Dual enrollment at De Anza College, explained for parents

Who can enroll at De Anza, and on which track?

Any California high school student in grades 9 through 12, including rising ninth graders, plus eligible adult education students. There is no GPA requirement for individual courses. That is a wider door than most of the country has, and it is the reason a Bay Area family can treat De Anza as an option even when the high school has no formal arrangement with it.

There are two tracks, and they work differently enough that it is worth knowing which one your teen is on. The ordinary dual enrollment track is open to any California high school student who applies directly to De Anza, and those classes are online or on the Cupertino campus. The CCAP track runs through a partnership between De Anza and a high school district, and most of those classes are taught at the high school or online, with some on campus. De Anza faculty teach all of them either way.

De Anza publishes two current CCAP partnerships. Fremont Union High School District covers Cupertino High, Fremont High, Homestead High, Lynbrook High, Monta Vista High, and the Educational Options Center. Palo Alto Unified covers Henry M. Gunn High and Palo Alto High, with a narrow, math-heavy set of courses: Calculus III, Calculus IV, and Linear Algebra. If your district is not one of those two, the ordinary track is the route, and De Anza invites districts to ask about starting a partnership.

Inside the Fremont Union partnership there is a further split that matters for the high school transcript. CCAP classes during the school day earn both high school and college credit and are sequenced into named pathways such as College Transitions, Engineering Design, Public Safety, and Business. Classes after school hours earn college credit only. Fremont Union students have a third option as well, Middle College, where the high school English and history courses are taught by district teachers on the De Anza campus and the rest of the schedule is college courses.

What does it cost?

De Anza charges California residents a state-mandated enrollment fee of $31 per unit, and a high school student at 11 units or fewer in a quarter does not pay it. Go over 11 units and the college charges tuition and student fees both, so the ceiling is a price as much as a workload limit.

The fees a regular De Anza student pays run to $62.75 a quarter at full time, made up of a student government fee, a campus center fee, a $22 health services fee that is not health insurance, a registration support fee, a student representation fee, and a transit pass charge. De Anza also tells dual enrollment families plainly that they may have to pay fees for other things, without listing them, which is worth one question to the admissions office before the quarter starts.

Textbooks are the sharpest difference between the two tracks. On the ordinary track the family buys them. Under CCAP all required textbooks and materials are loaned at no charge. Over a three-course year that gap is real money, and it is one of the few places where being inside a partnership district changes the arithmetic rather than just the paperwork.

Two smaller costs are worth knowing. Students can buy a VTA SmartPass for a small fee, which covers unlimited rides on VTA buses and light rail for the quarter. Parking on campus is free through the end of the 2025-26 academic year under a temporary policy, so check whether that is still in force for the term you are planning.

How many units, and which courses are off limits?

Eleven units a quarter, and the count runs across De Anza, Foothill College, or the two combined, because both belong to the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. The registration system enforces it: an attempt to register past 11 units returns an error. California law would allow a CCAP student up to 15 units a term, so De Anza is running a tighter limit than the statute requires.

High school students cannot take courses in English as a Second Language, or courses classified as Basic Skills, Learning Strategies, or Skills, or any 200-level course. De Anza does not bar a course simply because the high school offers it; the college points students toward career training, personal enrichment, and subjects the high school does not have.

Prerequisites are enforced by the registration system, and clearing one on the strength of a high school course can take several weeks, so that step belongs at the front of the timeline rather than the week before registration. Assessment is required for English, math, or any course with an English or math prerequisite, and most students are assessed from their high school transcript.

What are the deadlines, and how do we apply?

De Anza runs on quarters, so there are three main terms and the dates come around more often than a semester calendar. For winter 2027 the application for admission opened October 1, general registration opens November 9 by priority group, and the quarter begins January 4. For spring 2027 the application opens January 18, registration opens February 16, and classes begin April 5.

The number that shapes everything is the priority group. Dual and concurrently enrolled high school students are Group 8, the last group to register, which opens November 23 for winter 2027 and March 1 for spring 2027.

Group 8 is where we start when planning a De Anza quarter, because a required course can fill before a high school student's appointment ever opens, and the permission form has to list the courses in advance. Registering for a course that is not on the form fails, and fixing it means resubmitting the form and collecting every signature again. So the second and third choice go on the form the first time.

The ordinary track has nine published steps: apply for admission, set up a MyPortal account, complete the Dual Enrollment Overview in Canvas, browse the course schedule, meet prerequisites, submit the School Permission Form with electronic signatures from a parent or guardian and a school administrator, register, add or drop in the first two weeks, and ask for help if it goes sideways. The application takes up to two weeks to produce the welcome email with the eight-digit campuswide ID, and the permission form takes another three to five business days, after which a registration date and time is assigned. A new permission form is required every single quarter.

The CCAP track is shorter and the college does more of the work: check the course offerings, talk to the high school counselor, apply to De Anza, submit the CCAP Permission Form, and check back with the counselor. De Anza staff register CCAP students, so there is no registration appointment to worry about, and processing runs seven to ten business days.

Two rules catch families after the term starts. Registering once a class has begun requires an add code from the instructor rather than from the admissions office. And dropping a class means a formal withdrawal in MyPortal; a student who simply stops attending ends up with a W or worse on a college transcript that follows them.

