<p>IMO, one of the most important gifts you can give your children is for them to have confidence in being themselves. That their opinions ( if backed up), matter.
If they can’t find the information they need, they can always hire a specialist, but you cant buy self confidence or rush the ability to trust their own judgment.</p>
<p>If he is 13 now, he will change as much in the five years IMO, till he turns 18, as he did in the five years from infancy to a kindergartener.
So having any idea about what sort of post high school environment will be appropriate for him, is rushing it.
For instance my oldest is a very talented artist. She won prizes in school for her creativity and skill. She initially planned on attending design school, but while she was admitted to all her schools, she took a gap year, and added a new top liberal arts college to her list and graduated with a STEM degree!</p>
<p>No, it should not be super-stressful, on the other hand, physics is hard. If the boy is going to make it as a physics major, he should be able to handle BC calculus, AP physics and AP chem in high school. Considering the SAT score he had, I think it’s a reasonable plan. He may end up retaking the physics, but it may be helpful to have had the exposure in high school. He might get some use out of the chem credit. If he has the opportunity to take more math, good. And/or if he has the time/interest, he can add in AP stats/bio.</p>
<p>Eighth graders tend not to have a lot to say about what they like at school, but I had one who was no question a math and science kid and the other a lot less so. My older one ended up doing a 3 week CTY fast paced Chem course the summer after ninth grade because his schedule got screwed up freshman year. We did it so he could be on track to take AP Bio the next year with his friends, but it did mean he didn’t have to double up on APs to take AP Chem, Bio and Physics C. </p>
<p>I had a very hard time convincing my son’s middle school that he needed to be double accelerated in math. He didn’t get top scores on whatever the state math test was given in 5th grade. (Got the lowest percentile he’s ever gotten on a math test!) Luckily we did persuade the school to let him take a final exam from the math class we wanted him to skip and it all worked out. I got my vindication when he beat out all but one 8th grader on the AMC8 in 6th grade.</p>
<p>As for the question of studying for SAT1’s - put me in the camp that lots of pleasure reading starting in middle school is by far better prep than last minute studying. A kid who’s gotten high 600’s in middle school will very likely get high 700’s in high school without doing anything special.</p>
<p>Letting the kid read more things *of his choice<a href=“not%20the%20tiger%20parent’s%20choice”>/i</a> recreationally can be beneficial in this respect.</p>
<p>I was referring more to language arts or related classes in general, though certainly reading his choice of books is great. Some Seattle public schools offer journalism, several have performing arts or video classes that include both writing and reading components, there’s creative writing, AP LA, speech, even a radio station. There’s so many options for a bright student besides the “usual”. Then there are a number of online courses offered to advanced middle schoolers that go beyond what a typical middle school has to offer.</p>
<p>Did I miss the post where he said he picks his son’s reading material? </p>
<p>I think most really good students like to read. That’s part of how they became good students. I don’t think liking to read indicates any particular interest in humanities or communications. My daughter’s pretty excited about the book on black holes she’s reading. My nephew is really into reading about baseball. Neither one of them have any special interest in that list you mentioned.</p>
<p>"As I said before, I feel it is too late to study physics in 11th grade since they are too busy on SAT1. physics is the foundament of science and technologies. Even MCAT tests physics. I am good at physics. I believe an interactive (with teacher/classmates), classic, long term (>3 yrs) class/environment is necessary to learn physics in deep. "</p>
<p>It may have worked that way where you come from. Here in the US, it doesn’t work that way. High school is not a time to specialize so deeply. He can learn physics in college. </p>
<p>I also suspect you think there are only a handful of good universities in the US. Remember that the people in your home country really don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to evaluating American colleges and universities.</p>
<p>OP - I suspect that you think that admission to highly selective schools is “earned” by showing how much you’ve learned, as demonstrated by SAT scores, AP classes, math competitions. That is NOT how college admission works here. Indeed, if there is a perception that your son is just dutiful and serious and followed a rigorous plan laid out by someone else (you), it will work against him. There are some cultural concepts here in the US you will want to understand. Mastering them is every bit as important as mastering physics.</p>
<p>There is no problem junior year with taking sciences and the SAT1. There is not necessarily any prep for the SAT1 - particularly as your son has already been shown to be adept at taking the SAT. My son took 2 science aps his jr year physics and chemistry.</p>
<p>If you want to take geometry outside of your high school you don’t necessarily need the schools “permission”. They may state it won’t count or be on his transcript. Who cares. Check your state grad requirements, my state says 4 years of math but doesn’t care what math is taken, no requirement to show geometry on a transcript. If your son takes geometry outside of HS, he will still take 4 years of math, no course depends on geometry being taken, and your school will be aware that he has mastered the course material without it being on his transcript.</p>
<p>Just keep in mind he doesn’t need to take every AP to get into a top school. Don’t over focus on results in CC. Having 10 AP’s won’t be any better than having 5 ap’s for getting into top schools. Both these schedules will simply show the student took the most rigorous course available.</p>
I hate to agree with the OP, but if the top students in your school all take 10 APs and you only take 5, you have not taken the most rigorous course available and you won’t get the check mark on your GC report. That said, the difference between 9 and 10 APs is probably not significant at all. Our high school offered 22 APs and I’d guess the top students probably had taken 7 to 10 of them. (A few would take AP World as sophomores, many would take AP Physics B as well, nearly all will take APUSH and an AP science and/or AP English as juniors, and senior year most students will take three or four APs. In our school only a handful take AP Calc BC as juniors. Some by petitioning for starting Algebra early in middle school, the rest by doing trig/precalc in the summer. </p>
<p>The OP may well be in a student where the top students take a lot of APs and if you can’t keep up, you probably can write off some of the schools with the smallest acceptance rates. What the OP needs to understand is that the schools just below the name brand schools that are world famous, are hundreds of great schools that provide at least as good an educations and in some cases arguably a better education.</p>
