Help please ! Grade affecting college? French honors versus regular?

Parents Forum
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<p>Any advice you can give is greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>My son was in regular French for 7th and 8th grade,
B in 7th and A in 8th.</p>

<p>Based on the A in 8th grade, he got moved into Honors French for 9th grade.</p>

<p>Problem is that he is in a class with all the honors kids from 7th and 8th grade French.
( the other kids have been together for 2 years in Honors French).</p>

<p>First test, he got a C+.</p>

<p>There is no grade inflation at this school, no curve, nothing, just a hard private school.</p>

<p>Couple of issues - senior year rolls around, and the kids who got B's wind up at so-so colleges, but they could have been at a less demanding private school and got A's, and ended up at an Ivy.<br>
So, 4 years of no fun and if you don't get the A's, you don't get the better school.</p>

<p>He wants to stay in Honors, not realizing where the path ends.</p>

<p>So, what is better a B in Honors French, or an A in regular?</p>

<p>And I should add that while he might struggle in another class, I can go look at the material, and test him on it.</p>

<p>He is a pretty disorganized kid and I can't help him with this language.</p>

<p>Thank you for any advice!!!!!!</p>

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<p>If I had a child who wanted to take the tougher course, I’d let him to it unless he was actually failing or otherwise coming apart at the seams. Good for your son for wanting to challenge himself.</p>

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<p>He’s the kind of kid who if the Titanic sunk, would say, “Ok, I can work on my swimming skills.” </p>

<p>I just don’t know what the end of the story looks like.</p>

4

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<p>For some that’s not always what it is about. Does your son want to continue in the more difficult French class and can he live with himself with a C or a B in the class or would he prefer to drop back and continue on at a more familiar pace? Is he waiting for you to give him “permission” to drop down or is he telling you he wants to forge on? You say he wants to continue on…if that is him and only him you have your answer.</p>

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</p>

<p>No you don’t and it’s going to be several more years before you’ll have an idea of what colleges might work for your son and kids change between 14 and 17 in many ways.</p>

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<p>Great questions.</p>

<p>He says he can live with a C, the problem is I can’t…</p>

<p>And I am not mad at him, he did study for the test and tried his best.</p>

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<p>Some colleges (eg Stanford) don’t even look at HS freshman grades. Others look at the most rigorous curriculum offered and take that into account while only using unweighted grades (eg UW-Madison). Even though schools may use the gpa for all HS years they can look at improving grades (UW does). If your son enjoys the challenge he may prefer the faster pace and improve his grades once he catches up to where the other students were. Usually middle school foreign language for 2 years equals one year of HS, he must therefore be in French level 2. He can see how it goes this year and choose his 3rd and 4th year French accordingly (I highly recommend 4 years of one language to be competitive for colleges, for some schools- eg UW- it can mean satisfying the college requirements for a foreign language as well).</p>

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<p>No easy answer here. Once an admissions officer (from Vassar I think) when asked this question said it was better to get an A in the honors course. My experience is that while that is true, my kids do not suffer particularly from choosing non-honors English senior year and getting A’s instead of their usual B+'s. I think that languages are the one place you may get a little forgiveness for lower grades - people seem to recognize that some people really haven’t got much talent for them. The big danger of foreign languages though, is that if you fall behind it can be very hard to catch up. Is there any possibility of finding ways he could get the language reinforced through tutoring, vacation travel or a summer course?</p>

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<p>With first kid we went all out on honors and tough courses and as you note it hurt her for colleges because she had some Bs. Child number 2 did one or two easier placements that boosted overall grades (in those classes) AND gave him less struggle and the ability to take harder classes elsewhere. Struggling is to be avoided, so long as overall class selections shows rigor. I think we’ll strike the perfect balance with kid #3, haha.</p>

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<p>I’m not convinced that Honors in a language vs. non-Honors is going to make much difference in how a college looks at the total application. As long as he’s got the language classes…</p>

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<p>Thank you all for the different perspectives. Very helpful.</p>

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<p>Totally agree with ellenemope on this one…I always recommend the regular language class for my students unless they are very strong honors language kids…</p>

<p>I would not say the same thing if this was a math/science/ or English…</p>

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<p>This may be a situation where some private tutoring would be helpful, at least temporarily.</p>

<p>Like math, a foreign language is a sequential subject. If you’re struggling at one point, things are not likely to get better on their own as you move into new material that’s based on the material you didn’t fully understand the first time.</p>

<p>A tutor might be able to help your son figure out what aspects of the course are giving him difficulty (grammar? pronunciation? vocabulary?) and work with him to improve those areas. He might also get some valuable tips on how best to study a foreign language – which is different in some ways from studying other subjects.</p>

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<p>It seems quite obvious to me that at least part of the reason he got such a low grade was that he hasn’t been in honors French, while the other kids have. So of course he’s going to have a hard time, he needs to get used to the extra pace/rigor or whatever.</p>

<p>Can you get the test back to see where he went wrong? It could just be he hasn’t been studying enough to keep up with an honors class, or it could be that this is just a really hard class and that it might be better to switch to regular.</p>

14

<p>Thanks for all the comments/advice.</p>

<p>He does have a tutor… That is what makes it so sad.</p>

<p>Test involved a lot of writing in paragraphs, and he just doesn’t understand the sentence structure. He never had to do that in 7th or 8th grade, and maybe the middle school honor students did write in those grades.</p>

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<p>Why, why, why do folks equate Ivy with better?</p>

<p>And another thing…grades are not the whole the picture. It takes a special blend to snag a top school or top program. The problem is, no one knows the receipe.</p>

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<p>^Ok, so let me redefine, small select liberal schools, Williams, larger schools, Wash U, Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, etc.</p>

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<p>How about this question instead: in which course will he LEARN the most? Is he a kid that learns most by being challenged? Will he end up knowing more french from the honors track? Is the teacher better in honors? </p>

<p>It is hard to keep reading on CC the hyper-focus and strategizing about grades, and getting into university…with actual education (and preparation for university) taking a backseat by comparison. Isn’t the whole point to be educated?</p>

<p>And please, please don’t tell me you are stressing out by extrapolating from this one C+ in a grade 9 course to his entire university and beyond future. Good lord. That suggests a much bigger issue that you should be losing sleep over.</p>

18

<p>I see the thread taking a turn for the worse.</p>

<p>Let me explain that most of my friends have kids who are seniors this year.</p>

<p>Every day, I hear about something from 9th, 10th and 11th grade that they are sorry now that they didn’t intercede and make junior do something different.</p>

<p>Parents at my son’s school are strategizing.</p>

<p>But, it is more of my kid does not have an A average and the kid is so disappointed that they are not going to such and such school.</p>

<p>My son wants to stay in H French, my husband and I think it is a bad idea.</p>

<p>However, in the end, it is his schooling and his decision and he does have to do the work, and he has chosen to stay against our better judgement.</p>

<p>My issue is that money is tight and we can only afford the tutor before the exams, so he has to struggle through it himself as my husband and I did not take French.</p>

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<p>^^totally agree with you and husband’s perspective. As it is, of he doesn’t do well in this class of French, bets are that he will be dropped down to reg next year anyway…</p>

<p>So, 2 options : stay in honors now, struggle, drop down in 10 th grade to reg. </p>

<p>Or…Drop down now and don’t look back…I still think it is ok not to have honors in FL if you will complete the cycle…heck, there were kids last year with only two years going to Princeton</p>

20

<p>HI Rodney, </p>

<p>Really Dumb question, but who makes the decision here?</p>

<p>My son feels it is his decision as he goes to school, not us.</p>

<p>Of course, we pay the tuition.</p>