<p>From those who have been there done that. Sorry for the lengthy post but I want to give as much background info as possible. I am scheduled to meet with my sons guidance counselor Monday am and need advice as to which path is best for my son. His goal is Ivy, Stanford or Duke....lofty I know. He has been in gifted since 1st grade and is currently in 7th grade heading into 8th in the summer. Our meeting is to go over what courses he should take this upcoming year looking forward to HS. This past year he had all advanced classes in school getting all 100's and also took 2 HS courses(Algebra 1 honors and Language arts 3 honors getting a 98 and 96 respectively). He is in NJHS, Science Olympiad and Math Olympiad as well as football and baseball. With the added 2 HS courses and outside school clubs as well as sports, it seemed a bit much although he excelled.. He scored a cumulative 29 on his ACT and has been in the Duke TIP program since 5th grade. My question is....how much of a course load should I pursue without overwhelming him and with an eye towards HS? Would he be better off only taking a couple of honors classes now and taking the harder classes in HS for GPA purposes? The caveat is sports...he excels at football but that takes an enormous amount of time from his schedule. Beginning in August football starts with practices everyday after school from 5pm to 8pm and games on Saturday. This lasts til November. This will exacerbate when HS starts. Kids begin practices throughout the summer and into November for freshman football. His goal is to play beyond HS as well. What course load would you advise for him this upcoming year where he will maximize his courses and GPA when he goes into HS? If I left out any info you may need just let me know. Thanks.</p>
<p>You can also re-post on the “athletic recruits” or the “parents” forum. Plenty of wise heads there.</p>
<p>At this stage, even if he’s particularly skilled and strong and big, anything can happen between now and when he starts getting noticed by college coaches. (I know an 8th grader who was recruited to 3 area HS powerhouses – all private schools with +25K tuition/year. Now, he’s only a decent player as a Junior as others have caught up and some have even passed him up).</p>
<p>My first thought is to ask him. Obviously he likes to and enjoys excelling. Ask him if he’d like to continue being spread wide (the risk is his being spread “thin” but who knows, he may continue to shock all by excelling at all) or would he enjoy narrowing things a bit for now. Let that conversation guide you. See what intuition tells him, you and your spouse. Nothing is locked in.</p>
<p>My kid is a 3 year varsity athlete, finishing her Jr year. She’s looking for sports “at the next level” too while searching for a top level engineering school. Go figure. Her tremendous load has actually kept her focused academically. Frankly I don’t know how these kids do this kind of thing.</p>
<p>As far as preparing for the most optimal courseload entering 9th grade, speak to his counselor now and see if there’s anything in his proposed 8th grade year that would prevent this.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Ah…there’s the rub. Obviously if he levels out in football then his academics become(and should be) much more important in regards to entry for those schools. However(sadly), if he is a top player then his grades become much less important. Odds are that if were to be 1 then most likely the decline would be football thus making grades most important imo. I’m trying to maintain a good balance for his sake. Thanks.</p>
<p>Geometry 2 honors and a foreign language honors would be logical addition, perhaps Language Arts Honors if you think he can handle it. </p>
<p>I would keep him on track to be in the most rigorous courses in high school (i.e. stay the linear path with next level math and foreign language) but otherwise focus on grade appropriate courses (GT or honors or whatever his 8th grade has) and let him keep growing and excelling. You are mapping a 5 year plan at this point - its a marathon and not a sprint.</p>
<p>We are a CTY family and I don’t know what Duke TIP offers, but looking to the future, if they have “fast paced HS whatever” it is a way to make AP level of the same science in high school a breeze, which reduced study time and (I believe) decreased the stress on my daughter’s sports and dance time commitments. At 8th grade (and 9th) though, she was still taking fun CTY classes. Happiness is far more important than achievements. </p>
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<p>The chances of getting a merit scholarship are much higher than getting an athletic one. He’s in school to learn, so I’d opt for a more rigorous course load over one that’s likely to leave him bored and unchallenged. I think I’d look at the recommended courses for high school and work backward to make sure he has all the prerequisites needed for those classes. </p>
<p>Thank you for the help. After meeting with his GC this am I think I have more questions than answers lol. He will be taking(8th grade) Geometry honors, Freshman English honors, US history honors and Reading honors for sure. Now we have some decisions to make. He can choose to take either Physical Science honors(usually 10 grade course and Biology 1 first) or Biology 1 no honors. Next he can take STEM 3&4 no HS credit or Computer Course which counts for HS credit and college…he loves STEM but the HS only has basic STEM beyond. Finally, Spanish 1 (no honors but HS credit) but I know some schools want 4 year language. If he holds off on Biology 1 and Spanish 1 then he could take them as a freshman but as honor courses. The school recommended curriculum for Freshman 4 year is English 1 honors(which he would have already), Algebra 1 or Geometry 1 honors(which he will have both already), Biology honors(if he takes in middle no honors) , AP Human Geography and World language 1(again he would have but not honors if he takes 8th). Thoughts please?</p>
<p>Biology 1 no Honors is better than Physical Science, because Physical science is less well considered than the trifecta of Biology, Chemistry, Physics. It’d allow him to start freshman year with Chemistry Honors, Physics Honors sophomore year, and thus he’d be one of the very few who can take Physics C as a junior.
