People who study the underrepresentation of women in STEM view as pivotal the middle school years decision about which math track to follow. This is when some girls who had previously done well in math decide not to pursue the advanced track for presumably social reasons. So, yes, I would make sure my D was on the appropriate track for her skills at that point.
I’m busy just trying to get my 12 year old to wear deodorant every day! 
However, to answer the OP’s question, I have often chastised my own Mom for not encouraging me to apply to more competitive colleges.
Yes, it is reasonable to expect her to understand the implications. Why wouldn’t a 12 year old be able to understand this? Sit down with the high school catalog and map out a program. Probably have to do that in 8th grade anyhow.
This is a kid who skipped a grade. She should be in the honors track. There is no guarantee she would be in the same math section as her friends even if she took the lower level of math. Anyhow, it’s math class, not a party, and she should take what’s right for her, not what’s right for someone else. My kids were not even in grade level math classes in middle school and they still managed to see their friends who weren’t at the same math level in the other classes and at lunch. Later in high school, both of them also found friends among older kids.
There is a difference between taking x course because it is where one should be (honors, ahead, etc) and framing it in terms of helping one eventually be admitted to “top schools.”
@Leafyseadragon, do you chastise your Mom or do you think it should have been your responsibility to push yourself harder? Please don’t take my question the wrong way, I am not saying you should “blame yourself”, just trying to understand how my daughter might feel down the road if I step back and let her make it completely on her own.
@romanigypsyeyes, I agree, but it might be hard to motivate 12-year old by saying “you need to take a more challenging class with more time-consuming homework because it will help you realize your potential and achieve more.” Bringing up college admissions gives justification for extra effort involved.
You’re right to some extent mathyone, depending on the kid. A kid that knows at age 12 her aim is MIT or an Ivy, will be pushing to take the top classes. A kid that is less tuned into that and is thinking local U is just fine, may not understand that taking a challenging class is important and only see it as more work
OP: It is a fine line to figure out the difference between encouragement and pushing, especially with a pre-teen and mom. Yet I would urge you to open up the lines of communication about what she is thinking about for post-HS. Just talking about it, without pushing. Keeping communication going in HS is really important.
To limit conflict, enlisting the both the middle school and the high school guidance counselors, along with the current math teacher should really help I am still not clear what the school is telling you and what your daughter wants to take as far as math goes. Most of the GT and other high ability kids in our HS followed the path set out for them by the GC based on the teacher recommendation. It sounds like there are two different, but both advanced math classes, and trying to decide between them? If she is nearing the end of the 8th grade, there should be some guidance on what she should take. But I would, as a parent to a 12 (almost 13yo) be insistent on not taking the easy path at this point, telling her if she doesn’t like it after she tries it she can move down a level in future years (assuming the teacher and GC are recommending her for those classes).
Don’t get caught up in the shouldas. If you can afford CTY (even if she didn’t get a scholarship), it can be a great experience. If you can’t, then that is fine. Taking an out of school class at this point is probably not necessary, even for a kid aiming high.
@mom2and, thank you, sounds like I am doing everything right, more or less, though locating that line between encouragement is pushing is tougher and tougher. What to me is encouragement - suggesting she e-mails the GC at high school to find which class is more challenging, to her sounded more like parent invading her space 
“It might be hard to motivate 12-year old by saying “you need to take a more challenging class with more time-consuming homework because it will help you realize your potential and achieve more.” Bringing up college admissions gives justification for extra effort involved.”
Wow, I really disagree with this line of reasoning. The last thing I would want would be to encourage my kid to be motivated by the goal of future college admissions or prestige rather than an inherent love of learning, intellectual curiosity, or desire to challenge themselves. If parents don’t model the value of learning for its own sake that’s how we end up with high school kids who pick their courses and extra curricular activities with an eye to what they imagine an admissions committee wants rather than what actually interests or excites them. If you encourage intellectual curiosity and love of learning for its own sake, you end up with kids who go to college out of a sincere desire to learn what their professors can teach them, rather than keeping a perpetual eye on their GPAs. I don’t want my kid to see the goal of college as just an investment in a fancy piece of paper with a prestigious name on it.
@profparent, I see your point, but I don’t entirely agree, My daughter loves humanities and is very excited about taking AP European History - she “accidentally” ended up in that classroom while taking SAT for CTY and raved about the sayings posted on the wall, etc. Math comes very easy for her but doesn’t excite her in any way. What’s wrong with saying she needs to challenge herself in all areas, not just in those that she loves, so that it can help her get into a good college where she can continue studying what she is excited about?
I wish my parents had pushed me to take AP sciences (bio, chem, physics, etc). I have always been a humanities person but my high school catered to the STEM focused students and my class rigor ended being lacking in comparison to many of my fellow students. Although I perhaps would not have enjoyed myself as much, I think it would have better prepared me for college admissions.
@typiCAmom, I can see that might be appropriate in high school (though it isn’t my own parenting method), but at age 12? I would NOT want to focus on the college admissions race with a 12 year old. I think that sets up way too much pressure, and sends the wrong message about both my own values and the values I would want her to pursue. I would, however, happily use the first half of your motivating sentence. I’d just cut the last clause. That is, I’d happily agree:
“What’s wrong with saying she needs to challenge herself in all areas not just in those that she loves?” In my mind this is exactly the right approach. But I would skip making “a good college” the goal. Believe me, when students challenge themselves for the love of learning, good colleges follow without your having to make it the goal.
