supplements the transcript and the activities. Share what you feel has been important to you. You will be fine.

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Spooky October

October is when seniors get scared. The creepy Halloween ghosts and goblins are not creating this panic, it’s the fear inherent in the college application process. They turned the page of the calendar and suddenly with some deadlines just days away, the process has become real. Very real.

Every year, this insecurity results in people suddenly adding a number of schools to their lists and, the inevitable, essay do-over. If you think about it, it is completely counterintuitive to add work at this late date that is likely not to reap any rewards. It can actually be detrimental as valuable time that could be spent on individual college applications is lost. 

In hope of relieving at least some of the anxiety surrounding the personal statement, I would like to share a message I have repeatedly heard from college admissions officers, the personal statement is the cherry on top. It is no more than a sweet extra.

Here are some paraphrased statements from college admissions officers of highly selective schools:

USC: “We didn’t create the personal statement prompts. We did write our own questions, which we wouldn’t have done if we didn’t really value the answers.” 

Cornell: “I can’t love you until you show me the transcript.” What he meant by that is that no essay, no matter how amazing, is going to get somebody in who was not otherwise a strong candidate.  

Northwest: “We really don’t use them. They are truly optional. We only ever used them to evaluate writing skills, but then we realized that most people who apply to Northwestern can write well enough. We are only interested in our own question.”

University of Chicago: “We find that we get more useful information from the answers to our questions. The personal statements tend to be repetitive; they don’t give us new, valuable information.” 

So, don’t believe the person who posted on TikTok that their essay got them into Harvard. I wish them luck on their essay coaching business but hope that they learn more about college admissions before they take on clients. This does not mean that the personal statement is a waste of time or of no value. These colleges do not represent everyone, and the personal statement certainly has an important role for those colleges who use a holistic review process but don’t have their own essays. The time you spent laboring over it this summer was time well-spent, but it is important to know when to let go.

Seniors:  Your takeaway should be that at this point in the application process, your time is best spent on the supplemental essays. They are important and provide opportunities for you to do everything from describing an impactful activity to showcasing your academic interests and, of course, why XYZ University is the best place for you to learn and thrive. This is the prime place to display your values and intellectual curiosity and convince each college that they need you in their community. To write an effective supplemental essay, you must put in the time to research the college and organize your thoughts. Do not be deceived by the low maximum word counts, you should have a lot you want to say and fitting it into a paragraph should be challenging. If you think it is easy, you aren’t doing it right. 

Juniors:  Thank you for reading this far. Your takeaway should be to approach the application process with the intention of spending as much as the entire summer on the personal statement, if you want. Finish it by the first day of school and don’t look back. Form your priorities based on the real weight of each piece of the application; not on what you think the important pieces are.

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ChatGPT Applies to College

By now most of us have read an article with portions written by ChatGPT, one of the newest and currently free “Generative Pre-trained Transformers,” aka AI-based writing tools. Editorialists include these excerpts as examples to demonstrate both ChatGPT’s abilities and weaknesses. Spoiler alert: I am not going to use AI to write any of this, but I admit it might do a better job. Although grammatically perfect, algorithmic language falls short in other areas due to a lack of true understanding and a tendency to stick to generalizations without citing examples. Professors agree that ChatGPT papers would mostly get D’s and F’s, but many feel that there are productive ways of using it in the classroom. It might not actually be the death knell of human-generated expository writing as feared, but how will college admissions folks deal with the possibility that some admissions essays will not be the applicant’s work?

Continue reading “ChatGPT Applies to College”
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Application Burnout

Have you ever been to a farmers market in the middle of the summer and been so taken with the abundance of heirloom tomatoes, just-picked sweet white corn, summer squash, melons and peaches that you bought more than you could eat? I have, and then a few days later when I realize my folly, I scramble to make sauces that I can freeze in order not to waste the food. It’s actually a bit stressful because I don’t always have the time to be Ma on The Little House on the Prairie preserving things for the winter. Later I reflect on my produce choices, and I not only bought too much, I bought some items that weren’t really good fits for me and my lifestyle. I don’t love eggplant, it’s a textural thing, unless it’s breaded and covered in marinara sauce and cheese. Why did I buy that eggplant? I guess because it was a beautiful, glossy purple and others around me were snatching them up. In the end I had a full basket of beautiful produce worthy of a Gourmet Magazine photo shoot, but my choices were inappropriate and excessive.

Inevitably as the application season starts to wind down, many seniors experience the results of having applied to too many schools. Some just stop and don’t apply to the remaining schools on their list, others blindly proceed submitting inferior essays, ones that they have retrofitted for every school. I’ve heard horror stories about students who forgot to substitute the name of the current school for the name previously used. In short, they bought too much fruit that now needs to be preserved or thrown away. They cast their nets too wide.

How many is too many? The answer is different for each person. The important thing is to make sure that every school on the list is a school that the student could be excited about attending. Parents and friends will influence this list, and it will grow and grow and may quickly become unmanageable. Here are five reasons to reduce your unwieldy list:

1. Lack of Clarity

High school students often fail to realize the amount of work it takes to put together a solid application that best presents themselves to admissions. The best applications flow from a fountain of knowledge about the school and solid reasons for wanting to attend. College-bound seniors with twenty or more colleges on their lists often find that they can’t remember details about each school. From experience I will tell you, the devil is in the details. It might be that they don’t remember the unique qualities about the programs at each of their schools or simply what the requirements are. Either way, their applications will suffer if they can’t articulate what it is about XYZ University that makes them want to attend. An excessive number of schools on a list will lead to confusion between schools and thus a weaker application.

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