If he is that passionate about history, I’d have him do the history electives.
Is there a student government/ leadership type course he could take? Both of my WM alums took student government - one of them for two years.
The six academic courses are enough. I don’t see any electives like band or an arts elective. All I see is academic, academic, academic. What about physical education and health? Doesn’t your school require that?
I personally think this schedule is full enough.
Why are you looking for another academic “elective” to fill a period?
Does S have a social life? We’re talking about high school
Agree with Thumper, why kill him with more APs? My S did 6 classes jr and sr year (after doing 7 Fr and so) and he did fine in the college race. Make sure he can perform well in the ones he has. College admissions is not all about how many APs he has. Don’t load up a non-Math/Science kid with math and science. Mine didn’t even take science Sr year. Since he wants to do History and is applying to LACs, which is a bit different than the STEM craze colleges are seeing, he can be a little different and let his schedule tell a story other than trying to keep up with the jones’ at his school.
If he is in to history, then two or three history classes might be fine. However, you should have S consider looking into an elective that doesn’t pertain to a purely “academic” class and branch out a little.
Ok, back from vacation and at my computer. It ends up that he decided to take the history electives from the 2-3 options available to him.
To answer some of the questions asked… In regards to the second foreign language, that is a great idea, but once offering Spanish, French and Latin his school now only has a Spanish teacher and offers Chinese, German and Latin online through the state educational television program. The school actually forwent teaching Spanish I last year with an in house living breathing teacher and used this online distance ed program and it was a nightmare which after a lot of parent discontent and dissatisfaction of their own they thought better of and went back to teaching Spanish I with the school’s Spanish teacher. The school actually discourages students from taking foreign language through the distance ed unless they feel they are strong online learners… our experience was the quality of the program was very poor and we are afraid to get involved with it again, so hoping a switch to another foreign language as an undergrad will do. If Latin or French were offered at the school he would likely take it if it could be scheduled.
What about PE and health? Required and taken as a freshman.
Why are you looking for another academic class? The purpose of this thread was really to get help in determining if another, particularly AP was needed. Some of his classmates are taking 5 & 6 APs as juniors. I am just trying to get some bearings in a high school world that I’m not sure that I understand too well or like very much. Things have sure changed.
Does your son have a social life? Yes, but I do wonder about his friends who are taking 5 & 6 APs as juniors. Honestly, I feel your sentiment here and this is something I don’t like about the rat race to college. Not sure how kids are able to take the most challenging curriculum your school offers, make all A’s, participate in several extracurricular activities, volunteer, study for college entrance exams and get all your homework done… doesn’t leave much time left. Read an article recently in which Harvard admissions mentioned an increasing number of kids reaching them completely burned out.
Anyway, thanks all for the advice. He went with the history electives. Would have actually gone with Arts Electives but the only ones available had a prereq that guidance thought would be waved, but weren’t, so instead of that he stuck with the history classes rather than a second science, which the consensus here pretty much felt was overkill… I agree. Thanks for helping us sort it out.
Oh, and no there is not a student government class. He may look at economics and government online next year, neither is offered at his school.
Would you son have a full schedule, or a study hall somewhere in there? As a freshmen, I was not allowed to take any APs (school policy) so I took all Honors and this upcoming year (sophomore) I am taking AP Gov (the only 10th grade AP I have room for, we have 3). However, when I am a junior and senior I do plan on taking some AP classes each year, but I do not want to have my whole 8 blocks covered with AP classes. So I wouldn’t be so concerned with your son taking all of the APs, just taking a rigorous course load.
Just something for thought… would he be interested in taking a language class during the summer at a local CC, if he is interested in languages. The only problem with that would be finding one that offers more than just Spanish…
Could be that most of them are APs that take a year to cover what a college course covers in a semester or less. Not all APs are of equivalent rigor (obvious example: calculus BC versus calculus AB).