Will Harvard accept a transfer Associates degree obtained through dual credit?

Answered

I do not believe Harvard will accept your Associate's degree obtained through dual credit. And you can verify that by writing them directly.

Since you are applying from HS, you will have to pass the hundreds of admissions criteria that Havard admissions officers apply to every incoming freshman applicant. The most important academic criteria are the following.

1.) Have a near perfect unweighted GPA

2.) Take the hardest courses available to you

3.) Show evidence of intellectual vitality through your own interests, research, internships, outside coursework.

4.) If you are submitting SAT/ACT, meet a threshold of about 99% percentile score.

5.) Take 4 years math, 4 years English, 4 years language, 4 years science (bio, chem, physics +1 adv. course in one of these), 3 years History inc. US & Euro.

6.) If you submit subjects, just submit 1 math, and 1 humanity but not one in your native language if it is not English.

The only way to receive college credit as an incoming freshman is to apply for Advanced Standing which allows you to graduate in 6 or 7 semesters instead of 8. See the first link. Once you apply for advance standing you will receive Harvard Credit up to 32 credits (out of the 128 needed for graduation) based on the AP Exam scores you submit. Harvard College only gives you Harvard Credit if you receive a 5 out of 5 on a subset of the AP Exams they accept. So let's say you submit AP Lang, AP Calc AB, AP Physics C, AP Psych and you get all 5s on them, Harvard will give you 16 Harvard Credits which are credited against your graduation requirements, so you'll need 112 credits to graduate instead of 128. These classes have ZERO value for Harvard Credit, AP Music Theory, AP Studio Art I/II/Drawing, AP Gov, AP Human Geo, AP Comparative Gov, AP World Hist, AP CS (A), AP CS Principles, AP Environmental, AP Physics I and II.

In your case, I would look to signing up for as many College Board AP Exams as possible that you think you can get a score of 5. Anything less than a 5, is not given Harvard credit.

https://oue.fas.harvard.edu/pursuing

https://oue.fas.harvard.edu/apexams

https://oue.fas.harvard.edu/college-curriculum

https://placement-info.fas.harvard.edu/home

If you read all the information provided on their website regarding graduation requirements you will see that about 12/32 courses are Harvard requirements, and the next 10-14 are courses in your Major or Concentration. So you really only have about 6-10 elective courses to play with. Harvard like many Ivys is not as generous with giving incoming Freshmen college credit because they do not feel that a State school course is equivalent to their own classes. Nevertheless, they are more generous than say Brown U. which gives ZERO credit for AP coursework or Dartmouth that uses AP for placement but none of it counts toward the 35 required courses needed to graduate. You will find that other LACs like Williams also does not give any AP credit.

If you want the full value of your Associate degree applied to your incoming application, your best bet is to apply to a large state college like the University of Texas system because they are most familiar with Texas-based AA degree programs offered within Texas.

Hope that helps you out. Good Luck.