Sorry, repost, my bad.
Or BxSci, Stuy, or TJSST. If handing in all homework was all it took to earn a 4.0…my estimated class ranking would have definitely been in the top quarter…not nearing the bottom of my HS graduating class.
On the other hand, the overwhelming pace/rigor and sheer quantity of homework and time management required just to keep one’s head above academic water was such that even after taking some grad classes at a couple of elite universities…if I had a choice of which to choose for ease/manageability, undergrad/grad by a mile.
In contrast, at Oberlin…one of my tutoring clients was an older classmate who graduated in the top 10-15% of his graduating boarding school class and was admitted to two Ivies(one as a legacy through wealthy grandparent who donated a fair amount). He still ended up crashing and burning academically, placed on academic suspension for a bit, and struggled through the same upper-division classes that I felt were no big deal deal despite the fact he was REPEATING THOSE CLASSES which were part of his major and I was taking them for the first time and was minoring in it.
If you move after she graduates from HS and then wants to attend college near your new home, won’t she lose a lot of the advantages she might earn in your state? HOPE scholarship, instate at a GA college? If she takes a gap year, she may qualify for instate rates at your new location.
You seem to be addressing an issue of suspect transcripts and/or grading policies where the longterm institutional relationships prove to be a proving ground for lending credence to transcripts and grading policies at the high school level.
But how does a university, under that model, hold faith in student records from those schools which have never successfully had a student admitted to that university?
Much like having no credit record to speak for you as a consumer out in the open marketplace, does this deficit of being part of a pipeline negatively impact how well, how truly open, a reception that one special kid will receive?
She will get into some four year schools. You could home school her or perhaps put her in on online high school. Give her reading assignments. Cuts out direct competition with sibling, and provides, knowledge (test) based feed back. She may be bored out of her mind. She may feel it is impossible to beat sibling. Who knows. But you have educational options. You do not have to stay with one school just because she is there now.
500th best high school in the country will not impress many colleges. If your child was at a small private where everyone tried to get into an Ivy then 25th percentile might be ok. Top 25th percentile (75th to 99th percentile) somewhere else would be better.
This is true to a point. While the top schools are known by all of the most competitive colleges, I’d bet there’s not an adcom in the world with intimate knowledge of all 500 schools on that list. What they get is a school profile. Also, to be honest, they’re usually more impressed when a kid from a lower-ranked school gets high test scores. Kids at high-ranking schools are presumed to have been given better opportunities.
This is another argument for big school/small school consideration. Big schools weed out the biggest bunch of candidates strictly by the numbers – they have to. No committee can look at 50,000 applications in depth. This is an advantage for some and killer for others. You’ll have a better idea next year.
@deb922 thank you so much for sharing your experience with your son! That is what we hope for our daughter, as well.
@twoinanddone The HOPE scholarship requires the parents to be state residents for at least a year on the day she graduates from high school-we don’t have to stay in Georgia once she graduates HS. So, if we moved her senior year of high school (which I don’t want to do and have pretty much put my foot down about doing) to an easier Florida HS, she’d lose the HOPE eligibility but gain the in-state Florida eligibility.
I don’t like this option at all; I call it the grim trigger. I would prefer she finish school in GA, then take a gap year if she feels she needs it and we think she isn’t mature enough to do well at college.
I can see her going to Valdosta State and us living just over the border in FL, and using the HOPE there. She just has to stay above a 3.0 in HS. I think I’m going to schedule a meeting with the GC next year and have her compute the unweighted grades so far with the weighting methodology that HOPE uses, so D2 can see what she needs to get the HOPE scholarship for her junior and senior years. A concrete number may be helpful for her.
@MaroonDaddy wrote
Given how much of a battle just reviewing homework is with her, actually assigning and teaching such a strong willed kid would prove the death of us-we are smart enough to teach her (me with lit and history, H with math and science), but not consistent or tough enough. Online school would really stifle her-she needs that connection with people and thrives on it. She just made ensemble in the improv club, and is beyond excited about that. Trying to figure out what works best for her is challenging and we try to look at all options.
