High school students are given the opportunity to take Advanced Placement (AP) classes or take part in Dual Enrollment courses at colleges. Both course types provide students with a vast majority of benefits that can better prepare them for classes beyond high school.

AP classes are put in place to push students to the college level by increasing the difficulty of the course. At the end of the school year, students can sign up to take the AP exam and earn college credits if they score a three or higher (five being the highest) on the exam, depending on the college.

One benefit to taking AP classes is that they can boost a student’s GPA. An A in a regular class is worth four points where in an AP Class an A is worth four and a half points. This aspect to taking AP classes plays a factor in how many students sign up for the course.

Another benefit AP classes offer are that they prepare students for college level courses. This occurs by having teachers increase their expectations, workload and even making the material more complex.

One popular AP course offered at Freedom is AP Psychology, which is the only psychology course offered at Freedom.

“I definitely think AP Psychology is preparing me for college because there is a lot of effort that has to be put into the class. The basics are taught in class, but to be able to gain the further understanding of the material you have to put in time outside of class, and from what I’ve heard that is what college is like, too,” senior Robin Kaufman said. “The main thing that makes AP Psychology a difficult class is how you have to not just memorize material, but be able to fully understand it and be able to apply it to situations. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact, I think that should be the goal of more courses.”

On the other hand, AP Classes offer some disadvantages such as larger amounts of homework, an increase in stress and for some students, the material is too advanced, leaving them stuck in a course that they may not be able to handle.

Dual Enrollment is where students can be registered to take classes at two separate institutions, one of which being a college and the other being high school. These courses allow students to receive college credits while only being in high school.

Dual Enrollment allows students to personally experience the structure of college classes before they actually enter college. AP classes are designed to be more like a college class where dual enrollment has students experience actual college classes.

Other benefits to Dual Enrollment courses is that taking college classes in high school will save students money later on when they enroll in college classes. This also means that students that do take college classes in high school will spend less time in college, because they will already have credits.

On the flip side, some disadvantages are that students will have to commute between college and high school, which means they are spending time commuting when they can be spending this time in class. Another disadvantage is that students are often the only high schooler in their class, which can be intimidating, making social interaction much more difficult in the beginning.

All in all, both types of classes provide students with advantages and disadvantages, but ultimately, the choice to take AP or Dual Enrollment classes is the student’s.