No matter how many college credits your teen earns in high school, your teen will apply as a freshman. Earning college credit after graduation is how students become transfer applicants, so earning college credit during a gap year requires some consideration.
Earning College Credit After High School
If your student takes a gap year, they are earning college credit after high school. A gap year does not “extend” high school protection; your student is a full-blown high school graduate, so the credit they earn will be counted towards becoming a transfer student.
For colleges that have freshman scholarships, it can be an advantage to tap into those awards. Transfer students at some universities won’t have the same pool of funding, so if there are different funding resources based on application category, you’ll want to know this ahead of time. Again, not everycollege has freshman scholarships or aid, so if yours doesn’t (or if they only offer low-value scholarships) it’s probably more cost effective to earn college credit anyway, even if that changes your student’s status.
What’s the Number?
For colleges that care, there will be a max number of college credits your student can earn before being reclassified as a transfer applicant. This is not a universal number, but expect it to be around 24 credits. You’ll want to look this up ahead of time if your teen plans to earn college credit during their gap year.
As you plan, only credits earned after graduation will make up “the number” that the college sets as a threshold.
For example:Your student earns 30 college credits in high school using dual enrollment. During their gap year they earn 15. While your student has 45 credits, only 15 “count against” their freshman status. If the college allows up to 24 credits, this student easily retains their freshman status by a nice, safe margin.
After admissions, all 45 credits will be evaluated and applied to their transcript according to the college’s policy, and the student’s rank may instantly bump up to Sophomore!
Safe College Credit
Credit by exam is a great opportunity to earn college credit without jeopardizing your freshman application status – in any amount! CLEP, AP, DSST, and other options that allow independent study followed by an exam can generate huge amounts of college credit very affordably, and will never count as “college credit” caps when applying. Since credit by exam is technically “potential college credit,” it only becomes college credit after the student enrolls, so a student with good motivation can accumulate 30 college credits during their gap year and still apply as a freshman!
- Cost Savings: Credit by exam is one of the most affordable ways to earn college credit, with exam options costing under $100 (CLEP is free when you pick up a free voucher from Modern States!)
- Flexibility: Students can prepare for exams at their own pace, making it easy to balance other gap year activities like travel or work. This is especially useful for students who took honors-level high school courses and may want to aim higher and try to pick up CLEP credit in the courses they already finished.
- Preserves Freshman Status: Colleges don’t recognize credit by exam as “college credit,” rather it is “potential college credit” and not added to a transcript until after matriculation. So your student can apply as usual, and then their credit by exam will “bump” their rank once they are college students.
