There are many opportunities for high school students to earn college credit, from AP Exams, to cross-listed courses, to summer programs on college campuses. It is theoretically possible to earn a significant number of college credits before ever actually enrolling in university. But should you?
When high school students apply to college, they do so as freshmen, entering the school with a clean slate. Students who already have college credits enroll as transfer students, following a significantly different application process. But how many credits can you earn before you go from one to another? Is doing so a good idea? And are all credits you earn in high school created equal? We’re going to examine the answers to all of these questions in this article, so you know exactly where you stand.
How to Earn College Credits in High School
There are numerous ways to potentially earn college credit in high school. Not every school will have every option available, so we’ll go through each and discuss how they work, and how they apply to colleges.
AP and IB Courses
Most colleges will award credit for sufficiently high scores on AP and IB exams. What they count as a sufficiently high score, and what credit they award, varies greatly by school. See our article here for more information about how colleges award these credits. Note that these credits never count when making a student act as a transfer instead of a freshman applicant.
Dual Enrollment Classes
Dual enrollment classes are courses offered by a local school, usually a community college, in partnership with a high school. These classes may be taken at the high school, or students may travel to the community college; this varies significantly by both school and district. Earning too many of these credits can impact your status as a freshman, but whether they are accepted at all depends on the university in question.
Community College Classes
On top of dual enrollment, many community colleges will simply allow high school students to enroll in their courses. This is most popular amongst home schooled students, but those attending a regular high school do this on occasion as well, to explore topics not covered by their school. Attending a college in this way almost universally earns you college credits, and can cause you to be counted as a transfer student.
Summer Programs
Many colleges offer summer programs which allow you to take courses on their campus and earn college credit while doing so. The number of credits you can earn by doing this is limited, but there are actual credits to be earned by doing so. You rarely earn enough credits from these to count as a transfer student.
Applying Credits
In all of these cases, you will need to do paperwork to get any college credits you have earned to apply to your undergraduate degree. This is true whether you are coming in as a freshman, or have earned enough credits to qualify as a transfer. The exact requirements vary by college and where the credits originate; there is usually one policy for AP and IB tests, and another for credits earned through coursework.
Test credits are generally straightforward, as these are widely used and well understood by colleges. Credits from courses are more difficult, as officials must determine the validity of the course, and whether it is comparable to any courses the college you are transferring to offers. These courses will often be used for general or prerequisite credits, but in some cases you may not be able to earn anything except elective credits.
Finally, summer courses offered by colleges do provide credits, but these are even more rarely accepted than credits from community colleges. This depends on the school you attend of course, but in many cases they are only honored by the school you took the summer program from.
How Many Credits Can a Freshman Have?
So that’s all of the various ways it is possible to earn college credits in high school, but how many credits can you earn before you no longer count as a freshman? This depends on the school, so here’s a chart with the specific details for a number of top colleges:
| College | Credit Limit | Other Notes |
| Boston College | 9 | You must earn at least a B in college coursework in high school to have it count for credit |
| Boston University | 12 | Dual enrollment and early admissions students who are still in high school should apply as freshmen |
| Brandeis | 12 | |
| Brown | One full year of college | Does not accept AP, dual enrollment, or summer program credit |
| Caltech | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Carnegie Mellon University | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Case Western Reserve University | Enrollment in a college program | Students who have not yet graduated high school apply as freshmen |
| Columbia | 24 | |
| Cornell | 12 semester hours post graduation or enrollment in another college | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Dartmouth | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Duke | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Emory | 28 credit hours | Dual enrollment and AP/IB credit do not count towards transfer admissions |
| Georgetown | 12 | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Georgia Tech | 30 semester credit hours | |
| Harvard | At least one full year of college credit | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Johns Hopkins | 12 | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| MIT | Two terms of study | Any students currently in high school apply as freshmen regardless of college credits |
| NYU | Enrollment in a college program or 24 credits | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Northeastern | 12 | Only credits earned after high school graduation qualify |
| Northwestern | Any credit after graduating high school | |
| Notre Dame | 24 | Taking college coursework post graduation automatically makes you a transfer student |
| Princeton | One full year of college coursework | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Rice | 12 | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Stanford | Any credit after graduating high school | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Tufts | Enrollment in a college degree program | Students who have taken college coursework but not enrolled may apply as freshmen |
| Tulane | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| UC Berkeley | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| UCLA | Enrollment in a college program post graduation | |
| UNC Chapel Hill | Enrollment in a college program post high school | |
| UChicago | One term as a full time student in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| University of Florida | 60 semester credit hours | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen; students already enrolled in college must wait to apply as transfer students |
| University of Michigan | Enrollment in a college program post high school | |
| UPenn | One full term of college credit | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| University of Rochester | 8 credits post high school graduation | If your enrolled elsewhere and withdrew prior to earning 8 credits, you may apply as a freshman, but should address your withdrawal in your application |
| University of Southern California | Enrollment in a college program | All students in high school apply as freshmen regardless of credits |
| University of Virginia | Enrollment in a college program | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| UT Austin | Enrollment in a college post high school | |
| Vanderbilt | Enrollment in a college program post high school | |
| Wake Forest | Enrollment in a college program post high school | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Washington University in St Louis | Enrollment in a college program | |
| William & Mary | Enrollment in a college program post high school | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
| Yale | 8 Transferable credits or fewer should consider applying as freshmen | Dual or concurrent enrollment students apply as freshmen |
There is a great deal of variability in requirements, and whether or not a student counts as a transfer or not. Note that these merely determine if you count as a transfer student; most schools also have a credit minimum to apply as a transfer student.
Should You Earn College Credit in High School?
As with everything in college admissions, this does depend a bit on your own situation; in general, however, yes. There are two reasons for this.
First colleges want to see that you have challenged yourself academically, and have taken the most difficult coursework available to you that you can succeed in. In many cases, this is coursework which offers some kind of college credit along the way, be it through AP exams or dual enrollment.
Second, earning credit before you get to college can allow you to consider graduating early, or give you far more flexibility when scheduling your courses by getting you out of introductory work. It is up to you to see how any credits you bring in will be applied, but they can make your college journey far smoother than it would be otherwise.
