Help with 12th grade schedule?

Parents Forum
1

<p>DD is currently a junior with 3.8 GPA, PSAT SI = 213, SAT 2120. Our small town HS offers few AP classes (available only to jrs and srs) and no honors classes. She is taking AP Eng and AP USHist this year. Next yr's AP options are Eng, Euro Hist, Calc AB, Gov, and Bio. Chem II and Physics II are comparable to AP level, according to school's profile. Many of the AP classes are offered in the same periods so she is limited in the number she can take. Her preference (given schedule and teacher rep): AP Euro Hist, AP Calc, regular Gov and English, Journalism, and 2 electives. Parent's preference: AP English, AP Calc, AP Gov, Physics II, regular history/social studies, and 2 electives. </p>

<p>Her college list at the moment includes schools like Oberlin, Macalester, Grinnell, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer,...</p>

<p>Are we on the right track?</p>

2

<p>Many colleges will only give credit for only one of the AP English course so I think your daughter is right about taking AP Euro. History instead of English. (Though she may have schools that give credit of the English Lit not Lang. you'll have to check on that.) The question as to whether to take regular or AP Gov I think depends on the quality of the teacher and the difficulty level of the course. I'd encourage a strong student to take the AP. If she has taken a high school level physics course, I don't think she needs to take second one. Is the physics course equivalent to AP Physics B (typically taken in our school as a first physics course) or Physics C (which requires some knowledge of calculus)? </p>

<p>You don't mention languages, but I think it would be worthwhile to have four years over three years. I don't think 3 APs for the sorts of schools she's applying to is an unreasonable expectation.</p>

<p>Just how many APs one should take needs to be viewed to some extent within the context of the school. What does her GC say? What kinds of course schedules do kids who have been accepted in the past to her list take?</p>

3

<p>Is she willing or able to eat a brown-bag lunch in a course, in order to find flexibility in her schedule? Some schools let kids do that if they suggest it.</p>

<p>Am also wondering what "teacher reputation" means to her and you. Inspiring teacher? Easy grader? I'd be sure you have a full understanding of what she perceives about the teachers.</p>

<p>Offhand, I feel as though a senior year with 2 AP's when more are possible is not a great idea when you have those schools on the list. Her proposal sounds like a bit of a "coast" to me (for example, journalism instead of an AP English). One thing about small town schools with limited offerings is she wants to demonstrate she's doing her best to maximize every available opportunity.</p>

<p>Also look for where is the rigor? It's a wash between some of your two schedules. I'm thinkikng AP Gov is a much more sophisticated course than the normal government (civics); yet she is asking for AP EUro while you'd have her in a regular social studies class. Not easy, but in the end it should sound like a rigorous choice that expresses her own academic focus. AP Calc but no science? Many puzzles. If she just took Calc, would that open up new opportunities on her schedule? AP Calc is very hard...</p>

<p>Can she ditch an elective and take a harder course? Of course if the electives are art/music and gym, she needs to live, too.</p>

<p>My older 2, in a similar sounding h.s., solved many things by giving up their lunch period to a brown-bag at a desk.</p>

4

<p>What does she want to study in college?</p>

5

<p>My main concern about your daughter's schedule is that a college might not consider Journalism to be an academic course, meaning that she would have only four academic courses instead of five (unless one of her electives is academic in nature).</p>

<p>Would it be possible for her to include a fifth academic course (not necessarily an AP) in her schedule while still being able to pursue her interest in journalism?</p>

<p>AP Euro is a very demanding course -- comparable in intensity to AP U.S. History, from what I've heard. If this is the AP social studies course that your daughter prefers, I think she is wise to limit the number of APs in her schedule.</p>

<p>I also wonder what your daughter has done about foreign language. There doesn't seem to be any foreign language in either her current schedule or those she is considering for next year. Does she already have enough years of foreign language to meet the admissions requirements for the colleges she is interested in?</p>

6

<p>Thanks for all your insightful advice. I learned a lesson - don't post and walk away - you get too much good feedback all at once! </p>

<p>Don't pay too much attention to her preferences - they are driven by hearsay and her friends who are not as academically able as she is. That's why my H and I are stepping in :-)</p>

<p>In answer to your questions (in no particular order), she took Spanish I in middle school (but does not get HS credit), and Spanish II-IV in 9th-11th grade. Spanish V is only offered as AP so we were trying to make room for other APs and let language go. Not a good idea? </p>

