<p>I have a child who is starting hs in the fall. Said child is currently enrolled in 3 Honors classes, but we may be dropping 1 one them due to fear of overload. Is it better to load someone up and take the max or better to start slow and build up? Currently a 14yo boy with decent but not great study habits - currently a A/B student (More B's than A's this year but prior to this was pretty equal between A's and B's).</p>
<p>Colleges really like to see an upward trend in course selection and grades so 2 honors freshman year is quite respectable, building to more honors and AP's as the academic years progress. Just be careful of prerequisites. You could get caught not being able to advance into a class because the honors level course wasn't taken.</p>
<p>chester - I sent you a PM. I believe that if the teachers have said he could be placed in Honors classes that he should do as many as they say he can be placed in. My own experience was that Honors classes are not as overwhelming as you might anticipate. I suspect that your fear of overload is unfounded and that you could be pleasantly surprised at your S' ability to handle a full Honors schedule.</p>
<p>One of the problems with not taking honors classes at our local high school is that the non-honors classes in the same subject can be dismal. For example (this happened to the son of a friend), in math, if you take non-honors geometry as a freshman, you could be lumped into a class with a lot of juniors and seniors. The pace of the class can be really, really slow. The good news is that you can get an A pretty easily.</p>
<p>non-honors classes in public Hs = more behavior problems, rote learning, kids who do not want to be in school. If you want better teaching and more involved students - go for the honors classes.</p>
<p>Take all the honors that are offered, it's really not that hard. My brother went from 0 in middle school to full honors offered at my high school, and within the first month he'd adjusted. His friend waited until Junior year to take honors and felt very overwhelmed.</p>
<p>My parents chucked me into the advanced classes after second grade (to be fair I was recommended or whichever). I wouldn't recommend that seeing as I only graduated with 3 others from those classes.</p>
<p>I agree with anxiousmom. Non-honors classes can facilitate bad study habits, and a lot of class time wasted. D's biggest gripe was kids who asked the same question the teacher had just answered because they were not paying attention. Also, group projects in non honors classes can end up a disaster. Often, the teacher picks the group and one or two students do the work of five.</p>
<p>Agree mostly with the above posts. My S took all the core honors courses as a freshman. When signing up for sophomore courses we decided that he should take honors history and eng. but take regular chemistry and alg.2 since math is harder for him. It has worked out well for him. The regular chem amd alg.2 classes were not full of troublemakers as can sometimes be the case because most of those type students are not interested (nor required at our sch.) to take chemistry. So try honors for freshman year and then see where his strengths lie and adjust from there if necessary.</p>
<p>Based on my son's experience, I would recommend taking honors courses in all subjects that the entire student body takes (English, required social studies courses, biology, math through algebra 2) in order to avoid the extremely nonacademic students in the non-honors classes, who tend to create an atmosphere that is irritating to more serious students. (The point someone made about group projects is particularly relevant.)</p>
<p>In subjects that only the more motivated students take (physics, foreign language, higher-level math courses) the difference betwen honors and non-honors seems less important. My son took non-honors Spanish 3 (to avoid competing with native speakers) and non-honors physics (to avoid a time-consuming project required in the honors version of the course) and found that the atmosphere in these classes was just fine. But he might have had a different experience in non-honors geometry or freshman English.</p>
<p>Personally I think it is better to keep him busy with studies rather than banging yourself in the head because he is playing video games during the evenings and afternoons.</p>
<p>I hear you there - my son is signed up for Honors Spanish - you are supposed to have a 90 average and his was that the 1st 2 terms but 3rd term dropped. I asked his current teacher if he should still be in honors and she said absolutely because he'd be in w/like-minded kids. She, in effect, was telling me other kids were bringing my son down.</p>
<p>The type of students your son will associate with in honors vs. regular classes is important. But there's another issue, too. Teachers seem to be nicer in honors sections, maybe because they can relax a bit without greatly increasing the risk of discipline issues. If your son ever wants to get an extension on an assignment or a pass to the bathroom, he is likely to find it easier to approach the teacher in an honors class rather than a regular section (even if it's the same teacher!).</p>
