School is a long process. Students face many years of school whether they plan on attending college or not.
Sinclair offers two programs for pre-college students wanting to get a head start on their college degrees: the Post Secondary Enrollment Options and the Advanced College Entry program.
PSEO presents high school students with an opportunity to obtain up to 37.5 credit hours for free in the 2008-09 academic year.
“My main reason for (taking) PSEO is to save money,” said first year PSEO student Danielle Artmayer. “I’ll be paying for most of my college and I don’t want to have to deal with being thousands of dollars in debt when I graduate. If I can get my first year or most of my first year of college done before I graduate, that’s one year less I have to pay for.”
However, PSEO has limitations to which students can participate. Only the top high school students are eligible and even then the students must pass the assessment test known as the Accuplacer. Also, they’re only eligible for some classes and must have those classes approved by both a Sinclair counselor and a counselor at their high school.
The ACE program presents pre-college students with similar options.
“First of all, it helps pre-college students begin (their) college education,” Sinclair ACE Coordinator Norman Barksdale said. “It helps pre-college students start to focus on what they want to do, sometimes it improves study habits, it’s cost effective at $45 a credit hour and it supports the education plan Gov. Ted Strickland is creating.”
While PSEO is limited to the top high school students, ACE is available to all students K-12 with no certain limitations presented to students, according to Barksdale.
Sinclair itself has seen students with a wide range of interests, from a high school student taking physical education all the way to an 8th grader being placed in Math 101, according to Barksdale.
The only thing PSEO has over ACE is that it’s free, according to Barksdale.
So, which one is better?
“Both programs really do offer experience,” Barksdale said. “The difference between the two is PSEO has more requirements, but it’s also free… Parents and student need to balance which one fits you.”