<p>How does online PE class work?</p>
<p>Well, for full disclosure, my D’s rank and GPA are complicated. She only moved to this school in junior year and the vast majority of students take NO weighted classes in freshman or sophomore year (although a couple did take one AP in sophomore year). The school does not translate grades from prior schools and those don’t factor into her GPA- colleges simply get a transcript from the old school attached to the new transcript. </p>
<p>So if you just look at the GPA, my D is far above everyone else in her class- since a disproportionate percentage of her classes are weighted. But of course, it would be an incredibly stupid college admissions office to not see through that artificial boost. It also makes the school’s Naviance data virtually impossible to interpret since her GPA shows up well above everyone else’s. A couple of the other top students had moved to the school in sophomore year, so it is truly impossible to compare students by GPA. When my D applied to a summer program and asked her counselor what to put for the question “your rank as you best know it”, he told her she could put whatever she wanted.</p>
<p>^^^They work well 
Seriously, my kids did this with Florida Virtual. They designed workout schedules that met the requirements of the school and had us, the parents, sign off them as they were completed. They spoke over the phone and by e-mail with a fitness coach. Programs included aerobic, stretching, and weight lifting components. Much was done individually, but there were requirements for group participation which could be fulfilled by team sport activities. The fitness courses also had an online reading component complete with quizzes–topics included anything from basic nutrition and weight management to heart health. My D thought one of her written fitness finals was more difficult than her AP finals. I thought the online fitness prepared them to think about fitness realistically, like they’ll have to do without mandatory PE.</p>
<p>As long as high schools and colleges play this extreme gpa game, it would certainly be better to take things like phys ed and fine arts on your own, outside of the school system. </p>
<p>It makes me sort of sad, though, that some kids begin figuring out where they stand in freshman year, know everybody’s gpa’s who are remotely close to them, and choose their courses based on what their rivals take. Many even opt out of lunch to get that extra AP “A” to get a little edge on others. But I guess if you want to be in the very comfortable admission and scholarship zone, you have to do it.</p>
<p>And you can only tell if it was worth it in hindsight.</p>
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<p>Yep! I was skeptical too about this. I literally laughed when D told me about it. However, PlantMom describes it perfectly.</p>
<p>Thankfully, we never even hinted to our S that Val/Sal and all the game playing was anything he needed to concern himself about. So he sits at class rank #3 (our HS does it be weighted academic class GPA) and will be close to if not at this to close out his junior year. </p>
<p>Does he care he’s 3? Not much. He knows the two guys ahead of him, since they all went together at the same language immersion elementary school. (I find it somewhat surprising at this point that so many of the top ten students at his school are boys.)</p>
<p>He decided after sophomore year, upon recommendation of his AP Calc BC teacher, to attempt an on line linear algebra class and forgo the less rigorous AP Stats class. He’s pulling an A. It’s a crying shame that he will NOT get weighted credit for this, since it’s clearly his most challenging class ever. He’s not crying over it, since he knew I ran the gauntlet, checking to see if this was a policy that could be altered.</p>
<p>Next year, he’ll face the same thing when he take multivariable calculus. Yet, he will be taking the class. We have a sneaking feeling that choosing to take college level classes will stand out on his transcript as a very positive thing that ad comms will notice.</p>
<p>Guess I should be grateful for that B+ S received first quarter of his freshman year. Smashed those Val. or Sal. dreams early on in the process, so now he can focus on taking the classes he’s most interested in!</p>
<p>“Next year, he’ll face the same thing when he take multivariable calculus. Yet, he will be taking the class. We have a sneaking feeling that choosing to take college level classes will stand out on his transcript as a very positive thing that ad comms will notice”</p>
<p>I think you are absolutely right about this, FindAPlace. Our son had a combination of CC college credit/AP courses/honors/and plain old regular high school classes on his high school transcript. I think his CC courses in computer progamming at a post AP level were very helpful in his colleges apps, not to mention that he really wanted to study the more advanced topics. He did receive weighted credit on his transcript because this is policy in our state, but we are also homeschoolers, and I would have had no trouble weighting his GPA if it wasn’t state policy. It’s mind boggling that your high school won’t weight a multivariable calc class!</p>
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<p>True that! I think it’s policy because the administrators can’t be bothered with the debates about which classes outside the HS schedule are truly equal or greater than an AP class and thus meriting the weighting. In this case, he’s taking the on line class since taking at a CC is a logistical nightmare (CC classes aren’t weighted, either) BUT he’s taking it from JHU-CTY who is extremely good at providing info on what items are covered, how tests are administered, etc.</p>
<p>It’s a crying shame that we just needed to move on from and exert energy elsewhere.</p>
<p>It was conveyed to me by my CC that the colleges did not know student class rankoutside of top 10% I also feel that encouraging my D to take a class out of her comfort zone , and not have it work out so well was a mistake. Stupid me was merely impressed she wanted to try. That is how naive we were. It didn’t help. Anyway, I refuse to go as far to manipulate the system, but my impression is, that the schools evaluate a pile of papers for the most part, will tell you that it is the Transcript,transcript, transcript, and I believe them.</p>
<p>LOL about those PE and Art classes online. But what do I know, oldest kid is only beginning HS. But you had me thinking and I checked - in my state PE has to be taken either at the HS or as an outside club sport for homeschoolers. That is why GC was stressing this to the incoming freshman - take PE your first year because you do not want to be taking this as a senior with 9th graders!
