AP Credit, also known as Advanced Placement, refers to classes offered in high school culminating in an AP Test (see CollegeBoard.org).  A great many colleges recognize AP Test scores as evidence of course competency and often will let students skip these courses and offer credit towards a degree.

Dual credit courses refer to a college class taken by a high school student for credit at both the college and high school level, whether at the high school or at the college awarding the college credit.  Students must be wary, as many of these courses often are considered non-transferable to other colleges and universities.  More and more schools are offering these types of courses and over 5 million high school students annually receive credit that may or may not count towards their college degree.

College Contours promotes The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) organization regarding accreditation standards for colleges and universities: https://chea.org.

Students must not overlook the importance of accreditation status for institutions to ensure academic quality, college accountability, and demonstration of student success and performance. 

Students should first and foremost look using resources like CHEA to identify if the college of interest is Regionally Accredited.  To go further, looking at specific majors and programs, you may also look at programmatic accreditation, examples include the American Bar Association for law schools, ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), and LCME (Liaison Committee on Medical Education). 

Programmatic accreditation status as awarded by agencies such as the ones mentioned are important when determining viability, academic prowess, and student success, of an institution. 

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In a broad sense, general education is defined as a program that develops students’ general knowledge, literacy, skills, and competencies to equip them with the foundation for lifelong learning and advanced academic curricula (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2012).

Basically, this program provides students with a strong educational footing for an undergraduate degree. General education may also be introduced in some institutions as ‘gen ed,’ ‘core curriculum,’ or ‘shared experience’ (Pearson Accelerated Pathways, 2015).

Gen Ed classes are requirements not necessarily part of your major, e.g., Business, that you need in order to earn an associate degree and/or bachelor degree from any accredited college/university.

Examples of gen eds include Freshman Composition, Introduction to Psychology, etc. General Education requirements typically represent roughly 12- 14 courses (about 36 semester credit hours), or about one-third of your bachelor’s degree. For a typical transfer associate degree, e.g., AA or AS, this is about two-thirds of your 2-yr program.

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A prerequisite is generally a course that you must complete before enrolling in a second course.

Sometimes a student is given a choice of prerequisites to complete. In the example below, the student must complete PHYS:1511 (College Physics I) OR PHYS: 1611 (Introductory Physics I) before taking College Physics II. In other cases, a student has the choice of achieving a certain placement test result in lieu of a prerequisite course. Some courses require more than one prerequisite.

A prerequisite, with regards to college coursework, refers to a class or requirement that must be met prior to taking the next course in a sequence, or a more advanced course.  Example: Calculus I must be completed or satisfied prior to taking Calculus II.

Electives typically represent whatever is left to satisfy your Bachelor degree requirements (120 semester credit hours typical for a Bachelor’s Degree), often about seven or eight courses (about 20ish semester credit hours).

For any given institution, elective courses can be completely up to the discretion of the student so long as they are in the general field of study declared, e.g., any Business class of choice for a Business major.

The distinction here? These specific elective courses are not prescribed by the college but rather afford the student some freedom in selecting based upon interest.

For transfer purposes, this is a friendly category in which to apply credit, where if a college/university does not have an exact equivalent of a transfer course within the major, they might assign the said course to this elective category to still count towards the 120ish credit hour requirements for the Bachelor’s degree.

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Credit refers to the completion and recognition of academic work students have completed and passed.  For most colleges, 120(ish) credits of specific coursework is equivalent to a Bachelor’s Degree.  For Associate’s Degrees, this usually means 60(ish) credits (roughly half of a Bachelor’s Degree). 

A GPA is representation of a letter grade in numerical terms.  As an example, a common form of GPA is based on a 4.0 scale, where A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0, D=1.0, and F=0.0. 

Colleges look at a GPA as a determining factor often in college admissions, as well as satisfaction of degree requirements for graduation. 

To calculate a cumulative/total GPA, take the sum of all final grades (numerically represented), and divide by the number of credits attempted.  For instance, if you take a total of 3 courses, each worth 4 credits (a sum of 12 credits), and earned a B (3.0) in each course, you will have a 3.0 cumulative GPA: 3*12/12=3.0

While your general education requirements make up about one-third of your bachelor’s degree, your major requirements will represent at least about another one-third of your bachelor’s degree, roughly a minimum of 12 semester credit hours. Examples of these classes? Any 300-400 level courses: Thermodynamics; Advanced Financial Accounting.

There are transfer opportunities, here, however, where we suggest taking about six to seven “major core requirements” while at your community college or university. Examples of these classes? Look for things like Principles of Managerial Accounting, Statics, Dynamics, Abnormal Psychology, etc. “Major core requirements” refers to course requirements for a particular college, e.g., College of Business, regardless of specific major, e.g., Accounting or Finance.

Also referred to as a Baccalaureate degree, is a degree awarded by a college to a student for successful completion of undergraduate studies. 

Typically, a Bachelor’s degree is composed of 120 credit hours worth of coursework, often representative of 40(ish) classes.  Though considered a 4-yr degree in terms of time estimated for completion, it is not uncommon for students to often take 6 years in order to complete their credential. 

Going beyond 6 years for degree completion of a Bachelor’s degree often means discontinuation of financial assistance for student payments towards their bill/tuition and fees. 

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Often considered roughly half of a Bachelor’s degree, the typical 60 credits (usually 20 or so classes), is a degree most commonly offered at a community college or other 2-yr institution.

The aim of this degree is to provide students with either career and technical proficiency or skills for career advancement, job placement; however, for students aspiring to complete a Bachelor’s degree, the Associate’s degree is best utilized when completing either an Associate in Arts or Associate in Science degree, often considered the more transferable credential to fulfill Bachelor’s degree requirements.

College Contours urges students to consider either of these two Associate’s degrees when looking to move on to a Bachelor’s degree post community college.