<p>well said, caemin!</p>
<p>Thanks again everyone. You all offer some excellent advice! For the record, she was the one who was disappointed in not getting honors WH. I was a little confused, since she did so well in MS. I totally understand the argument that her teachers may know that she’s in honors math/science, and therefore think that the other honors might be too much (and I feel sort of the same way).</p>
<p>Still haven’t heard from the supervisor, but I must say, I am starting to lean toward having her keep just the two honors classes. They did say that if she is breezing through them in the first few weeks, she could move up (and I looked at the calendar curriculum for both the honors and accel. class, and they are extremely similar in content and close in timing.)</p>
<p>sydsim, I’d suggest that you talk with the parents of older students at the high school. They will be able to give you particularized advice. The decision that your daughter and you need to make is heavily dependent on the school your daughter will be attending. The other parents can tell you what the work load is like, and how many honors classes they consider manageable. Also, EC’s vary widely in time requirements from area to area, and it would be good to have local advice about that.</p>
<p>A couple of other considerations: Does your daughter enjoy reading, and read relatively rapidly? Does she read a lot outside of school? Does she enjoy writing–or at least, is she free of problems with writer’s block? Does she have a good memory? Does she have a mature-for-middle-school perspective on historical events? Not to attach too much weight to standardized achievement tests, but: has she taken nationally standardized achievement tests in middle school, and how did those turn out? Another issue that occurs to me: Do you think the school is trying to approximately gender-balance the classes in history and literature, and that they have a preponderance of girls who would normally qualify for them, so they are giving preference to boys for those classes?</p>
<p>I would be a little reluctant to follow the start-lower-and-then-your-daughter-can-move-up advice unless you know that the school really permits/encourages that. Is it common at all? Or is it a one-student-every-four-years proposition?</p>
<p>Finally, your state matters. In Texas, your daughter would probably be well advised to take the honors classes. In Michigan, she would be just as well or better off in the regular classes (if the University of Michigan is the goal), because they consider the UW GPA most heavily.</p>
<p>Your D could probably take honors in any subject since she sounds like a strong student. The real question is how many total she can deal with. My experience with this (rising 12th grader) is that there’s a big difference in work load between regular classes and honors/ap. Not like 10% more. Double. The kids who are reaching for ivy take them all and get very little sleep. And if there’s a confluence of events (illness, social upsets, multiple tests/projects due the same day) things can get ugly. Having said all that, tho, some of these classes are not that hard if you get the work done. You need some inside information on that history class.</p>