So I am an eighth grader that is now in the process of planning for high school as a freshmen.
I am an advanced student among my peers(I have already passed Geometry A and B in the last two trimesters and the teacher is letting me use this entire trimester to learn the Algebra 2 A-C material so that I can test out and take Pre-Calc next year. I have also kept a 4.0 GPA throughout my middle school years)
My middle school had all kids in the eight grade take two honors tests (the only two available for incoming freshmen in our district high school) which are Honors Biology and Honors English. I easily passed both tests, and didn’t pick them for my next year schedule. But now I am deciding whether I should take them or not.
I’ve heard from others that it brings a LOT of stress and I don’t know if I can handle that much if I am gonna take Pre-Calc and Spanish II (that’s why I didn’t choose honors). I have already selected the normal Science and English classes but I think I can still change it since the next year hasn’t began yet. My current schedule if all goes well right now is: 9th grade English, 9th grade Science, Pre-Calculus, Spanish II, and Gym.
My teachers tell me that I should take the classes but I honestly don’t know if it will be worth it in the end. I kind of want 9th grade year to be as easy as possible (for the most part).
So I now end up here for help. What do you high school and college mates think I should do? Please feel free to let me know everything you can as I will take in EVERY detail from all of your opinions. You might change a highschooler’s life ;D!
honors classes definitely ARE worth it for several reasons:
a rigorous high school course load helps you improve your study skills and will make college courses easier to handle
colleges like to see that you’re taking challenging classes
it sounds like you’re pretty smart, so chances are you’ll be bored in all regular classes
if you do well, it’ll bring up your weighted GPA. while colleges tend not to look at weighted GPA, some schools use weighted GPA to calculate rank. for this reason, i personally regret not taking more honors classes–it would’ve made my class rank much more impressive.
if you only take two honors classes, you probably won’t be stressed at all. freshman year is a breeze; i took two honors classes in 9th grade and finished the year with straight As. i rarely had homework and was able to spend most of my free time hanging out with friends or relaxing.
so my advice to you is to take the most rigorous courseload possible from the beginning, so that you don’t regret it later on. if you start high school and find that you can’t keep up with the material, there’s no shame in dropping to regular level classes; but you have to at least give honors a shot before deciding whether it’s too hard or not.
good luck!
I was like you. I didn’t want to stress myself out my freshman year. I was good at school and all, but I figured taking the one AP class my school had available for freshman year would be too much.
This year I took 7 AP classes.
You never know what you can handle until you push yourself. I have one regret in high school, and that was to not take that ap class Freshman year. Not only does it lower my class rank (I’d be top 10 but now I’d be lucky to be in the top 10%), but it’s an experience that I’m sad to have missed out on.
So what if you’re stressed? Everyone’s stressed! It’s best to get good at tackling stress and dealing with stuff. Especially in a freshman honors class, they start it off easy so you can acclimate. If you jumped into your first honors class as a junior you don’t get that, they just let you suffer.
So go for it, don’t have the regret I do. Push yourself and enjoy it. If you’re smart enough to test out of algebra 2, you’re probably smart enough to take honors Spanish and English and everything else too.
