AP vs Honor classes

Honors classes are designated as such by the school. Colleges don't particularly care about those.

Advanced Placement Classes are tested nationally and the student can earn college credit for a passing score - that score may vary based on the college selected.

Some schools offer a gpa boost for Honors classes and/or AP classes. Our HS offered it for AP only. Colleges also don't care about that. They use the unadjusted GPA, so saying that my child graduated with a 4.017 gpa does not mean that is the gpa the college used for scholarship/admission calculations.

The other thing with AP classes is that for DS, 3 of the 4 satisfied Gen Ed Category Requirements, but his major requires different classes to be taken from those categories, so he got the credit hours, but didn't meet requirements for his major. The fourth class satisfied both.

Finally, watch out for duplication. Many colleges will only accept either AP Language or AP Literature to satisfy an English requirement, but lots of students still take both!

Oh, and chances are that AP Geography isn't going to satisfy any useful requirement - that is the only AP class that freshmen at our HS are allowed to take, and hardly anyone does.

Honors classes are simply above grade level. AP classes are college level classes (paced as such) which are a good indicator of their readiness for college as well as a good way to get in the mindset of the level of work required in college. My dd was in a scholar's program at her high school (she just graduated). The classes were called PEAC classes and the workload was above an honors class but below an AP level class. Most of her classes were those with AP classes mixed in. She often complained that honors classes were too easy for her but they only offer so many AP classes and PEAC scholar's classes were very specific to the program she was in.

I think she ended up taking about 7 AP classes in 4 years (started in 9th grade). She had to have 6 to graduate with the scholar's program.

It has been determined in our school that having 9th graders take AP classes is not a good thing. They are not necessarily ready for it and they are usually toned down for the freshman. My dd took AP Government in 9th grade and APUSH in 10th. She swore off WHAP in 11th grade because she hates history.

Her college is accepting all her AP scores (she only got one 5) so she goes in with 27 credits and it helped to eliminate gen ed classes and bumped her up a level in some classes. 

So for my dd's dual credit pre-calc class, which she did get a A in, she's guaranteed college credit for it only in state colleges in our state (Ohio), but if she goes out of state or to a private college she *may* get credit, but she may not? Would you say most colleges accept them?

In the state of Illinois, dual credit is offered at all state colleges/universities and nearly 100 other Illinois colleges who have entered into a specific agreement. I do not believe that the credit is offered via out-of-state schools, but I'm not totally sure. SaveSave

Don't know about most - but my private university wouldn't have accepted it.  There was no math lower than Calculus offered, so they wouldn't give credit for a pre-calc no matter where it was taken.

Well, the level of challenge and the ability to experience college-level content wouldn't be a waste of time. At the very least, the student would be better prepared for taking that course at the college level and hopefully more likely to be successful (at least in theory). But, I get what you're saying. SaveSave

It's already been explained pretty well. Just wanted to add that when I graduated high school (years ago), I had taken enough AP and Dual Enrollment classes that I started college as a Sophomore, which had a few perks so that was nice. Also, with the exception of one class, my first year of college was EASY as far as coursework. So easy. Writing papers was a cakewalk. AP classes are hard, but they are so worth it for the college prep alone. I think taking AP classes and Dual Enrollment was one of the best choices I made in high school. They were also, generally, better classes. My 3 AP teachers my Senior year were some of the best teachers I ever had in my life. Not sure if that is true everywhere, but that was my experience.

DD has taken honors, AP, and dual enrollment courses throughout high school. In our school, honors are taught at a more in-depth and accelerated pace and the final grade is weighted with a 1.03 multiplier to calculate the final grade for her transcript and class rank. APs are as described above with the nationwide final exam and weighted at 1.06 at our school.

In speaking with admissions counselors at her target schools for the programs she is applying to, she found that all of her AP and dual credits so far will be accepted towards core courses or electives. (She's earned 5s and 4s.) We didn't have her load up on AP courses for the sake of taking APs though. (Our school offers a large number of APS.) She took/is taking several AP math and science courses related to her intended major and APUSH and AP Lit (which will eliminate a couple electives in her case.) The dual-enrollment courses she took will fulfill foreign language requirements at the schools she's targeting, the other three will fulfill a core requirement and two electives I believe the final grade is also weighted for GPA/rank.

Our main consideration for having her take APs wasn't necessarily to get college credit though. Exposure to and mastery of the material at the AP level in courses she will need in college was a bigger consideration. So, for example, her AP Stats class may not eliminate the Medical Stats course requirement, but she will have a firm grasp on the material taught at a college level.

Speaking to a point made above, APs aren't offered to freshman in our district either except one math course for kids who are double-accelerated. (Our school district accelerates high ability kids one or two grade levels in math starting in elementary school and English, Science, and History by one grade level starting in middle school.)

There is also IB which I think is considered a step above AP.  It's not offered in all high schools.

Also AP and IB credits are not accepted at all colleges, especially the more selective ones.

My DS took the IB curriculum which was greuling.

He went to our state's "best " public university and bypassed about 3 semesters of college classes. 

It made a big difference in time spent in college and the cost. 

Be careful with this, increasingly that is not the case at many colleges.

They will accept the credit, and it might me a course requirement, but you will have to take another class in its place. So it won't save you any money.

I keep hearing from College professors and admissions people that they don't place a great emphasis on AP credits. They don't think they are a good indicator of college success or a good substitute for college courses. But in doing extensive research I don't think that this type of thinking is being implemented in college admissions.

I do think that the number of AP classes a student takes is not as important as the fact that they take some.  So taking 26 hours of AP classes is not better than 10.  

A college professor and I did extensive research on this topic for a charter school, we both sit on the board.

I should have said... what scrapnatya said.

Here is the website that says which colleges take AP credit and what score they need to have:

AP CREDIT

My DS took 1 AP class last year and the rest were honors classes (it's how his school works). He refused to take the AP test for the AP class he took since he hated it with the passion of a thousand suns (biology). Instead he took two AP tests based on other classes and passed both of them, with scores of 4 and 5.

This is false information.

Colleges care about rigor. They also realize not all high schools offer an abundance of AP or dual enrollment classes, so yes, honors classes DO matter quite a bit because they indicate rigor.