<p>In some schools, this trend toward teacher "niceness" is even more noticeable in AP or IB classes, where the teachers often treat the students as though they were full-fledged human beings. <em>gasp</em> My daughter, who is in an IB diploma program, took one honors-level academic course outside the IB program this year and was astounded at how "mean" the teacher was to the students. I wonder what she would think if she ever saw the way the teachers treat the students in "regular" classes.</p>
<p>When in doubt, go for the more challenging schedule.</p>
<p>It's easier to drop down a level than move up.</p>
<p>I would have him take the honors classes! You will not know what he is capable of until he tries. I had the ap argument with my sister (who is a teacher) and she did not want her very very bright straight A son taking all ap classes becuase he would not have a life. She felt he should be able to play video games with his friends until late at night go to the movies etc... She was told if he was taking all ap classes he would not have any time for his friends who happen to be taking all ap classes too. I agree that you want your kids to have down time, but high school is their last chance to get ready for college. My daughter is in the ib diploma program and takes 5 ib classes and 3 other classes and still has time for fun and orchestra and helping tutor a lot of kids in her classes that would always wait until the last minute.</p>
<p>Help your son realize his full potential, and help him with his study habits!</p>
<p>Definitely have him take all of the honors he is okayed to take.</p>
<p>I am a hs senior, and my parents didn't want me to take 4 honors classes freshman year; they thought it would be overwhelming, and I'm the oldest of four, so they didn't have anything to base it on. Since I like the humanities more than math, I didn't take Honors Alg/Geometry; I took the next highest course, which was called Algebra 1A.</p>
<p>It was a BIG mistake. My grade in the class was 100; the teacher couldn't stop the students from strolling around the room, sitting on the windowsills, etc; we spent several months plodding through each chapter.</p>
<p>By the end of the year, I realized that I wanted to move into the honors track, both to be more challenged and because I realized that Honors Physics and Calculus were corequisites senior year, and while I was on track to take H. Physics, I would not be in Calculus.</p>
<p>The trouble was, the honors Algebra class had covered Alg. 1 and half of Geometry. My class hadn't even gotten through all of the algebra! I had to be tutored over the summer to finish Algebra and do the Geometry work. It wasn't much fun because I just wanted to be outside, at the pool, reading for pleasure...and I had to do Geometry proofs. </p>
<p>I now recommend to everyone that they take all honors classes they're even considering. It's just so much easier to move down than up. I took Calc. this year, took the AP test, and had an A, so while I don't like math, I'm obviously not deficient in the area.</p>
<p>One other thing: not taking H. Alg. kept me from being valedictorian. This wasn't really something I care about, because I realized at the end of freshman year that this would be the case, but I've always had all A's in all honors and ap classes, except I didn't take that one honors math class...so I couldn't be valedictorian.</p>
<p>I would say go for more honors rather than fewer. </p>
<p>You have to know your child. It's possible that an A/B student finds what his skills are as he moves through HS and maybe he's more math/science than humanities or vice versa and will not want to continue in the fast track in some area or another. But I would encourage him at the start to at least try.</p>
<p>My sister is a high school teacher - and department head at her school. Each year she talks to the middle school teachers about their recommendations for honors/on-level/etc. She tells them to base their placement decisions on the student's TEST grades/averages. Many students were honors level students in middle school based upon high homework grades, project grades, extra credit, etc. which will not be part of the grading scheme in high school honors classes. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Chipper, I think that is an excellent recommendation--basing placement on test results.</p>
<p>I think it's often hard to predict. Our son's best friend has always gotten similar if not slightly better grades, but works much harder for them. Each year I've feared my son might be over worked because of too many honors or AP courses and he has yet to be truly challenged. Can you start off in an honors course and drop one if it turns out to be a lot of work, or are you stuck?</p>
<p>At our school the high school grades do take all of that into consideration: projects, tests, quizzes, homework etc. The Honors class has projects the regular class does not; the regular geometry class has a notebook grade; the honors does not.</p>
<p>My son is just under the cutoff; like 1.5 pts. She is willing to write a note speaking to his ability because the test scores that brought the average to what it is lost points due to computational errors only. She fully believes he has the ability, but officially can't recommend him because he is 1.5 pts away. So we are really stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am thinking of having him take the Honors class and buying a book on Geometry over the summer for him to self-study with.</p>