HS4CC Teen Earns Bachelor’s at Age 14

That’s not a typo! I’m thrilled to share this extraordinary story of Cyndi R.’s daughter and her amazing success in our Arizona State University Universal Learner program. Cyndi’s daughter completed her bachelor’s degree this month, and in this post, she shares how they did it.

Our Arizona State University Universal Learner (ASU UL) partnership is relatively new, but in the few short years we’ve offered the group, 3,700 Homeschooling for College Credit parents have enrolled their teens in one or more of the self-paced courses.

The ASU UL program allows anyone of any age to register for a course for only $25. Some parents use the courses only for high school credit, but upon completion of the course, if you like your grade, you can have the credit recorded as college credit on an official ASU college transcript for $400. If you don’t like the grade, withdrawal, or just didn’t find it interesting, you do nothing. There is no cost, no paper trail, and no obligation to ever disclose your participation. It’s an exceptionally popular option in our community, and with good reason!

Another bonus of this program, is after your teen earns 24 credits, they are guaranteed admission into Arizona State University and can keep working on their degree. This allows teens of all backgrounds in every state and at any age to pursue a degree by earning their admission.

I’m so happy for the opportunity to encourage you with Cyndi’s story. Though her daughter is young, this method will work with any age student- even adults!

Cyndi writes:

“I am so thankful for this group. This week, my 14-year-old daughter graduated from Arizona State University (ASU). This group was definitely instrumental in helping to navigate ASU’s Universal Learner (UL) program, which allowed my daughter to complete her degree in under 2 years.

She started with ASU UL classes until she had the 24 credits needed for earned admission. After that, she took a mixture of regular ASU classes and ASU UL classes.

Since many of you have asked about my daughter’s ASU/UL journey, I made this post to help share the path she took and what we learned along the way:

Before I start, let me explain that the only way she could accomplish this was because we were literally home (due to some health issues) from the time she started this endeavor until October of this year. She is the type of child that will embrace and make the best out of any situation and decided to use this opportunity to get her degree. She studied 7 days per week, including holidays, to accomplish her goal.

She studied 7 days per week, including holidays, to accomplish her goal.

The first 24 credits…

My daughter started UL classes Spring 2021, as she finished up her last high school credits. She started with 6 self-paced classes and 1 regular class. She was able to quickly finish those and had 23 credits at the end of Summer 2021.

This is where it gets tricky, and we had wished that UL classes were a bit more consistent in what “self-paced” means. She needed 1 more credit to be able to apply (and be accepted for Fall term B) through the Earned Admission program. The deadline to be able to register for Fall B classes was before UL Fall A classes ended. We figured that would not be an issue because she was taking PSY 101 (self-paced), and she would quickly finish that before the deadline so that she could register for Fall B classes. With all of the other self-paced classes that she took (through UL), she could transcript the grade as soon as she finished the class. Unfortunately, the self-paced PSY 101 did not work out that way, and even though she completed the class on time, they did not want to allow her to transcript it. This threw off her entire plan, but thankfully UL was her biggest champion, and she was able to get the grade on her transcript before the deadline so she could register for Fall B.

She chose a major of interest that allowed the most elective credits. This way, even though her area of study classes were not offered through UL, her UL classes would still count towards her major. Because her older brother and sister were ASU students, they were able to help her navigate through what classes she needed to take.

Once accepted to ASU…

By the end of Fall term A, she had 32 credits. She then declared her major, which was Mass Communication and Media Studies.

From this point on, she was able to take additional UL classes on top of her ASU course load. She took advantage of her holiday break and completed more self-paced UL classes during that time.

She did have to get Academic Overrides, for some of her ASU classes, to be able to exceed the normal amount of credits typically allowed per term. She would also take UL classes on top of those. She was able to basically get 1 week’s worth of a class done in a day. Therefore, she was able to take up to 7 classes at a time per session though she never really exceeded 6.

One big factor that did help a lot was that she took all of the self-paced UL math classes. She loves math, and when she took the placement tests, she would test out of at least 80-90% of the class; therefore, she was able to complete those classes in a couple of weeks. This gave her 12 credits without having to really commit any of her time to complete them.

Through her tireless perseverance, she was able to complete all 120 credits needed for graduation and was able to graduate this week! For those of you wondering, UL classes (even taken before acceptance to ASU) truly are treated the same as traditional ASU courses. My daughter received the Moeur Award at graduation, which is given to students that complete all 120 credits at ASU (within 8 semesters) and have a 4.0 GPA.

For those wondering if certain UL courses will count towards a major, ASU provides Major Maps for each major that show the required courses. This is probably the best place to start if you have a specific major in mind and want to know the path to take.

It really was worth it! I wasn’t sure either, but I was pleasantly surprised. We almost skipped the main graduation for the entire University, but I was so glad we went. They had fireworks and that is where they move their tassels and officially graduate. The smaller ceremony for their school is also worth going to.

First 24 credits: ENG 101, BIO 100, HEP 100, MAT 117, MAT 170, MAT 210, SES 106, PSY 101

Costs: $25 + $400 UL ($142/credit)/  Each regular ASU credit costs around $500-$600.

At ASU, online students are treated the same as in person students for graduation. When we were there, they had the online students stand up, and I would say that 75% of all of the students there were online students. The only thing that is a bit different, is that there are awards and honors societies that online students are not eligible for. Other than that, it is all the same.”

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Join the Homeschooling for College Credit ASU Facebook group if you want to start your teen on a similar path.