<ol>
<li><p>after watching extended family & a co-worker going thru the college process I know we need to start early. HS don't official start until 11th & that just seems too late for ECs and HS transcript course planning.</p></li>
<li><p>I am overwhelmed by the # of colleges -- esp after taking #4 below into consideration.</p></li>
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<p>3 9th grade son is high IQ, does fine on Standard. Tests</p>
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<li> Son will need lots of merit/FA. My ultimate goal is for him to be debt free with UG or close to it so that if he wants to go on he can.</li>
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<p>WHAT I NEED:</p>
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<li><p>A game plan for HS classes without burning son out ( ie -- he can take multiple dual enrollment classes, honors & AP, but I worry that taking all classes as such will be overwhelming)</p></li>
<li><p>He likes small classes & thrives in them -- Searching privates LACs seems like a good step in the "what colleges to apply to", but is there a consolidated place to look at State Honors Colleges (including OOS).</p></li>
<li><p>No idea of a major -- a school that has flexibility in classes & putting off the decision until beginning of Sophmore college year is ideal.</p></li>
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<p>Does he need more ECs throughout High School (I hope not)
Currently he has 5 ECs he is dedicated to (sports, music, art, community service & outdoor adventures)</p>
<p>YES -- I have become obsessed with this whole planning thing after watching a co-worker & family members wait until "late in the game" because</p>
<p>Way too early, chill. It will change soo drastically that you will not understand why you wasted you time instead of relaxing and enjoying. His goals will change, school reguirements are changing every year, programs get cancelled (people have been asking me about D’s program, it is cancelled, how about that?). One advice, do not try playing any GPA games, your son should decide himself and have enough time fro friends, sports… To much parenting might be met with resistance. The best relationship in a family is the most important.</p>
<p>I think that with a 9th grader you can afford to relax for a couple of years. As much as possible, let him choose courses. So much happens between 9th and 12th grades that any effort he (or you) makes now in terms of choosing a school, is really a waste of time.</p>
<p>Your child should let interests guide him in his EC’s, and not college admissions. I truly believe that letting your child become too aware of resume building, poisons everything that he does. he should try to follow authentic “passions,” and try to enjoy high school, academically, socially and emotionally.</p>
<p>So take a couple of years off. I have no idea what your co-worker went through, but it is clearly causing some unneeded anxiety at this stage of the game.</p>
<p>Just my opinion, but one that is based on raising 3 kids through high school and on to very good situations for themselves, without undue stress for anyone.</p>
<p>As others have said it’s too early to put this much energy into it. The changes in my son his junior year were pretty remarkable. However, I don’t think you’ll listen to us. So my advice is: Don’t let your ds know you are fixated on college this early; come here and let us be the recipient of all your angst. :)</p>
<p>I guess I disagree with everyone here. I don’t believe 9th grade is too early to start planning a bit. GPA, or class ranking, definitely makes a difference when being considered for various merit scholarships, if that is a must for your family. If his school weights AP or Honors courses higher, you might take that into consideration. Certainly seek out and request the better teachers if your school allows that. It can make all the difference. AP courses don’t really start until sophomore or, for many students, junior year.</p>
<p>If his school offers SAT prep, you might consider signing him up since many scholarships have cut-offs for that.</p>
<p>Too early to worry about majors, and 5 EC’s seems about right. You might consider having him focus on one in particular with the goal of getting a leadership role. </p>
<p>I don’t know where to find a consolidated list of state school honors programs. I know of some universities with honors colleges within which basically provide full rides for National Merits and such (examples Oklahoma Univ. and LSU.) There are threads on CC about this.</p>
<p>It is probably too early to research colleges for your 9th grader, but it is NOT too early for you to do researches to familiarize yourself with the wordings used by different colleges, and accurately finding PERTINENT information. You will be surprised how some info on a specific university’s web site conflict when you know how to “dig”. And the only way to learn is by practice.</p>
<p>I guess I have a bit of different opinion, that’s why there is CC. Whatever class your son takes in 9th will have an impact on what track he gets on later on. At our kid’s school, honors bio/chem was offered to everyone in the class. To get an honors designation extra labs were required. Some very smart kids just decided not to do the extra work. Now in 10th grade, they are not allowed to take the next level honors bio/chem. Without honors then they wouldn’t be able to take APs. It is the same for math, everythig is a building block. Our strategy is take the hardest courses possible without impacting GPA. There is no point in taking 6 APs a year, if she’ll end up with Bs or Cs. I have also had a discussion with our D2 that grades count starting 9th grade and what it would take to get into good schools. To do well in school or life, it is through “ability, motivation and discipline” (a quote from another poster). I don’t want to be in the position, come senior year, have D2 say to me, “I really want to go to school X, I wish someone would have told me that taking those courses and getting high GPA mattered?” </p>