State requires 1.5 credits in PE, the last 0.5 can be taken as Fitness for Life or participation in a sport.
I was shocked when I checked that indeed you can take Fine Art online!
GC was frank with me when she said that top students take Computers, Financial Literacy etc online, but she never mentioned Fine Arts. I wonder how an online class would be viewed by the UC system. Any thoughs? I actually do not even think that DS would be interested in taking Fine Arts online, he would probably love to do theater or film arts at the school. It will have to wait though. For freshman electives he chose debate and doubling up on science (will take H Biology and H Physics).
Again, this whole idea of playing the numbers makes me cringe. He might be already in the losing spot when it comes to numbers, as most likely he will have to take at least 2 years of math outside of school, at the local U. Oh well…</p>
<p>It always makes me sad that by jr or sr year, all the top kids in the class have dropped their sport…but it’s a double blocked, unweighted class, so if you stay in all 4 years, your sport makes up 25% of your classes. I hate to see it, but maybe I’d have made the same decision if I was in their spot (as it was I didn’t take Drawing although I wanted to because I knew I couldn’t get an A.)</p>
<p>Some of you may remember the big flap last year when a 3 year grad in our district was not allowed to be the official Val - rules dictated it had to be a 4 year grad. They showed brief shots of her close-to-perfect transcript on TV and I could see that she had been allowed to take a whole lot of AP classes as a 9th and 10th grader when other 9th and 10th graders are only allowed to take one a year.</p>
<p>Too bad about the PE requirement, Kelowna. In our state, the virtual school (FLVS) is treated as a regular brick and mortar public school–it’s even SAC accredited, funded with tax money, certified teachers… As a result, all high school credits earned online must be and are treated the same as credit from a regular high school. Thus grades and credit (with weighting) from any course ranging from PE to AP Calc goes on the student’s regular school transcript as if the course were taken in the regular school. Now, the other way to look at this, since this thread is all about manipulating numbers, is that you don’t choose what goes on your transcript with FLVS courses. Their courses count just as much or just as little as regular school classes.</p>
<p>I don’t know how UC would view online credit, but our state’s university system does not differentiate the FLVS courses from regular school courses. Many students use FLVS for convenience or to take a course not offered in their school. It makes a ton of sense to have the flexibility a public virtual school offers because of the portable format, and many, many Florida residents (>50,000? enrollments last year) take advantage of it. Oh, and it’s free!!! I suspect that more states will adopt this alternative method of public education in the future.</p>
<p>Our state’s virtual school is also free No PE though.
This whole idea of numbers game is not my style.But… I have a very, very strong kid and I would hate for him to “lose” his chance, thus the brainstorming.
I watched him perform at the choir concert tonight and thought that he should, indeed, take drama as his fine art class. Can’t take drama online thought ;)</p>
<p>How about any community theater groups? In retrospect, I would have had my kids do their fine arts outside of the school system. Scholarship money gained would have more than made up for the expense.</p>
<p>Hmm, I live in CA but don’t know how the UC system would view an on line class in fine arts.</p>
<p>I can tell you that both our HS and UC are fine with credit for the accelerated math classes that S in taking online with a well known entity, JHU CTY. The classes are linear algebra and multivariable calculus. We could have opted for him to take them at a CC but the logistics were just a nightmare, so we ponied up the $$ for CTY.</p>
<p>As I wrote on another thread, he’s busted his butt with the linear algebra but is carrying an A. This week he got to find out the positive side of doing this. He interviewed with a USC prof, who was impressed that he was doing this as a junior, and will now be working for him over the summer doing climate modeling. He’ll learn matlab and a whole lot of other things assisting with the reserach, and even help with a paper and get his name on it.</p>
<p>He and I are now thinking this is worth WAY beyond the weighted GPA that the HS will not be giving him for attempting this.</p>
<p>Kelowna:</p>
<p>UC’s are generous with outside credit and will accept many online courses, BUT not for the VAPA requirement, nor for the science lab requirement.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to remember that colleges will see the actual transcripts with the courses and grades. No top school is going to reject a person with all As in a bunch of APs and a few electives just because he’s ranked #3. It is a bit of a different story if these factors make somebody drop out of the top 10%, because that can have an automatic effect at some schools.</p>
<p>What does VAPA stand for?
We are no in CA but close enough that I want to keep that option open for my kids.</p>
<p>VAPA is visual and performing arts. It’s one of the UC system’s AG requirements. Students must have a year in an approved class. Be careful if you are out of state. I discovered at our in state HS that the FILM photography class was acceptable, but the DIGITAL photography one was NOT. Go figure. Even a school board member friend of mine didn’t have a good explanation for this, except perhaps that the digital class cirriculum may not have yet been run past UC for approval. </p>
<p>This was really too bad. I wanted S to have a class that went over the fundamentals of photography AND in the more current mode. Oh well, as least he makes good use of the “down time” while others are in the dark room, by tutoring his friends in math and meeting his community service requirement thusly!</p>