<p>AP Eng 12 is Eng Lit while AP Eng 11 is Language and Composition. When you say colleges only give credit for 1 AP Eng class, do you mean to place out of college english? Our objective with APs is more to demonstrate rigor and ability than to replace college classes, so taking both seemed to make sense. The teacher issue is that she reportedly assesses students' ability at the beginning of the year (A, A-, B+ etc) and gives them the same grade (but little actual feedback) on every assignment all year. Ordinarily I would tell DD to suck it up - there will always be teachers/bosses in your life that you don't respect, but you have to learn to deal with them.... But the AP Eng 11 teacher this year has been even worse - by my count they have written fewer than half as many essays (this is a composition class, remember?) as kids' in other schools AP Eng 11 and he spends more time in class talking about his high school days than the material at hand. </p>

<p>Re:science and math - she has 3 years (Bio, Chem, Physics) so we were looking for a 4th year - Physics II is reputed to be the hardest class in the school. She is good at math and is excited about AP Calc.</p>

<p>Journalism is the class that writes and produces the school paper (is that not the case in other schools?) and she will be news editor next year, so she has to take the class to maintain that EC.</p>

<p>The AP Gov vs AP Euro is a scheduling issue. The schedule doesn't allow AP Gov, AP Euro, AP Eng, and AP Calc. When we added AP Eng into the mix it pushed AP Euro out. This is so frustrating! </p>

<p>I thought about the brown-bag option, but the whole grade eats lunch at the same period, so there are only a handful of classes offered and they are mostly by-audition-only music groups.</p>

<p>"What does her GC say? What kinds of course schedules do kids who have been accepted in the past to her list take?" Great questions - we are meeting with the GC tonight.</p>

<p>Thank you all! I am grateful that I found CC - I'll be around a lot over the next year :-)</p>

7

<p>Re: English every school is different. My son (at Carnegie Mellon) could have gotten out of the required (1 semester) Freshman writing course if he'd gotten a 5 on either English AP. Harvard on the other hand will grant credit for either AP (I think - some of the links are broken), but it doesn't get you out of any courses. I suspect there are almost as many ways of treating APs as their are colleges!</p>

<p>If your daughter is good at math and likes science the Physics II may be a good choice.</p>

<p>Our school has always done journalism as an extra-curricular, but is thinking of adding a journalism class next year.</p>

8

<p>Wacky idea that might go nowhere...if the journalism course is actually just working time on the newspaper, perhaps she could put in her own working time during the lunch period? This might need the approval of the journalism teacher, who sounds like she'd probably rather have a team of kids sitting together. That's where the GC's push might make a difference. Are they really learning and doing coursework in Journalism, or finding time during the student's day to do the actual work to produce the newspaper? IF it's really just workshop time, maybe she could do it on her own schedule. Another angle: does your school give "Independent Studies"? If so, hers could be Journalism, but during her lunch hour.</p>

9

<p>And to make a note on mathmom's notes on the AP English exemption, I know that at least Vassar has the following required classes: 1 writing intensive, 1 quantitative, and foreign language (I'm not sure how many credits, but Vassar is very big on language courses). They do not allow excemption from the writing intensive course (there are plenty of options) by taking an AP test... they don't think the AP English test matches completely with Vassar's expectations.</p>

<p>I was further Vassarizing myself last night, haha. I also applied to Grinnell but I don't remember their policies as well.</p>

<p>What about AP Euro, AP Calc, AP Gov, and Physics II? Or the same, without Physics. I wouldn't want her to take the 'hardest' at her school without feeling some sort of intense love for physics- I was in the same situation this year and even though I love Physics, I sometimes regret my decision. If she isn't interested enough to put it in her schedule, maybe she doesn't want to be slaving away in the subject all year?</p>

<p>And, back to Vassar specifically: Maybe their language requirements would make her consider AP Spanish? It will be hard to take placement tests after having no Spanish for an entire year, and then she might end up requiring more language (and this goes for any school... maybe you should check up on what they want for credits during college).</p>

<p>I wouldn't kill the electives- I think it's important to have some fun senior year. I took two art classes and a photography class this year, and it made my afternoon tons more enjoyable. (Note: These in addition to 6 AP classes... ugh... I wish I would have at least eliminated AP Physics because I'm usually more of a humanities person...)</p>