<p>In my opinion it is not too early to start planning in 9th grade or at least start the conversation. Should it be overly consuming? No.</p>
<p>I agree it’s not too early. Encourage the gpa. Even the number of AP classes didn’t matter that much. Just learned that the hard way. Competition is worse than ever and gpa (not extracurriculars) seems to matter the most. On the other hand, if your child is an outstanding athlete and has decent grades (emphasis on both), there will be a lot of interest.</p>
<p>Offer him the opportunity to self-study some APs that interest him. Don’t require it, but make sure he knows it’s an opportunity.</p>
<p>As a junior, I wish I had actually done some learning outside school and really tried to stretch myself freshman year. A year of life is too precious to waste.</p>
<p>It’s too early to be choosing which college the OP’s son should be applying to, it’s too early to select a major but it’s not too early to start thinking about college and preparing for it.</p>
<p>The son should take the most rigorous curriculum he is capable of handling (which does not mean all APs and college courses!). As a 9th grader, he should select courses that are pre-requisite for the more rigorous courses later on. For instance, he should be taking Honors Algebra and Honors English instead of college prep classes. He should make sure to fulfill the high school graduation requirements. He should take four years of the same foreign language.
He should engage in extra-curricular activities that interest him, not some designed to look good on his resume. They can be school-based (eg. the science team) or performed outside school (e.g volunteering in a hospital or church). Or it can involved paid work if he needs the income.
As a sophomore, he should take the PSAT to familiarize himself with the test and have a basis for focusing on areas for improvement. At the end of an Honors class in science, he may want to take the SAT subject test in that field. But 9th grade is a year of transition. He should have an overall plan, but he should learn to enjoy high school.</p>
<p>I am greatly comforted to hear ECs shouldn’t be resume builders – He has diverse interests & his current ECs show this. I worry about overscheduling & really don’t want him taking on any more.</p>
<p>I am still concerned with his course schedule – He currently has 2 honors classes & a dual enrollment. It will be great if he can handle it all, but if he runs into trouble I don’t know whether to push him thru or let him drop an honors class. Basically, is it a bump in the road or are we on the wrong road.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not trying to choose his college now, but was trying to spread out the college research over time to avoid being overwhelmed. Back in my day you picked the loacation you wanted & applied to schools within it – of course this was before tuition explosion & huge FA packages</p>
<p>In our public school the kids plan their entire 4 years of high school during special sessions at the end of 8th grade in conjunction with the parents and also the assigned high school guidance counselor. Of course, there is time to drop/add and tweak each trimester and every year, but it does help both the student and the parent “look out” at the horizon line so that the classes are taken sequentially. It also gives a chance to get needed courses under the belt before state AP testing junior year. It also helps the student and GC plan for the required courses systematically. If the student even has an inklilng that they might want to take dual credit courses at outside institutions senior spring, it enables the guidance counselor to tweak required course schedules long in advance to allow for that possibility. That type of framework planning, yes, can and should occur freshman year. Financial planning, yes, good to start running some financial calculators and famiiliarzing yourself with the process and the costs of college. Other than that, 15 year old kids are no where near emotionally ready to think about specific colleges. Not too much to stress about at this point. Also, this is the perfect time to support good study routines and to start relinquishing some control e.g. if they aren’t already doing it, getting themselves up with their own alarm clock, arranging their day in a way that works for them, etc. I still make sure the kids woke up on time but I didint “wake them up.” I didn’t set a study time, but asked them “what time are you going to study?”</p>
<p>beawinner, I am not sure I agree with what you said about the emphasis on mainly the GPA. Are you saying that course selection does not matter? At our school, classes are tiered such that there are different level for the same course. The best students take the hardest and most difficult classes of the same subject. When a student drop down to a lower level class in the middle of the semester, his/her grade is raised accordingly. We don’t have ranking or weighted GPA at our school but guidance counselor and admission people who visits our school know exactly what this mean and treat the GPA and the rigor of the classes together to determine the strength of the student. This might be different for schools that do ranking and weighted GPA but my overall point is that you need to take the most challenging classes to be considered the top students from a particular school. GPA alone is not a sufficient factor.</p>
