Anyway, here is what I didn't know until the summer after Son's junior year: There are colleges that only consider UNWEIGHTED averages for admissions; some consider weighted averages for admission but unweighted for merit aid.</p>
<p>My son will have taken 11 heavily weighted AP classes by the time all is said and done. His unweighted GPA (and perhaps even his weighted GPA) would have been much better with fewer AP classes. They did NOT tell us this at school.
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<p>My 2 cents: Weighted or Not AP classes are better than regular classes.</p>
<p>"Did you see this article in the Washington Post?
Studies Find Benefits to Advanced Placement Courses - washingtonpost.com"</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. Interesting link. A lot of students I talk to are taking the AP courses for the course work but some end up not taking the exam. Maybe this is why.</p>
<p>I would think there should be quite a few issues with incoming freshman/sophomores :)</p>
<p>We have had several meetings at the HS, final one with the GC today and FINALLY we have arrived at S's course choices for freshman year:
P.E.
Debate
Honors Geography
Spanish 3
Honors English 10
Honors Biology
Honors Physics
AP Calculus BC</p>
<p>Uff! It has been really hard but at the same time a little amusing. I have found out quite a bit! My info came form the CC parents, parents of the kids already in chosen HS and , mainly, form GC. She turns out to be a reasonable woman, one that does not say "let the kid be a kid, HS is about having fun " etc.
She was very open with me about many things that are not in the "open". For example - what courses to take online, what courses to test out of. Very, very interesting those conversations with her have been...</p>
<p>This may be obvious to a lot of people on CC, but be sure you know your State U's requirements. There are a lot of students in CA who seem surprized that the UC system requires a visual and performing arts class. The information is in all the materials from DD's high school, but sure seems that students/parents are not always getting the message. That can cause scheduling problems later on in high school.</p>
<p>Wow, I saw that Kelowna's son can take 8 classes a day at his hs. My son's hs offers 7/day (with 6 actually meeting each day on a rotating schedule) but there has been talk of going down to 6! My son is thinking of taking for his sophomore year:</p>
<p>Honors English - 10th grade
Honors Precalculus
Honors Chemistry
AP World History
Spanish 4 (has honors weighting)
Honors Anatomy and Physiology
Honors Marine Science</p>
<p>I am trying to convince him to substitute a "breather class" for one of the last two sciences but he is fighting me on this. We have another month until actual registration.</p>
<p>Our high school offers 6, with the option of "zero period" at 6:30am. And everyone has to take a minimum of 2 years of pe. It does cut into the options for some students.
For our daughter, a night class at the local CC is more doable than a zero period....she and her dad are NOT morning people--and I prefer not to start my day trying to get either of them out the door at that hour.</p>
<p>hi '12 and '13ers. From the '10 thread we have seen the huge differences in scheduling options between some schools. There are some kids taking 10 classes a year! I don't see how they do it, but it makes it much less of an issue to get the required/recommended number of core classes in over four years.</p>
<p>I have a freshman D and we have started planning the courses she would like to take next year. But the school doesn't publish the curriculum guide until March with selection in Apr. There will be some changes in the science dpt and I'm waiting to see those so we can see how our current plan fits. </p>
<p>We have 7 periods, with a maximum courseload of 6 and a required free period.</p>
<p>At some point we should also consider splitting this thread, maybe in the summer if the volume is low start two new ones for the different years, the kids will no longer be 8th and 9th graders.</p>
<p>
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This may be obvious to a lot of people on CC, but be sure you know your State U's requirements.
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<p>Our state reuires 1.5 credits in fine arts. But it was on CC that I have learned about california system requiring it for admission. S wants to find out how good the drama department is and then make a decision. GC said that some kids to art online (???).</p>
<p>
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Wow, I saw that Kelowna's son can take 8 classes a day at his hs.
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It is a block schedule, four periods to each. Much easier to fit in lab classes, or so I have heard.</p>
<p>
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It is a block schedule, four periods to each. Much easier to fit in lab classes, or so I have heard.</p>
<p>All this is so new to me ...
