For the sake of argument, lets assume your child has qualified by testing or past performance for advanced math, science, history etc. . How do you approach the decision as to whether the child go to the highest level he or she qualifies for or stays in regular. Level of stress, GPA, transcript for college all seem like factors. . Also–being in a class with similarly “advanced” children seems to be of benefit potentially. I recall at least in BC Calculus the downside of being at the “bottom” as well as the pleasures of being in advanced Chemistry and Physics among friends who were similarly talented in science and stimulated by a teacher enjoying their verve for the topic. . .
I think its important to look at the prerequisites for later classes and determine whether your child will be prepared to take the classes he/she wants to take as they move up to seniors. For example, a student may be prevented from taking AP Physics C if they haven’t taken Calculus. Similarly, they may be unable to take AP Spanish Literature if they haven’t reached the appropriate level of Spanish study - which is next to impossible unless you qualify for advanced Spanish early on.
I’ve been thinking about this question recently also. I don’t think SmallFry’s school weights the GPAs for honors classes (is that the case at most boarding schools?), so I wonder if college-wise Smallfry is better off getting a B in an honors class or an A in a regular class. Of course there is more to education and the BS experience than getting a high GPA and there are obvious benefits to taking honors classes, the reality is that the potential competitive disadvantage is still a factor to take into account.
BAE (Before All Else), I don’t decide. I only advise. My advise isn’t always taken and I am fine with that.
My philosophy is that take advanced/honors curses wherever available, if one has reasonable chance of getting A. That way the student would be in zone of proximal development and learn the best. If it’s too much work, then reduce number of classes instead of lowering class level. Grade and college admission is secondary, especially in Freshman year.
On the other hand, If it is likely be a C with some hope of B, then the student would be outside of ZPD, and it’s too much stretch.
Mine is taking all ap/honors except pre-calc that doesn’t offer honors section. While it is a lot of work and she is not acing all of them, she is learning better, and has found many good friends among classmates.
Purely for grade, Daughter’s schools’ .3 weight on honors or .5 weight on AP doesn’t make up getting a B instead of an A. So not worth unless you can get an easy A in honors, which isn’t often the case - Even if you can understand the material perfectly well, your assignment will be much more and you can get more harshly graded for the same quality of work. Also, her school gives .3 for A+, so that could be easier than A with honors. Purely for grade though, which I care less than maximizing actual learning.
There is a lot of discussion about this on the regular side of CC. It may make some difference if classes are weighted for GPA and if your school ranks. DS1 only has advanced/AP options for math, science and language (which happen to be his strengths). History and English are all the same.
Look ahead as @HMom16 said so you know what impact choices now may have on future classes.
For top colleges they will compare your schedule to what your school offers (if you are thinking about top colleges). If your school offers 20 AP classes and you take 3 that will be seen as different than someone who takes 2 AP when the school offers 4.
This is all helpful. I will look out for the issue of prerequisites. I am most concerned about the experience in the classes than the GPA per se. . .The dean of faculty at the incoming BS has told me that it is more complicated than it might appear on the surface and has offered kindly to meet with us on revisit day! A student I was in contact with (through CC) had advised me to have him at least consider advanced as she said they were not necessarily “harder”. I believe that sometimes a class can offer more “learning” and have less work . . I like classes like that. . Thank you sculptordad for introducing me to the ZPD.
This question is asked all the time. Choate’s response: It is better to get an A in the honors class.
Come college app time, your student will be compared only to his/her peers at that BS and many of those peers will have the As in the honors classes. Your student just has to decide what s/he wants to get out of BS.
I think it also depends on the kid’s goals. For instance, perhaps you want to take a “regular” foreign language class if you plan to really stretch yourself in science and math. Sometimes a kid can handle H or AP in all subjects individually but when faced with a full schedule of classes, too many can drag down all. Depends on the kid…
I thought that was the major issue for most of BS kids, all the time. 
Another way around is taking one less class and having a study hall period.
I trust my kid’s advisor and teachers on this issue. This year, he is in honors Chemistry. He didn’t request it, it just showed up on his schedule. (He just requested Chemistry…didn’t specify. But his Bio teach and his advisor felt he could handle the harder one.) They know WAY more than I do about college admissions than I do.
We asked about placement at most or all the schools we visited and I think heard from all the schools that kids are placed where their advisor/department feels they belong, based on past classes, school, grades, etc., and that classes are scheduled so that adjustments can be made easily if need be. We heard from several kids that they’d been placed in classes more challenging than they would have chosen, but that it worked out okay. Is there more student input in later years? I am assuming that advisors and faculty advise on placement, course progression, prerequisites, etc., but I am hoping to learn about all of this on re-visit day. I was hoping to not be too involved in these decisions and to leave it to my son and his advisor!