As for sibling rivalry; they are different enough that the “you do you” philosophy in the house works fairly well for us. D2 wouldn’t ever want to study as hard as D1 does, and D1 would not want to be as fly by the seat of their pants as D2 is. They’re about a year apart, but their strong differences make for a fairly non-rivalrous environment, and I pretty much nipped that crap in the bud when they were very little-sisters do not compete; they support. Period.
“Miami- sorry to disappoint you but I’ve got nieces and nephews in test-in schools in NYC, Boston, and other cities and not a single one of them would tell you that to get a 4.0 average all that’s required is to turn in your homework.
Tell that to someone at Boston Latin. They will howl with laughter”
- I am sorry to hear that. My grandD is actually at Stuy and as busy with tons of totally unrelated ECs as one can be. I am happy that she is taking care of her grades by turning in her homework on time. I am sorry to disappoint but even Stuy is not at the level that HS should be considering HSs abroad. The curriculum is about the same everywhere, it cannot be much different. And no, American kids are not the geniuses to learn Physics in one year as one may suggest. Many other subjects are NOT taught correctly at all, not at the level they should be to actually prepare every single HS student at every single HS to attend a college in every single major their heart desire, including engineering, without any remedial courses that most colleges have to offer. It is just not happening and meanwhile the kids who just happen to know how to manage their time, get ahead. And it is a skill that everybody can learn, not anything that require any genius. This should be a big focus in HS, not as much as which college to attend. Any college will work for a kid with well developed time management skills.
@MiamiDAP, I don’t think there is a single person on this site who agrees with you that all any student has to do to get straight A’s–at most schools, much less the top high schools in the country–is to do all the homework and turn it in on time. Yes, this was true of my kids in middle school because the coursework was ridiculously easy for them, but not once they got into the harder high school classes. Or do you think they are just wasting their time with all that extra needless studying?
Just because your grand daughter is busy with all those unrelated ECs does not mean that she isn’t working very hard in those classes. I am assuming that you don’t live with her, and so how do you really know how much she is studying? Or whether she turned in all her homework on time? I think those well-known magnet and top prep schools are very rigorous and the kids are not coasting through as you portray. I have great respect for the kids who manage to come out of those schools with straight A’s and I am sure they worked incredibly hard to do so. And, with all due respect, I’ve not heard of any “top” high schools in your state–nothing that would compare with the schools mentioned in this thread or a number of others. My daughter has a few friends at college who were successful at schools like that and their preparation just blows hers away.
Miami - I disagree with you on a number of points. There are many fine schools in America where doing your homework on time is the base level expected; where it only counts toward your grade if you fail to do it; where the tests are not a review of your homework, rather they’re a new extrapolation of concepts taught; where no one graduates with a 4.0; where there are routinely classes that no one gets an A; where all the kids go on to great colleges and universities. It’s unreasonable to characterize the entire American high school system as incompetent. And at the other end of the spectrum I think it’s unrealistic to consider universal college education a reasonably attainable or laudable goal. For many, many kids it would be perfectly awesome if they left high school with an enjoyment of reading, a reasonable facility with simple, basic arithmetic and a belief that they can educate themselves
Wow. I was just thinking, as I was reading your posts, that your daughter’s grades, school profile, and general personality sound just like my nephew when he was in high school (also in Georgia). As it happens, he is now a rising sophomore at Valdosta State. So that school is absolutely doable for her! I also have a niece who went there.
Both my nephew and niece LOVE the school. According to my brother, the school is an especially good fit for my nephew because programs get “hands on” early rather than loading up the first years with theory and background classes. My niece is now in graduate school and had some very cool research and internship experiences while at Valdosta.
Have you visited? Family members all tell me what a nice school it is (and I come from a typical Georgia UGA-Athens rah rah type family so that’s high praise indeed).
I agree with you about APs. An AP course should prepare students for the AP test.