He shouldn’t hold off on the foreign language - in many districts, students in the G/T program take foreign language as early as 6th or 7th grade (some, even earlier). It shouldn’t necessarily be Spanish - French or German might be more useful if he’s really interested in math - this is way far off, but French and Russian are often required for mathematicians if only at the reading level and there’s a lot of technical stuff in German. Since French is easier than Russian, many mathematicians start on French earlier, and keep Russian or German for grad school or college. The “norm” for honors students is to start with Foreign Language 2 freshman year, in order to reach either Level4 junior year and double up on something else senior year, or to take AP FL senior year (or even take AP FL junior year and do something impressive with languages senior year – and/or double up on foreign languages by having 1 language at AP level and 1 language at level2-3, but that’s even rarer than Physics C junior year.) Level 4 of a language is the norm for most selective colleges and having AP language can get students out of semesters of college foreign language (or even fulfill the basic requirement). Note that colleges want Level 4 in the foreign language, but that can be achieved in fewer years than 4.
So that’d make 8th grade: Geometry Honors, Freshman English Honors, US History Honors, Reading Honors, Biology1 not Honors, STEM or CS, Foreign language1. He could probably take Algebra2 over the summer.
With this, 9th grade would be Algebra2 or Precalculus Honors, Sophomore English Honors, AP Human Geography, Chemistry Honors, Foreign language Honors, plus other classes of his choice.
He’d be on track to take Honors Physics sophomore year along with Calculus (either AB or BC), and thus Physics C and either Calc BC or dual enrollment calculus junior year. That would help him play off his strength and that’d still leave space for “fun” classes.</p>
<p>MYOS1634…Wow, spectacular advice, thanks.
- As far as I understand the middle schools only offer Spanish 1 for FL…but I will double check. I know schools frown on 1 year FL and switch so he might have to stick with Spanish…plus we live in Florida sooo.
- Which would you recommend, STEM 3&4 or Computer? STEM has no HS credit where Computer would count as an elective with HS credit(but no honors)?
- Would you prefer US history honors to AP Human Geography since he would be coming off US history in 8th grade? AP freshman seems steep.
- Finally, what courses would you recommend for his freshman electives? I know alot of people put off PE until senior year.
Thanks again.</p>
<ol>
<li>If you live in Florida, you should be able to take foreign language through FLVS and there’s a bit more leeway in choices. I believe it’s free for Floridians and you are even REQUIRED to take at least one class from it in order to graduate high school. (Your son would have a ball with the Math offerings). Your public school would be required to accept it as credit but check with them.
<a href=“FLVS Flex Course List | Online Courses for Grades K-12”>FLVS Flex Course List | Online Courses for Grades K-12;
I understand though wrt Florida and Spanish but… it’d be another way for him to stand out. See what seems best.</li>
</ol>
<p>2.Really, between STEM 3&4 and Computer, he should be able to choose freely what he likes best. It won’t matter much in the long run.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>AP Human Geography is often taken Freshman year by strong students. Taking World History Honors, would be a strong core addition if you could do that and if he’s strong enough in social science.
You may want to read this (you can read the abstract to get the general point)
<a href=“Geography | Social Sciences”>Geography | Social Sciences;
The basic website for the class:
<a href=“AP Human Geography – AP Students | College Board”>Get the Most Out of AP – AP Students | College Board;
He would then take AP US History Sophomore or Junior year, if his high school offers it, or through FLVS.</p></li>
<li><p>Hope or personal fitness can be taken online. Electives can be anything he’s interested in provided he has
English, Math, Social Science, Science, Foreign Language, all honors if possible (or AP/AICE). One art or speech class can easily be added, and then anything you want.
He can easily dual-enroll at any public community college <em>for free</em> as long ashe’s got 11 credits, 3.0 GPA, and very minimal ACT/SAT scores; if he can keep up the pace, there’s even a list of classes that count toward graduation. Stuff like History of American Rock’nRoll sounds fun and “counts”, for instance. 
So he could take the high school electives he likes from his HS during 9th and 10th grade, then take electives from the community college.
This is a list of potential DE electives (and all other “approved” DE classes)
<a href=“Credit For Prior Learning”>Credit For Prior Learning;
Any other elective from his HS would be great.
However, the potential of DE is through acceleration in math: the pace is faster than in HS and may agree with him more in that specific subject.
For instance, picking a random city college, he could take the following classes (1 per semester)
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2311&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2311&Name=MAT</a>
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2312&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2312&Name=MAT</a>
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2313&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAC2313&Name=MAT</a>
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAS2103&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAS2103&Name=MAT</a>
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAD2104&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAD2104&Name=MAT</a>
<a href=“http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAP2302&Name=MAT”>http://www.broward.edu/zext/ext/Coursedetail.jsp?ccn=MAP2302&Name=MAT</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>Note that the last 4 classes aren’t offered every semester at most community colleges so check with yours.</p>
<p>One thing you may try, since he’s like “thirsty” for math, is to have him take Geometry through FLVS over the summer, insisting he needs to get an A to show mastery and must pace himself since he is NOT allowed to complete the course in less than x months (2 months I think?)
See what the Guidance Counselor would say about that, do they have Honors Algebra2 for him?</p>
<p>Thanks again. Because he is so involved in sports and school activities this past year seemed a bit much from my perspective. He still got all 100’s at school and a 96 and 98 with honors HS classes from virtual. Thus I was looking to ease back if possible just a little. He would be on the school football, league football and baseball teams simultaneously as well as science fair, science olympiad, NJHS and math olympiad. His school does not offer English 1 honors or Geometry honors so he will be taking them thru FLVS so a 3rd(French 1) would really be challenging to go with Biology, STEM, US History, Reading honors plus his sports schedule and 40 hours volunteer work. As for electives I wasn’t sure if there were any honors or AP to boost GPA. Lastly, so much of what I have read frowns on DE as opposed to AP for the elite colleges anyway…but there is plenty of time to worry about that lol.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theadmissioncentre.com/should-i-take-ap-or-dual-enrollment-courses/”>http://www.theadmissioncentre.com/should-i-take-ap-or-dual-enrollment-courses/</a></p>
<p>Thanks again for the help.</p>