Some kids use the teacher as the deciding factor, particularly in the drop/add time period. If the honors teacher is boring, hard to understand heavy accent, unreasonable in expectations, etc., it may be better to drop back to regular course than try to gut it out.
My child was placed in class based on middle school transcript. In one case he was placed in an Honors Level III class and we requested that he be placed in Honors Level II to give him a chance to adjust to rigors of the school. The request was granted without question. I believe it’s easier to request a lower level grade appropriate class than request a higher one, especially freshman year. In our school, the schedule is sent before kids arrive so if you see something that you think might not be quite right, just reach out and discuss.
What I like about BS relative to LPS is that I DO NOT have to think, worry about this issue.
The entire course choices and placement is between my child, his teachers and his advisor.
Nothing for me to fret/obsess about.
It probably depends on the kid too, but DS started talking about what classes/class sequences/sports he wants for the sophomore, junior, and senior years beginning October of his 9th grade. So I realized, oh, nothing for me to do here.
When he talks about his class plans, for me it is in one ear out the other ear. Glad to reciprocate that to him :))
Time to obsess about other things. ~O) 
@payn4ward I have noticed that too this winter. DS is making his own plans in conjunction w the school. And, he has a lot of positive pressure to do well!
Many schools will not publicly announce whose teaching what class during the signup period and won’t allow for changes during the drop/add period based solely on the teacher.
When I was a freshman, a teacher wanted me to take her elective class, which I opted not to sign up for mainly because I wanted to knock out the art/music/PE graduation requirements that year. so had no room for this course. She complained so loudly to my advisor that the advisor went to my parents who politely but firmly explained that I had previously explained my course choices with them to their satisfaction and that they were under no circumstances getting involved in course selection. That might even be the only time my parents ever talked to my advisor.
I agree with everyone here that the schools typically do a good job of placement for freshman year and that having advisors and teachers who are invested in their students really removes the need for parents to be super involved with this. At the freshman level in particular, a more “advanced” class is less likely to involve substantially more work, but it may cover the material at a faster pace or start at a higher level. Most schools have a “one of each” approach to freshman scheduling, so ideally, each level of each class will challenge the kids in it equally (based on where they are when they enter) without challenging them by having hugely different workloads. Students who have never had Spanish are going to spend roughly as much time in Spanish 1 as students who are in their second year will spend in Spanish 2. In general, if a freshman student if feeling like he is needing to put in a lot more than the others in the class to keep up with the pack, that’s a sign that it might be wise to drop down a level.
After freshman year, there may be more variability in workloads. It can be helpful for kids to think about what kind of work they like to do and what comes easily. For example, our school offered APUSH and Accelerated US History. They were equally “rigorous” but the latter, which covered less material in class, required a huge research paper. For one kid, clocking through the material at a relentless pace might have felt like more work whereas for another, having to read several books on a single topic and then write a major paper on it would have been unbearable. A robotics class might feel like “fun” to one student and pure drudgery to another. It’s as much about the student as it is about the difficulty of the class.
One of the great things about BS is how much is offered in every department. What that means from a practical sense is that a kid can take 2 advanced sciences and a high level math while taking regular classes in English, French, and History. And he can do that for several years in a row and not exhaust the offerings.
@carpoolingma hits on something, though that I think may be at the heart of this as a student moves through the 4 years. Balance is so very important in terms of the kind of work and the challenge that it will present for a particular student. DS learned that if you take classes that are hard for you (as in, are doable but don’t play to your strengths), you may have to spend so much time on those that you’ll have little time left to excel at the ones that interest you and/or come easily. It’s a great strategy for being a straight B student!
One of the best things you can do for your freshman is ask him/her to be aware of how that first year is going and how it’s feeling. (And if they talk to you openly about this, you can help them to think about this as their first year unfolds.) If you are hearing that they should request a change during freshman year, encourage it. If it seems fine but you are hearing a lot of complaining about xyz, remind them to think about how much xyz will be involved in their schedule sophomore year. Kids who can assess themselves honestly and think about how they learn, what is required in each class, what excites them, and what realistically they’re prepared to do will be so much better equipped to make good decisions about their classes as they go forward.
What about the other problem if kid is already enrolled in all advance classes, parents are not so sure about this hard course load and academic counselor says that she is doing fine in those classes and takes kids side and recommends that this is appropriate course load, no extra brownie point for such a course load. Is this okay?
@infinityprep1234, if the kid wants it and grade report is acceptable, yes.
@Sculptordad, our problem is sometime we think kid is pushing too hard, It is not about grades but learning soft skills of life that is paramount, though boarding school is teaching all this as parents are not there anytime, so you learn how to live and make your decision in life and be responsible for your own decisions and the outcomes