[nordsieck]

> I live in Seattle

Luckily, everyone in the area gets access to Running Start[1]. Doesn't address the earlier years of schooling, though.

If your children are in HS, I'd really recommend sitting downing with a HS councilor to make sure that your kids take the classes that are required by the district for HS, but aren't required for a college degree (I'm thinking of speech here, but there may be others) in the first 2 years of HS. That way they get the most benefit out of their Junior and Senior years, if they decide to go that route.

I'm honestly not sure how the GPA thing works - I know AP classes can sometimes let kids increase their GPA above 4.0 for admissions purposes. But as someone who did both Running Start and AP classes, IMO, the actual college credit was way more valuable. But I also went to school in state, so those credits transferred nicely. May be a totally different story if you're shooting for Ivys.

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1. https://www.k12.wa.us/student-success/support-programs/dual-...

[pfannkuchen]

I found the actual impact of AP credits disappointing. I ended up with no gen ed classes and started off in sophomore classes for math and physics. AP doesn’t count towards college GPA, and it turns out that others ended up with GPA padding that I missed out on. Still turned out fine overall, the GPA padding thing just didn’t occur to me in high school and no one pointed it out.

[Der_Einzige]

Good, gen eds were basically a waste, and getting them done ahead of time meaningfully reduces the university cost burden to students.

[brianwawok]

Who do you tell your GPA to? I stopped listing GPA after my first job. When I get a resume from someone that went to college 10 years ago and lists a 3.245 GPA, I laugh.

[pfannkuchen]

Yeah, today it doesn’t matter at all. The others I referenced in my post were other people in college, e.g. while I was applying to internships, not anyone today. Though I do still include it on my resume, I had kind of assumed that people will think it was very low if you omit it.

[nordsieck]

1. My understanding is that education is much more important in Europe than the US. From what I gather, people with long careers often still lead with their education credentials. Not sure why.

2. I think it really depends on the person's career. If they've had 7 jobs in 10 years, yeah - GPA probably isn't super relevant. But if someone's been at the same place for 10 years, maybe it's not the worst thing.

IMO, the 1 page (with large text) rule is more important. GPA should probably fall off before relevant job related stuff, but there's no harm in keeping it there if the resume has the space.

[firstlink]

Yeah but what about when their GPA is 3.254? Bet you're not laughing then! /s

[brianwawok]

Lol. I even had someone with like 8 years of work experience put a 2.5 GPA on their resume.

I would have done a phone screen.. but with that low of a GPA, and the judgement to put it on your resume? Pass.

[forgetbook]

It could be the case that this person is attempting to show a rags-to-riches story of hard work in the 8 years since their experience in higher ed?

[brianwawok]

Not sure, but I wasn't buying it.

[buildbot]

Running start is an incredible program - beyond offering far more advanced and faster paced classes, it also really helped me personally mature and see vastly different people and perspectives than where in my age group at high school.

[icelancer]

I did this in HS decades ago and had to fight guidance counselors to get it done. Fortunately, it's much easier now. I cannot recommend this program highly enough.

[seanmcdirmid]

Running start applies to the entire state of Washington, and since 2013, all Washington state schools are pretty well funded (even if that means taking money away from richer Seattle area property tax districts).

[bradlys]

They don’t generally transfer for Ivys. Running start is something you do if you have no intention of going to prestigious private universities as it’s completely pointless (credits don’t usually transfer) and they don’t have a great process for evaluating such students into their programs. You’d only do it if you plan to go to a school in your state since transferring credits out of state isn’t always easy going.

[oasisbob]

Running start credits, being based on community college credits, don't even transfer cleanly to state schools. When I did running start, this was the cautious advice.

There are plenty of other reasons to do running start, aside from transfer credits. Access to higher level subjects you wouldn't have access to otherwise.

Personally, I traded high school PE for scuba and yoga, a full year of A&P, college calculus, and an intro year of psych.

Transfer credits had very little to do with it - it was just a more fulfilling curriculum.

[nordsieck]

> Running start credits, being based on community college credits, don't even transfer cleanly to state schools. When I did running start, this was the cautious advice.

My understanding is that there are been a number of reforms to WA community colleges that mean that a larger portion of community college credits transfer to public universities now. Of course, going out of state is a roll of the dice as always.

> Transfer credits had very little to do with it - it was just a more fulfilling curriculum.

Very true. I loved taking Microbiology as a HS student. Def something I wouldn't have gotten the chance to do normally. And CC offers far more advanced math than HS.