Where does De Anza credit count?

California publishes its articulation, which makes this the most checkable transfer question in the country. ASSIST is the official statewide repository of articulation information for California's public colleges and universities, and it carries the CSU and UC transferable course lists, the transfer admission eligibility lists, and the agreements by department, prefix, major, and general education. The distinction to hold onto is between transferable and articulated: a transferable course earns unit credit at the university, while only an articulated course satisfies a specific major or general education requirement. A course can move and still land as an elective.

De Anza lets you read most of it off the course number. Courses numbered C1000 through C2099, the common course numbers, transfer to both the University of California and the California State University. Courses numbered 1 to 49 transfer to UC, 1 to 99 to CSU, and 1 to 199 count toward a De Anza associate degree. Courses in the 200s satisfy no degree requirement. A parent can check a draft schedule against that key in about a minute.

The general education pattern changed recently and a page written a year ago has it wrong. Cal-GETC replaced IGETC and CSU GE Breadth beginning in fall 2025, and De Anza now archives the old patterns for students with catalog rights from before then. Cal-GETC is 45 to 58 quarter units across six areas, and it has to be completed in full to be certified, because partial completion certifies nothing. Certification means the university cannot require any additional lower-division general education. It does not guarantee admission to a campus or a major, and De Anza says it is not recommended for some high-unit majors such as engineering or biological science. One detail favours dual enrollment over AP: the four-unit ethnic studies area accepts no AP or IB credit at all, so a course is the only way to fill it.

The associate degree is a destination in its own right and De Anza publishes 23 Associate Degrees for Transfer, in fields from computer science and mathematics to psychology, economics, and English. A student who earns one and meets the CSU admission requirements is guaranteed priority admission to a CSU campus, though not to a particular campus or major. On the quarter system the requirement is 90 CSU-transferable quarter units rather than the 60 semester units you will see quoted elsewhere, plus a 2.0 CSU-transferable GPA, the four basic skills courses known as the Golden Four, and at least 45 quarter units of general education at C-minus or better.

For the University of California the guarantee is a Transfer Admission Guarantee, and it is a contract rather than a preference. Six campuses participate: Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego do not. Every participating TAG asks for 45 UC-transferable quarter units, and the filing window is September 1 to 30 for the following fall. De Anza publishes non-UC guarantees too, including Santa Clara University at a 3.3 GPA, the University of San Francisco at a 3.0 with 36 transferable quarter units, and Arizona State at 36 quarter units.

Dual enrollment credit behaves here the way any other De Anza credit does, and that cuts two ways. Every course appears on a permanent college record and must be reported to any other college or university your teen later applies to, which is the strongest argument for choosing these courses carefully at fifteen. And taking them does not cost freshman status: De Anza tells dual enrollment students to apply to four-year schools as freshmen and to indicate that they completed college courses in high school.

Outside the California public systems there is no ASSIST. De Anza says many private and out-of-state universities award credit for UC-transferable coursework, that families should contact each admissions office directly, and that an official evaluation usually does not happen until after an application has been filed. A few independent California universities do accept Cal-GETC for their lower-division general education. Some universities also restrict how they treat a course taken pass or no pass, which is worth knowing before your teen picks a grading option.

Questions to ask before registering

Bring these to the college's dual enrollment office and to the high school counselor. The answers decide most of the plan.

• Is our district one of De Anza's CCAP partners, and if so which courses are offered at our school this year?
• Which courses are going on the School Permission Form, including the backups, before Group 8 registration opens?
• Does this course carry high school credit as well as college credit, or college credit only?
• What does ASSIST say about this course for the campuses on our list, articulated or transferable?
• If my teen has an IEP or 504 plan, what does De Anza Disability Support Services need in order to set up accommodations?
• Who buys the textbooks for these specific courses, and how much are they?

Frequently asked

Is dual enrollment free at De Anza College?

Yes for tuition, up to 11 units a quarter counted across De Anza and Foothill together. Past 11 units the college charges both tuition and student fees. Textbooks are the family's on the ordinary track and are loaned free under a CCAP partnership.

What GPA do you need for De Anza dual enrollment?

None. De Anza states there is no GPA requirement for individual courses. Assessment is required for English, math, or any course with an English or math prerequisite, and most students are assessed from their high school transcript.

What is CCAP at De Anza, and is my district in it?

CCAP is a partnership between De Anza and a high school district. De Anza publishes two: Fremont Union High School District, covering six schools, and Palo Alto Unified, covering Gunn and Palo Alto High with calculus and linear algebra. Other districts use the ordinary dual enrollment track.

When can a De Anza dual enrollment student register?

In Group 8, the last priority group. For winter 2027 that is November 23, and for spring 2027 it is March 1. The School Permission Form takes three to five business days to process before a registration appointment is assigned, and a new form is required every quarter.

Do De Anza credits transfer to UC and CSU?

Courses numbered C1000 to C2099 transfer to both UC and CSU, courses numbered 1 to 49 to UC, and 1 to 99 to CSU. ASSIST shows whether a course also satisfies a specific major or general education requirement rather than landing as elective units.