How to Enroll

Common Requirements

Each school or college offering classes has somewhat different structures and requirements for determining who can enroll under what circumstances (it couldn’t be easy, right?), but there are similarities. For instance, most will want to have at least the signature of your high-school guidance counselor on the enrollment form, and several will want a specific recommendation. Not only can the counselor verify that you are eligible to take the particular class in terms of courses already taken or currently being taken, the counselor will also know whether your school has the right technical connections in place for you to take one of the synchronous video classes. Some will want parent or guardian permission as well. If you want to take a class for Concurrent (for example, one of the Advanced Placement classes from the Academy at Ball State), you may also need to indicate that to the institution (Ball State or Vincennes) from which you wish to receive the college credit.

Most colleges will require you to be admitted to the institution in order to enroll in one of their classes; several have special-admission status for high-school students, while others may require regular admission but have a streamlined process. Several waive or reduce the regular admission application fee. All will want to have a transcript of your high-school work to date and some confirmation from your counselor that you have permission from the school and are judged to be ready for this advanced study. The campuses which open selected classes to high-school students typically have a special office focused on such initiatives, or at least someone knowledgeable within their continuing education or admissions office who can take charge of these special cases and provide you specific advice. Wherever possible, we’ve provided a link to the relevant web site, where you can also find a phone number if you need to talk to a human being to sort out your questions.

How to Follow Up on a Specific Class

Each of the classes listed under Specific Classes Available for Fall 2005 is linked to the full Course Information record in the online ICN Catalog. This record will provide a course description, delivery method, information about special requirements (access to certain kinds of computer equipment or software, for instance) or prerequisites (courses you should already have taken, or required minimum scores on placement tests), specific class meeting days and times plus semester start and end dates for synchronous and semester-based or accelerated courses, and a contact link for more information.

Ideally, you’ll find all the information you need to make a decision about whether you’d like to take that class, but since we can’t anticipate every question, there’s a human back-up for help. Sometimes there are two names. Usually the first listed is the distance learning coordinator for the campus (“Campus Coordinator”), who is at least knowledgeable for procedures and programs of that institution and who can help put you in touch with the right people for other help. In the case of the high-school programs, the person identified may be the outreach coordinator or headmaster. If there’s a second name, that’s likely to be someone associated with the particular program of which the class is a part (maybe in the school of arts and sciences or the music department) who can probably answer questions about course content and approach. If permission of the instructor is required for enrollment, either of those people can help get that determination.

You should not try to use the ICN form to request registration—that really only applies to undergraduate students enrolling between institutions. It would be a good idea to print off the Course Information sheets for all the classes you’re interested in and take all those to your guidance counselor (whether before or after talking to your parent or guardian is your call) along with whatever notes you’ve made from talking with coordinators at the offering institutions. If your counselor isn’t familiar with these newer kinds of opportunities, he or she can also spend some time browsing through the site to get a sense of whether this might be a good choice for you and whether the particular class you want to take would fit within your school’s structure.

This sounds very complicated in the telling, and it certainly isn’t as straightforward as signing up for a class at your local high school, but neither is it as bad as it may be sounding. Don’t let unfamiliar procedures prevent you from trying something new—remember, it’s only strange the first time around. If lots of people didn’t think distance learning could benefit you and others like you, the opportunity wouldn’t be there in the first place. Keeping yourself challenged and interested in learning is a reward worth pursuing!