<p>Young students in high school are perfectly capable of holding meaningful internships very early on depending on their talents, training, and exposure to maximize those. My own son worked at a professional internship following his sophomore year for three summers (and several breaks), interviewing against college students, because he was professionally certified in a number of programs needed for the position. He had zero hand-holding, this was not shadowing, it was full-time, 40hrs/week. Each year his responsibilities grew. It’s a shame he doesn’t want to be an architect because they love him and would have hired him straight out of college (he’s mech’e). He went to an IT high school and took advantage of classes and programs where he had a natural ability that made him marketable.</p>
<p>I would suggest the OP contact their students GC and ask as they would be most familiar with their curriculum, requirements, how top students normally progress. They might be able to offer some alternative ideas to get the chem credit and take advantage of the internship (if the chem if a pre-req).</p>
<p>When the username said Nova (Northern Virginia) and TJ I made an assumption that’s what it was. The OP hasn’t been back to confirm so I quickly checked post history and that’s in fact what they were referring to, TJHSST. If I was in SoCal I probably would have thought the same thing, YHYH. :)</p>
<p>TJ has a phenomenal guidance department. They know their curriculum, the progression, what best serves their students, etc. That is absolutely going to be the OPs best source of information on this. What happens at our local ‘competitive’ suburban public doesn’t equate, so what we might do isn’t going to offer the insight the GC can.</p>
<p>Those standards were probably relatively recent changes to accommodate many more students on a wider academic capability spectrum taking AP courses compared with decades past.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your advice. My son goes to Thomas Jefferson High School For Science and Technology. As for your question, chemistry is a prerequisite for AP chemistry.</p>
<p>Since he knows Java programming, one of the local IT companies is willing to give him an internship.</p>
<p>The dilemma for us is whether to choose internship or chemistry during summer. If he chooses internship, he will be doing chemistry, calculus BC and AP biology during sophomore year. But he will lose the slot for AP Chemistry.</p>
<p>PVNova: Can’t he do AP chem in junior year? My S did Honors chem in 10th grade, and then went on to do AP chem in junior year in our locan public. Wouldn’t the intership give him some thing he can not get from a classroom?</p>
<p>PvNova - Work experience, especially in programming is definitely preferred over not being advanced enough in chemistry. Most high school students finish chemistry by 11th and stay put after that and do more chemistry as needed in college. So what do you gain by one year more of chemistry?</p>
<p>Development experience is parlayed into high paying school and summer jobs once you get to college. I know many current freshmen looking for summer jobs after taking several CS classes in college but since they have no prior experience, it is harder for them. I am sure your son won’t have such issues if he is getting experience starting now.</p>
<p>I think a CS internship is worth its weight in gold. My son didn’t go to TJ, but did fine taking AP Bio as a sophomore, AP Physics as a junior and AP Chem as a senior. Because he had worked in CS before graduating from high school, he got into one of the top CS programs in the country and is now working at Google. If your son wants to do the internship, that’s what he should do. He’ll be fine.</p>
<p>My son would have gone with the internship and he would have been very resentful if I had pressured him to do a class instead. Even if the class would be the “recommended” thing to do.
My kid although he is a good student and the academic type he still looks forward for a break and the enrichment of different environment/challenge.</p>
<p>Internship is better. It gives experience to see what it’s like as a job, can bring future jobs, is a great experience to see the inside of a company, looks better on college apps, and sounds more fun.</p>
<p>The internship is valuable, is a change of pace, will lead to future opportunities, make getting internships in college easier, and if your son wants this option I would let him choose. By completing AP Chem as a Jr will there be any courses that will be unavailable to him over his Jr and Sr year? Admissions isn’t going to care if AP Chem was completed in 10th or 11th grade, they are looking at the overall body of academics. If this is simply a matter of opening up a course space for another class, I would strongly weigh the benefits of the class he’d plan to take eventually and the internship.</p>
<p>He does not have a preference, but many of his friends are taking chemistry during summer. But they don’t have the same internship opportunity as him.</p>
<p>The reason for taking AP chemistry during sophomore year is that he will have a space open to take one of the other electives. </p>
<p>There’s no way, even looking at the website, we can judge what is an elective, and what is a graduation requirement, at another school. Would you know that stacking two technical electives at our school takes care of the fine arts requirement? No, and I wouldn’t expect you to. You and your son, with the help of his GC, need to decide if the advantage of taking an additional elective (and I’m not discounting the vast unique opportunities at TJ!) outweighs the benefit of the internship.</p>
<p>Take the internship. Considering TJSST’s rep among college adcoms…especially the elite colleges, missing an AP in chem won’t make much of a difference as it would for many regular schools.</p>
<p>If anything, it is likely to boost his admissions standards which is a nice bonus on top of having a potentially wonderful summer experience.</p>
<p>Yes, a computer programming internship is likely valuable as both work experience and computer software experience (which can be useful for both CS majors and other majors who use computers).</p>
<p>Take internship. Will be better for future jobs and careers, for future networking, will learn more, will likely be more fun, and will look better on college applications than AP Chem.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, this is not an either or situation. He can do both, it just bumps AP Chem to his Jr year and allows one less elective. </p>
<p>The choice is internship now with one less elective overall in HS, OR take chem this summer, AP Chem as a soph, allowing one more elective in HS. So, internship or elective? You’re going to have a hard time convincing me any elective trumps an internship.</p>