10

<p>Your daughter seems to have enough foreign language. If she will need to continue her foreign language in college, not taking the language in 12th grade will make her a bit rusty, but probably not by too much. My daughter found herself in that situation and did just fine in Spanish her first semester in college. If the college gives a Spanish placement test during orientation, it should be helpful in getting her into the right level. If she has forgotten a lot, she will place lower, which is a good thing since there's no point in being in a class you can't pass. I can see the merit in not taking AP Spanish in favor of other things. It's usually quite a difficult course, and the AP test is extremely demanding (according to my daughter, who took 8 AP tests and therefore ought to know).</p>

<p>If your daughter is going to be news editor, she needs to be in that Journalism class (even if it's possible to get permission to omit it) because she will spend time there communicating with the reporters she supervises. So not taking Journalism doesn't seem to be a realistic option.</p>

<p>My son took AP English Language in 11th grade but not AP English Literature in 12th grade because he was interested in strengthening his writing skills but not particularly interested in analyzing literature. Nobody seemed to think that this was weird. </p>

<p>If various APs conflict with each other, I think your daughter should be the one to decide which ones to take. There is no particular reason to prefer AP Euro over AP Gov, or vice versa. It's a matter of choice.</p>

11

<p>Met with the GC last night and here is where we ended up: AP Calc, AP Gov, AP Euro Hist, reg English, a new Advanced Senior Project science class (non-lab, research mentored by local college professor - sounds perfect for her), Journalism (this is an academic class, more than just putting the paper together - a lot of the production work is done outside of class), and Current Affairs (a social studies class team taught by 2 of the best and most demanding teachers). </p>

<p>Physics teacher warned us away from Physics II - he charachterized it as being for Physics "geeks". Good call, brillar.</p>

<p>GC thinks reg Eng 12 after AP Eng 11 is okay because they are not sequential. He is going to check with a couple of college admissions people to verify.</p>

<p>Marian, I'm with you on the Spanish. If she ends up at a school with a language requirement, she can start out in a lower class - languages come pretty easily to her, so I think she'll be fine.</p>

<p>Thanks all!</p>

12

<p>Sounds like a great schedule!</p>

13

<p>Im just throwing it out there- since she is looking at top level schools- that my D who is attending an inner city school & was in special education through middle school, took AP Euro in 10th grade, AP US history in 11th and senior year is taking AP Am Gov spring semester along with AP Lit.</p>

<p>I thought senior history had to be American govt. Isn't that true in all states?</p>

<p>She is looking at Humbolt and Western Wa U.</p>

14

<p>Sounds like her schedule is now aligned with her needs and interests, includes some brand new options, and makes a rigorous presentation for her college list. Great teamwork with your GC, D and you!</p>

15

<p>In NY you have to have a semester of government - no particular year specified and you can get out of it by passing a test. Our school just combines it with other courses, so for example my son took "AP Economics and Goverment". They did a few government things all along, but most of it after the AP. Our schools go on to mid-June so there is quite a bit of post-AP time.</p>

16

<p>This is my advice, as a current senior:</p>

<p>Make sure she takes at least one elective that's a FUN class. It'll give her a break from the otherwise hectic schedule and give her an outlet for frustrations. =) It's senior year, it's supposed to be enjoyed!</p>

17

<p>My son's list was almost the same. He took AP English and French Jr year, AP Calc and Gov senior year. I would let her follow her preferences on this. AP courses are a lot of work.</p>

18

<p>paying3tuitions and mathmom - thanks for your support! we visited oberlin yesterday and ran the "reg Eng 12 instead of AP" idea past the Adm person who reacted positively.</p>

<p>HisGrace.. - believe it or not, Current Affairs will be FUN for her. she likes nothing better than a spirited political debate!</p>

<p>bethievt - it's good to know your S had a similar list - i take it he was accepted to some/most of them? we are trying hard to manage our collective expectations in this insanely competitive environment!</p>

19

<p>Oh, I can believe it. :) I love learning what's going on in the world, and I like nothing more than a good debate. Just wanted to make sure she wouldn't burn herself out like I did junior year (2 honors, 1 AP ((my first ever AP course)), varsity sport, spring musical and first time with a zero period=BAD IDEA).</p>