But I’m not sure about SAT Subject Tests. Some school systems don’t give high priority to these tests – which relatively few students take – when designing their curricula. They may give priority to meeting state standards instead. So I’m not sure whether the need to do extra studying to prepare for Subject Tests reflects poor instruction. It may just reflect a curriculum that was designed with other priorities in mind.
@Otterma we drive down to Florida a lot, and we always go through Valdosta, so one of those trips we’re going to take some time to check it out. I think we’ve already gotten a few flyers from them, but since we’ve been buried under a blizzard of flyers for both of them since the PSAT’s, it’s a bit hard to remember-I think it had a palm tree on the cover, lol. Like “hey we’re warm!”
Yes @MotherOfDragons you are correct on the student personality for homeschooling. Homeschooling would not have worked with our first child. Homework help was often traumatic with her. Algebra eeeks! Best of luck.
I thing you should have your daughter look at a few schools, in GA or FL, that she might be interested in. Having a goal is not a bad thing, and I’m all for whatever it takes to get them motivated. I think a few of schools could show her exactly what classes to take, what scores to try for, what gpa will get her the most money or even something like honors housing.
My daughter played on a team, and it is a state rule that the student must attend 75% (I think that’s the number) of the classes for that day to participate in practice, a scrimmage, or game. It’s fine to go to the dentist, but don’t take all day. Many of my daughter’s friends would skip classes or the entire day, but I wouldn’t allow it and was happy to have the backing of the athletic director and coach.
Whatever it takes.
"Just because your grand daughter is busy with all those unrelated ECs does not mean that she isn’t working very hard in those classes. I am assuming that you don’t live with her, and so how do you really know how much she is studying? "
- Because I know that sleeps at night, she is not studying. The travel alone for this kids a horrendously long. My GrandS is traveling 1 hour each way, he spends 2 hours / day to and from his school. I am not sure how long my grandD travels, but it is not 15 min. as it was my D. in her own car. NYC is not very easy place to navigate. Both are in everything that one can imagine and grandS. is at school that is even harder to get into than Stuy, actually his big sis. did not get into his school. Of course, they study hard, they know that homework has to be done well and on time to keep up the grades. My D. knew that also. But she had a sport practice that took at least 3 hrs / day, including Saturdays and many out of town meets and that one was only one of her several ECs. On top of it, my rule was that she is in bed by 10pm.
Great time management skills is a part of the process. As kids get much busier at college than any busiest high schooler can imagine, HS is a good place to develop great time management skills and a habit of doing the homework well and turning it on time even when one feels that it is just busy work and boring. Without busy and boring work, no great research paper would ever be published. Without busy and boring work of documentation, no software would be developed and no engineering achievement would be possible. So, one might as well get used to this fact of life while in HS, it will serve them very well later!! Always striving for an A, you like the class or not is a great habit that will carry them at college.
NYC is the easiest city in the US to navigate if you’re not trying to do it in your car.
High school:
Freshman - not selective private school with IB
Sophomore - junky public school
Junior - online charter public school
Senior - still online school but most classes taken a the local community college for dual credit
32 ACT, 4.0 UW, minimal ECs, female, applied for engineering
Accepted: Northeastern (attending), Case Western, U of Rochester, Stevens, Co School of Mines, Union, U of NH, Temple
Rejected: Olin (after making it to Candidate’s Weekend), Brown (deferred ED first), USC, Columbia, Standford
So, yeah, high school was not joyous, but it wasn’t the death knell for college admissions.
Agree HS is a good time to develop good study habits and time management skills. However, the part about students being much busier in college than busiest HS wasn’t my experience or those of most HS classmates from Stuy or friends who attended BxSci, TJSST, or comparable HSs.
The vast majority…including those who attended HYPS actually felt college was less busy and most of us found we had much more free time to study, max out/overload on classes, participate in ECs, work part-time, etc. The only classmates who felt college was just as/more busy were classmates who attended colleges with well-merited reps for heavy workloads such as MIT/Caltech/CMU(Engineering/CS), UChicago, Reed, Cornell, etc or the Federal Service Academies*.
- Mainly because cadets are in a heavily scheduled military training environment on top of academics.