No one else in my class is taking college courses except me because they are all stupid
Calling them stupid isn’t very inspiring, is it?
No it is not. Sorry, it’s just they are my enemies
I understand that my son does not go to your HS. What I was trying to determine is why Valedictorian is so important to you and giving an awe inspiring speech during commencement really does not seem like a valid reason? You should be taking college courses for the right reasons. What happens if you take the college courses and you still are unable to meet your goal??
Colleges want to see you take advantage of the rigorous courses at your HS if they are offered. If your HS does not offer the type of rigorous courses you want to take, then it is fine to go outside the HS and attend community college. Again do it because you are interested in expanding your knowledge, not just for a few minutes of so called “fame”.
@Gumbymom Thank you for your input. I’m profoundly sorry for my rude comment
There is nothing to apologize for but as a parent I see that you are a bright driven individual but you should not get so focused on this one goal and lose sight of what is important. Take the college courses but make sure you select courses where you know you will do well in such as getting A’s.
My D was very competitive about grades. She worked her tail off to earn awards for highest average in her classes.
S was not so competitive. As long as he earned A’s, he didn’t care if they were A+ or A-.
Both have turned out very successful. However, shortly after getting to college D said to me “I don’t know why i pushed myself that hard in high school. Being top in the class doesn’t mean much once you get to college”.
It’s difficult to see right now, but in the overall scheme of things being valedictorian is fleeting. Yes, it is an achievement to be proud of - but you should focus more on what is best for you and think less about what other people are doing. Years from now you hopefully will have achieved so much more this will seem irrelevant.
You need to find out how your high school calculates weighted GPA and how choosing college courses affects it compared to other choices you may have.
I would think that for many HS’s, college classes that are not dual enrollment would not count towards your HS calculated GPA at all. At my kid’s HS for example, the only classes that count for 5.0 scaling are AP classes and Honors Pre-Calculus. All other classes are scaled at 4.0, or in the case of college classes, it’s treated as if you didn’t take a class at all. So taking college classes may actually hurt your HS GPA in a weird way because the class(es) may take away opportunities for you to take say an AP class instead of that college class.
Wait I thought the op was talking about official high school dual enrollment. If your just taking college classes on your own without permission from the school that would probably mean no credit from the high school. If it is approved dual enrollment then you need to know how your actual school utilizes the grades.
At my high school Dual enrollment classes (unless remedial) count as AP classes for weighted gpa and are averaged in with the high school grades. However in high school students can earn an A + grade which has a higher weighed scored than a dual enrollment grade which only goes to an A since the college doesn’t do A+ grades. Our gpa scale counts an AP A+ as a 5.3. most top students were around a 4.8 since it wasn’t possible to do only AP classes over 4 years. In addition I think there is a requirement that valedictorian needs to have x amount of credits taken at the high school so a student transferring in senior year doesn’t qualify.
You can only control your classes and grades. You doing well or bad doesn’t mean another student can’t do equally as well if not better. For what is it worth, at my high school neither the valedictorian or salutatorian took any dual enrollment classes whereas many others did.
Do you even know for sure who does the big speech at your high school graduation? At our high school the class president does the big speech followed by the class orator. The val and sal don’t even know who it is until after senior finals a day or two before graduation and only get about a minute to talk.
I’m a rising senior and am in my seventh semester of dual enrollment classes. Although a great motivation, your competitiveness against others should not be the only reason you take dual enrollment courses. Why try to beat others instead of challenging yourself more each year? Try to beat your personal best, not other people. Please don’t take the classes just to be first. The amount of work required in the classes (a lot!) may not be worth it for just a number one spot, if you even get it. You’ve always wanted to be valedictorian. What happens if you don’t get it? What will happen afterwards if you do? Think long term. Realize that the courses will give you so much more than a good GPA. They will prepare you for college and give you an invaluable experience of the campus community, resources available at colleges, etc. I think your motivations and overall attitude is wrong. Do colleges really want someone who spends their life try to be better than others instead of bettering themselves? Please self-reflect and realize that later on in life the competition may not be as important. Do you want to look back at your dual enrollment and high school days thinking that the only thing you got out of it was being first? You want to look back and see that it was a rewarding experience, academically and socially. Sorry to be frank, but I believe it is in your best interest. Good luck with the rest of high school!
IMO it is much healthier and much more mature to aim to do your best work in the most rigorous courses you can manage. Don’t spend your time and energy shooting for val because: 1) it is meaningless in the scheme of life and 2) you have no control over how others in your class will do academically.