High School Information & Vocabulary

High School Credits
Beginning in high school, each course a student takes receives a credit. Each semester class is the equivalent of one-half credit. So a student that takes English I the 1st Semester (August to December) and passes the class will receive one-half credit (.5). Then when the student passes the 2nd Semester (January to May) English I class, he/she receives another one-half credit (.5) giving the student one complete credit in English (1.0) for the school year.

Many courses are semester courses, meaning they only meet for one semester and students receive one-half credit for taking the course. Examples on semester courses are health and speech.

Courses are either state-accredited or they receive local credit. All courses in the Academic Planning Guide are state-accredited except for those where (Local) is printed after the credit value.

In order to graduate, students must fulfill one of the three high school programs sponsored by the State of Texas:

• The Minimum High School Program requires 24 credits.

• The Recommended High School Program requires 28 credits.

• The Distinguished Achievement Program requires 28 credits plus four advanced measures.


Regular Courses, Quad C, Advanced Placement (AP) & International Baccalaureate (IB)
Most of Allen High School’s core Discipline (English, Math, Science, and Social Studies) courses are offered in multiple formats.

Regular courses are designed to prepare students for post-secondary pursuits. For example, a student that takes regular English courses four straight years should be prepared to succeed in freshmen English.

Collin County Community College (Quad C) offers college courses for high school students to take on site at AHS. These courses are defined as either Dual Enrollment courses, meaning the student receives both high school and college credit or Concurrent Enrollment courses meaning the student receives college credit only. Concurrent Enrollment courses may count toward an AHS student’s full time status as a high school student.

Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses are designed to introduce high school students to college-level work during the student’s junior and senior years.

Pre-AP/IB courses are offered to prepare students for the college-level work they would be exposed to in AP & IB courses. The Texas Education Agency no longer acknowledges or uses the word honors in defining high school courses of study.


Transcripts, Grade Point Average & Class Rank
The grades that students receive for course work when they enter high school are posted on a high school transcript that post-secondary institutions use to determine if a student meets their entry criteria.

Each grade is also given a grade point value based on a five-point scale.

In order to maintain fairness, course grades in Pre-AP, Pre-IB, Quad C, AP or IB courses receive additional weight to acknowledge that these courses are more difficult than the regular courses. (“Weight” is defined as the value of the specific grade.)

A comparison of a regular course to an AP or IB course grade would show:

• A student that takes regular English 3 and makes a 90 would receive 3.50 grade points.
• Another student that takes AP English 3 and makes a 90 would receive 4.50 grade points (GPA Tables – Class of 2005 & Beyond).

Grade points are added together each semester and divided by the number of courses taken to calculate a student’s Grade Point Average (GPA).

A student’s Class Rank is then determined by the numeric position of the student’s GPA in comparison to his/her classmates.