Why does Dorico input an accidental for the A flat as seen in bar 12? It’s in the key signature already.
Cal
It’s a cautionary accidental – a reminder that this A is flat, because the one in the previous bar was a natural.
You can set options for cautionary accidentals in Notation Options > Accidentals > Cautionary Accidentals,
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Thank you.
Dorico should not show by default in my humble opinion, my lecturers would go crazy if my score was filled with those. Just my 2 cents.
C
The use of cautionary accidentals like this is very common – and very useful to performers – which is why it is the default in Dorico.
But if you don’t like them, you can turn them off.
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Yes, there are different traditions in different branches of engraving. Any scorewriter software has to pick one of these as a factory default, and as computers cannot read minds yet (which is a good thing, if you ask me…), one sometimes has to adjust the underlying global behaviour manually. Thankfully, Dorico lets you do just that.
Would the passage not be more clearly notated like this…?
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Wouldn’t this be a useful discussion point in your class? Depending on its purpose, players’ abilities, experience, Broadway or film scoring conventions, school, college, reading abilities, rehearsal time (if any), Publisher house styles or specific editions …
Edit addition: Dorico provides the flexibility (perhaps “non-judgments”, if you will) with an extensive (overwhelming!??) array of display/format options for Notation, Engraving, Layout etc. for any, most (at least) diverse range of output purposes (as well as providing overrides!)
… so set them all up according to your lecturers’ preferences so you can pass your courses (knowing you can change them around for any other real world purpose after you graduate 
)
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I like the “non-judgements” reference very much - I think it’s a great jumping off point when you talk about setting up/ preparing Dorico’s behavior on many fronts.
Yeah I agree about the need for a universal default that is then editable. Thankfully it is, the challenge is finding where in the menus to change something, thank the lord for these forums. In regards to the post about alternate spellings with the double flats, from what I’ve heard most people in the jazz world avoid double flats and sharps as much as they can, even things like F/C flats are often re-spelled. It’s all just preference and for ease of reading I guess.