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Michael A. Wilner received a bachelor’s degree from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. He is a contributor to The Choice.

Michael Zhang took eight courses this semester at Smithtown High School East on Long Island, including three Advanced Placement courses. In years past, that would be a sign that Mr. Zhang, 18, is capable of taking on academics at the college level.

But as if to quell any doubters, Mr. Zhang has gone the extra mile. He has completed two Coursera online courses. He has enrolled in more than 20.

“I’m very excited because this is a great example of knowing a professor and his work, and being interested in a school because he’s a part of it,” said Mr. Zhang, who is waiting to learn admissions decisions from the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania, among others. “The intent is to let them know that, with all this competition, I do have interests outside the classroom, and I take initiative outside the classroom.”

Mr. Zhang lists his completed Coursera coursework near the top of his résumé, next to his high school, and recognizes its cachet for him as a prospective applicant. But he says one of the most unexpected rewards of taking massive open online courses — or MOOCs — was getting a feel for what each school has to offer.



Peering into a University of Pennsylvania course online, he says, showed him the small size of a Penn class, and its benefits; doing the same with a University of Michigan course provided him with a different experience. And he did all of that from hundreds of miles away.

Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera, sees opportunity for growth in the high school market for just that reason.

“It’s one of several populations we’re hoping to serve,” he says. He says he “wouldn’t pretend that a Web site could replicate” the on-campus experience, “but it does convey a lot of information.”

Statistically, Mr. Ng notes, students are much more likely to enroll in a university that they have visited. And while he acknowledges that a Coursera experience will never be the same as an in-person trip, he sees it as a chance for students to save money on the cost of travel, while learning something at the same time.

“Some of them are introductory, and a strong high school student would be able to complete them,” Mr. Ng said. “A.P. classes are meant to replicate college classes; Coursera classes actually are college classes.”

But if students do decide to take on additional classes online, they can expect to be on their own. High schools are unlikely to grant credit for courses in a medium they still consider untested.

Coursera does award certificates of completion, however.

“I wouldn’t encourage students to register for a semester-long course, and certainly they couldn’t do that for multiple institutions,” said Carol Wasden, the director of college counseling at The Hockaday School in Dallas. “But if it could be a short-term thing — a sort of online equivalent to them sitting in on a college campus class — I think that would be phenomenal.”

If students feel the burden of more coursework is too heavy — on top of an increasingly burdensome application process — they have plenty of alternatives from which to choose. Many colleges continue to update their Web sites with interactive features tailored toward the prospective student. And The Choice encourages using YouTube for discovering tips and clues on a school’s culture and values.

At Rice University in Houston, Caroline Levander, the university’s vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, encourages high school students to test out their online course offerings — with a gentle caveat.

“These are the same faculty that those prospective students would see if they came for a campus tour and sat in on a class,” Ms. Levander said. “Given the fact that there’s no grade or course credit, I can’t imagine that that would be a valuable component of an application.”

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