<p>Yes, you need to keep in line at least with what other top students at your hs are doing as far as number of APs. No one here can tell you an arbitrary number. The GC can tell you what top achieving students are doing. Every school is different because the number, restrictions, and type of APs offered are different, as well as the make up of the student body. What people are saying is there is no reason to blanketly assume in a school with a wide array of APs that a student must take ALL to be competitive, well educated, and college ready. Others are also urging that the OP allow the son to have some choices, to educate themselves in the differences in US college admissions, etc. But those are topics that aren’t likely solved here.</p>
<p>If he has the skills and motivation to accelerate his math education, I would do that, and try to get him into physics as soon as he has the math background. If he can finish physics C as a junior, it will help him with the physics SAT2 and show off his talent and interest to colleges. It may also help him to pursue related EC’s such as a science fair project or, is there a physics olympiad, not sure. Getting to physics as soon as he can will also help him decide if it’s really what he wants to do. Really, he probably doesn’t know that much about it in middle school. My daughter thought chemistry was pretty cool in middle school. After two years of high school chem, she knew it wasn’t going to be her major.</p>
<p>Why does a HS Freshman or Sophomore need to decide if physics is what he wants to do? Speaking as a member of a large family with many physicists (and former physicists) unless this kid is in the most fabulous HS in the world, the likelihood that first year physics in HS is going to approximate the way Physics is taught at the university level is pretty slim. (mainly because the shortage of gifted science teachers in the US makes that unlikely. Lots of fantastic professors- HS physics teachers? Not so much.)</p>
<p>The physicists in my family mostly loved math during their K-12 years. The actual application of that love for math came at university. Many of the ones who became physics majors in college and then ended up doing something else ALSO loved math… until something more interesting came along.</p>
<p>“Why does a HS Freshman or Sophomore need to decide if physics is what he wants to do?” He doesn’t. But it would be very helpful if he would decide that by the end of his junior year. Why? Because if he decides he doesn’t want to major in physics, a kid like that may well choose engineering instead. And when he applies to college, he will need to decide whether to apply as a science major or as an engineer. </p>
<p>I agree with you that physicists generally really loved math as kids. Since the OP’s kid is described as being very interested in physics and does not seem to have such an intense interest in math, I think a switch to engineering might very possibly happen.</p>
<p>Or he could decide to major in ethnomusicology or urban planning or comparative literature for Pete’s sake. This is not your typical 17 year old CC’er posting here; this is a middle school kids FATHER who is trying to take a high SAT score, taken at a young age, and spin it into a Harvard admission, complete with his major already chosen.</p>
<p>AP physics is not necessary to do well on the SAT subject physics test. I took regular high school physics (PSSC book and curriculum) at a regular public high school (about a third of graduates to four year colleges, mostly state universities), did no test-specific preparation, and scored in the mid 700s on the achievement test (now SAT subject test) in physics. I did well in physics courses in college as well.</p>
<p>The point is, I don’t get the apparent attitude common on these forums that AP physics (or most other AP courses) are absolutely essential to take in high school, and worth doing various scheduling contortions to squeeze in.</p>
<p>@blossom,
Having a plan does not preclude changing the plan. This shouldn’t even have to be said. It’s just common sense to first explore things he thinks he is interested in. If he decides to major in ethnomusicology or literature, having the physics credits will help him satisfy the distribution requirements. And I would think(?) urban planning would require basic physics. Most of that is not even available to study in most high schools. By getting as far as reasonably possible into his anticipated major, he opens up more possibilities for exploring such things in college, if he so desires. I used my AP credits to explore a secondary field of interest which was not available in high school. Plus he’s not going to take these science APs in a vacuum. Of course he will take English and after 13 years of English instruction I would hope he will have some opinion on his interest level. But when you don’t even see the subject of physics until your junior year, it’s a lot harder to form opinions. It wasn’t evident that my daughter would come to strongly prefer physics over chemistry, and to a lesser extent, bio, until she had the chance to take these classes. </p>
<p>Two classes let you get to more advanced material, just experience it more, and may also help balance out the bias of having a rather good or rather bad teacher in the first course. Of course it’s not necessary to have AP classes in high school, but the reality is that many kids will have taken them and a lot of them will also end up repeating the class in college. I recall seeing a post on here from a parent who said their child’s college calculus class had 27 out of 28 students already taken calculus in high school. These STEM classes are graded on a curve and yes you will be at a disadvantage if you end up in such circumstances (though you might not). Having the choice of whether to skip an intro class, and perhaps have the opportunity to take a grad class in your field or else to explore an unrelated area of interest, or else choosing to retake the class and be more confident, have to work less hard and hopefully get a deeper understanding of the material seems like a much better situation to be in than not having those options. For a bright kid, the AP classes can be a godsend. My daughter was so much happier when she got out of the lower level classes and into the APs.</p>
<p>Just want to add, studying physics strengthens skills like thinking logically, identifying the key parts of a problem, and applying math skills. We accept unquestioningly that every high school student should study English for 4 years, often being forced to read literature which doesn’t interest them at all and required to write papers on esoteric subjects such as imagery of light and darkness in so and so’s poem–when is the last time most of you adults had to identify a rhyme scheme? But then we jump all over the idea that students who are interested in a science should (gasp) study it for 2 years? Someone must be forcing them. This can’t be good for them. They should just wait, they’ll come to their senses soon enough and get back to the poetry and whew good thing they didn’t waste their time and ruin their high school experience with that year of science. Makes no sense to me.</p>