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<p>My kids have that. 4 classes on A day. 4 classes on B day. No homework assigned today is ever due tomorrow. I don't know of a student who doesn't love it. The science teachers love it. The only teachers who aren't very happy with it are the foreign language folks, who would prefer to have their kids every day for a shorter period of time.</p>
<p>It's more expensive, because the teachers still get one free period per day, which is a fourth of each day (rather than 1/6th or 1/7th oor 1/8th of the day.)</p>
<p>One important thing to note about the University of California fine art requirement is that it must be a full year of a continuous course. You can not use one semester of drama and a second of ceramics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
To satisfy the VPA requirement, a course must be listed by the school as a one-year arts course in which the second semester builds on the first. Marching Band does not count as an art course because it is listed as PE. Two second-semester Concert Band classes would not count as one year of VPA because they are not listed as a one-year course.
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</p>
<p>
[quote]
For a college course to satisfy the VPA requirement, it must be at least 3 semester units, be transferable to UC and fall within the four disciplines of VPA (dance, drama/theater, music or visual art). The Music Fundamentals course does not have enough units to satisfy the requirement. The student should take a 3-unit community college course in the spring. (Check Welcome</a> to ASSIST to make sure the course is transferable to UC.)
<p>My son got his very first piece of college advertising the other day. UMiami sent him a letter asking if he wanted some sort of precollege guide for free. I didn't really look at the content much before giving it to him but this is the beginning of the college junk snail mail. They must have gotten his info off of virtual counselor (an online website that all kids here have to access grades, attendance records and graduation info/class rank etc) because my son said that they knew that he planned (at present at least) to study something in the health professions. Where else would they have gotten that info? He did take the PSAT last Oct. for practice but I don't think he gave any info like that on it.</p>
<p>It's possible the information came from his PSAT, our freshman DD took the PSAT, she's been receiving various mailing for the past week or so. Some are more interesting to her than others---but all have found their way to the recycling bin.</p>
<p>DS/freshman and I just met with the college guidance counselor(for sophomore year course scheduling advice). She told us that for her to check the "took the most rigorous classes" box on the GC rec forms at our hs my son has to take 5-7 AP classes during his junior year and another 5-7 AP's during his senior year!!! This is insane.</p>
<p>seiclan- that is insane! When I met with the college counselor for my older D1 who is a Junior, I was trying to tease this info out of him to get the answer for my freshman D2. He said there was not a hard and fast formula. I will try to get more info over the next year comparing what we find out about what "rating" D1's friends have, if they ask the question, and if they share the info with D1.</p>
<p>How many classes a year do you have? We just have 6, so 7 is technically impossible....</p>
<p>Do you perhaps have lots of AP classes that go at half-speed? (AP Calc AB as one year and then AP Calc BC as a second full year, AP Physics C Mechanics as a full year and AP Physics C E&M as a full year, etc.) </p>
<p>Are some of them the "easy" APs like Human Geography, Environmental Science, etc.?</p>
<p>How many AP courses does your school offer? My daughter's school offers 17, but that's counting AP Physics B & C as 2 courses and AP Calc AB & BC as 2 courses (you take EITHER AB or BC, not both).</p>
<p>Any way to do some of them in the sophomore year, so that your son can have a more balanced load his junior/senior year? My daughter's school is offering AP World History to all sophomores....</p>
<p>Do you have the same counselor all the way thru? (So it's possible someone else might disagree with the 5-7 APs a year for 2 years?)</p>
<p>This is in addition to the 2 AP's (World History and Statistics) that he is planning on taking for sophomore year! She said that to be competitive with the kids who are from this area (South Florida) for IVY and top tier schools, my son needs at least 5 during each of his junior and senior years!!! He takes 7 classes a semester (6 a day on a rotator schedule). The hs offers about 27 AP classes.</p>