<p>The workload should be manageable.S1 took only Honors classes in high school until he took APs. This was expected of college-bound students. S2 took college and 1 AP class in 9th grade. He managed fine. As long as your son is handling the workload, don’t push but also don’e hold him back.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Take the toughest courses possible in 9th grade. If they are overwhelming, it’s usually easy to drop back a level. If they are too easy, it’s almost impossible
at most schools to rev it up a notch. No matter what they say, most colleges count 9th grade grades less than those taken later. It’s better to aim too high than too low. </p></li>
<li><p>Join all the ECs that interest him and weed out later. I know a lot of parents who made their kids go slow with ECs in 9th grade. When the kids did well gpa-wise, parents allowed them to join more ECs. The grades then went down. So, let him try juggling as much as he wants in 9th grade and make any adjustments that need to be made. </p></li>
<li><p>Ask your S to pick one EC to focus on. That doesn’t mean he should drop any others. Just that he should choose one in which he’ll expend some extra effort. Depth is usually more important than breadth in ECs. So, don’t think about adding ECs so much as getting more involved in soemthing he already does. </p></li>
<li><p>He should make an effort to get to know his teachers. While 9th grade teachers aren’t usually allowed to write recs, teacher recs are more important than most people realize. He should get into the habit of getting to know his teachers well now. When kids suddenly start to try to stand out with teachers along about 11th grade, it seems phony to them–and sometimes to teachers. Plus, if he’s lucky, he’ll have a 9th grade teacher again later on and recs from teachers who you’ve had over time are the best kind to have. </p></li>
<li><p>If he’s interested, have him take a look at the current entrance requirements for different kinds of colleges in your area–so he’ll have some idea of what courses he needs. This can be useful it he hates some subject. “SIGH. I hate Spanish but it seems like almost every college requires 3 years of it. So, I can’t think of dropping it.” Don’t push this though.</p></li>
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<p>It’s said that “Success occurs where preparation mets opportunity.” Not being born rich, popular or well-connected, I’ve found this to be generally true. So add my vote to the side that says while 9th Grade may be too early for students to be actively thinking about college, it’s NOT too early for parents. </p>
<p>Jonri’s suggestions are excellent IMHO. Here are some other things you might consider:
[1] I had “the money talk” early in 9th Grade: Parents would pay the cost of instate
flagship university … if kids wanted more they needed to get grades and scores
good enough to attract scholarships.
[2] National Merit Scholarship status depends on the junior year PSAT score. The 10th
grade “practice” PSAT is given roughly 13 months from today. It’s not too early to
purchase a PSAT prep book to familiarize yourself with the types of questions
therein.
[3] It’s not too early to make sure you S’s study habits are solid. Good study habits
should carry him through high school’s rougher sections.</p>
<p>I’m torn regarding mid-Fall grades. In our local HS it appears teachers are instructed to mark the kids down the first couple of marking periods. I guess that leads me to:</p>
<p>[4] It’s not too early to start getting familiar with how you S’s HS functions. My D was turned away from 10th Grade Chemistry … “insufficient background” was the reason given. We pushed back and got her in the class (with 11th Graders). She ended up with the highest grade in the class. HS policies and practices are well-intentioned (mostly), but they can be obstructionist.</p>
<p>Check with the school to see if they have a Honors/AP course contract or something similar. I picked up this packet (all honors/ap in one packet) and noticed it had all the pre-requist courses and the required grades in those courses listed–this can be very helpful information.</p>
<p>jonri’s advice is spot on. For the SAT/PSAT question - I’d make sure to take the PSAT as a sophomore and then decide if test prep is warranted. You don’t want to be closing doors at this stage of the game, so your child should take as many honors classes as he can while still doing well.</p>
<p>A lot depends on the school, and the kid. I know a girl who was at the top of the honor roll in middle school, loaded up on honors courses as a freshman, and nearly failed the year. Others who started in lower level courses moved up to honors or AP as sophomores. They’re going to be able to show colleges that they took on greater responsibility year by year. As the parent of a sophomore, I’m definitely beginning my research, have talked to my D’s guidance counselor, am haunting CC. But also trying to go with her own motivation, rather than pushing-- and making sure there’s room for her to find new interests and abilities along the way.</p>