Why not ask the GC which class is most appropriate for her, not which is hardest? And I think your completely hands off approach is maybe too much so on this important decision. Does the High School GC not contact or meet with the parents for picking the classes? That is the piece I am not getting - what is she recommended for and why haven’t you been given that information? Typically, that is a major piece of the puzzle in picking future classes.
@anxioussenior1, thanks for your perspective, I hope my daughter feels the same way. Though math (and middle-school science) are really easy for her so far, she is just not excited about them. Our school is reach in Humanities AP and I expect my daughter will choose those over AP sciences, but next summer I’ll encourage her to take chemistry and physics in community college during the summer just to get some exposure.
@mom2and, unfortunately, high school GC doesn’t contact or set up meeting with middle school parents or students. I think it might be hard for GC to assess my daughter based only on 100% math placement test (extremely easy, according to my daughter) and A’s in her class. Also, I believe in a large school initial placement decisions are not always made on students’ strengths and weaknesses, but ease of scheduling. Her “recommended placement” (I don’t think current Geo teacher is involved at all) is Algebra II for 10th-12th grades, which on the first glance appears more advanced than Algebra II with Trig for 9th-12th grades, but I just don’t know if it is really so. If Algebra II is a standard class for kids who take Algebra I in 9th grade (when my daughter took it in 7th), it doesn’t really sound all that challenging to me.
So, I also have a grade-skipped 12yo who just picked classes for 9th grade. She knew she wanted to take the pre-AP track for the four core courses, because she prefers being in class with kids who want to be there. She knew she didn’t want to do summer school math to accelerate another year beyond that. She knew she wanted to continue with orchestra. She had one more elective; I explained that having four years of foreign language would maximize her eventual college options, but that she could both graduate and attend our state flagship with no foreign language at all. She signed up for French I, but I’d have signed off on her schedule if she hadn’t picked any language. And that’s all the choices available to us!
TIP is our talent search; she was interested in testing but entirely disinterested in preparing beyond knowing that she should guess if unsure on the ACT. When we looked at summer programs, I didn’t even mention ones she didn’t have qualifying scores for or the ones we were unwilling to pay for.
College frenzy starts early, even in our noncompetitive Midwestern suburban public school. She told me she’d been asked at school what colleges she wanted to go to. “My parents said we’ll start thinking about that the summer after 10th grade, so I have no idea,” she said. Which was a great answer from my perspective; she knows there’s a plan, that her parents will keep her from accidentally sabotaging herself, and that there’s nothing to worry about now.
The only problem with saying this is that teenagers who are focused on getting into a “good” college tend to interpret that to mean only schools with sub 10% admission rates (or only schools in a particular athletic conference) and are utterly miserable when they fail to be admitted to these places. After all, they worked so “much harder” than their mere mortal classmates who may be headed to the state flagship that they feel entitled to have super-elite bragging rights.
We see so many of those posts this time of year, all talking about how they’ve been working to get into their “dream” schools “my whole LIFE!” and it’s just kind of sad and unnecessary, IMO.
@allyphoe, thanks, it was great to hear. Our HS also has two electives, and my daughter has been taking Spanish in middle school and will continue through HS. The last elective is optional and limited to performing arts, which in 9th grade is orchestra, jazz band, choir, and drama. The first three my daughter is adamant she doesn’t want to do. I encouraged her to take drama at least to see if she likes it (again, I see it as encouragement, she may perceive it as pushing, I just don’t know).
We do talk about colleges a lot, though maybe not in the same key as other parents. For example, we have friends who went to Harvard and Yale and found them to be stiff and up-tight, and so my husband is probably running an anti-Ivy campaign. I must admit I used to focus on one particular CA place, but after reading cc, I am telling my daughter she needs to think of college not just as a step to a career/grad school that she wants, but mainly as a place where she wants to spend some of the best years of her life and just enjoy those years to the fullest.
If she is currently in geometry in 8th grade, and finding math easy, she should take algebra2 with trig next year. I am puzzled, if she is getting A’s, why she wasn’t recommended for this. This is assuming it is the top level class and algebra2 without trig is the slower paced class? How on earth could it be hard to place “100% math placement test (extremely easy, according to my daughter) and A’s in her class.” Who else would they put in the highest level class? This should all be a no brainer. Talk to the GC. Don’t accept ease of scheduling as an excuse to hold your kid back. There must be plenty of these sections.
Also I find it very odd that you are talking about sending her to cc to take science classes over the summer (won’t that cramp her social life to be in class or doing homework when her friends are hanging out?) but so worried about whether to put her in what will undoubtably still be an easy level of math for her because she might miss out on some of her friends in the class. Keep in mind this is high school. Our high school probably has 15 sections of algebra2. How many of her bff’s will be in the one she ends up in?
And you never know. My kid likes math a lot more now that it’s not mind-numbingly easy for her.
We didn’t have Algebra 2 with trig. Trig was part of pre-calc. One section of Honors pre-calc did the entire AB Calc curriculum by June (though not in time for the AP!) most just did a couple of months of Calc. Every school does math differently but doing Algebra 2 in 9th grade, PreCalc in 10th, Calc in 11th and something post Calc in 12th is unlikely to shut her out of any college in the US. Not even Caltech and MIT.