I know that this might seem a little premature, since we are not even close to M10, and there’s obviously also a healthy dose of uncertainty due to Covid. AND there may be huge variation between schools. But I’m trying to plan our family summer and wondered, for those of you who have been through this before, how much work do BS typically give for incoming freshmen to complete over the summer?
I’m thinking that there might be some books to read.
Any writing?
Any math?
Perhaps BS decide that kids are going to be pushed enough as soon as they start and don’t give anything at all.
Can you share your experience please, and which school?
Yes. I figured as much. It feels like an Andover thing to do.
Before I went to BS, I def remember having a reading list to complete over the summer. No assignments. No math. But about 4 or 5 books.
But that was a looooooong time ago.
Lville requires incoming freshman to read two books over the summer. One is a school wide required read, and the other was a choice of 2 or 3 books (specific to the grade).
The Lville required read was James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”. “We Were Liars”
by E. Lockhart was the book my daughter chose from the second form / freshman list. “The Fire Next Time” was actually really hard to come by! I accidentally ordered a coffee table book version the first time around and then chuckled thinking kiddo would have to carry it around in her backpack. Fortunately, we found a paperback copy mid summer.
Choate required incoming freshman to read a book prior to matriculation and handed out a summer reading list each year thereafter. Our son read the freshman book. His mom read all the others. (ChoatieKid was notorious for not doing any summer reading.)
The purpose of the required reading prior to matriculation was to get all students on the same footing with something common to discuss once they arrived on campus. I don’t recall that anyone was penalized for not reading it.
ETA: That first book was “A Separate Peace,” a relevant choice for new BS students.
Hotchkiss the same as Lawrenceville: a book the whole school reads, and a book each class reads. Incoming 9th graders also take placement tests in math and their language.
Confirmed no reading over at Andover, but several placement tests that I recall were fairly long. Also, there were some online modules that needed to be taken with quizzes on things like academic integrity and citation. They were actually more interesting than my DD expected. (But also, took longer than expected.). It felt like “summer homework” even though it wasn’t.
I love the idea of schools doing a school-wide read, as many do. (at some, even the parents are invited into that, which I know I would SO BE THAT PARENT who would be way into it…).
Speaking of placement tests, it really depends on your strategy. I fully realize many/most won’t want this strategy, but my advice to my youngest son was to not try at all on the placement tests. Classes can be so demanding, it was not only ok but good in my opinion that he had a class that was a bit easier for him. I throw this out there for those who are conditioned to try and do the best they possibly can on every test to think about the end goal.
On the college level, I know 2 kids (one in Spanish, one in Math) that overperformed on their placement test. Both struggled to pass their college class. One had to drop and is going to try to get it done at the local community college over the summer, the other I don’t know how it turned out but it was touch and go if he was going pass at all. C was the goal when I talked to his dad around Thanksgiving.
+1 on the vote not to prepare. (“Overprepare?!” Hahahaha!)
DD was just surprised by how long all the random virtual stuff took — the placement tests, virtual modules etc. She had set aside a half-day to knock it all out and it was definitely a project that required a few days of attention.
In full disclosure, though, we are not summer-homework-type people so probably other folks would whiz through it faster than my kiddo did.
I completely forgot about the placement tests. Kiddo didn’t prepare for those at all, and she did each of them on a separate day. They took less than an hour though. She was sooooo stressed that she didn’t know a lot of the material on both the math and Spanish tests, but I assured her it was better to “repeat” a class than be so overwhelmed. She ended up starting with Spanish 1 (despite having taken TEN years of lackluster Spanish at her previous school) and repeating a year of math. Both ended up being the right place for her. Spanish 1 is a breeze, but since all of her other classes are challenging (math included), it’s nice for her to have one easy class in the mix.
Will a school let you know where you place soon after taking the test? Or do they wait until you get to school at the beginning of the freshman year?
Daughter would want to see if she can get placed into French 3 which she’d then take for a year before switching to a new language. If she gets placed into French 2 then she’d start new language immediately. It would be good to know that before the summer vs on arriving at school.
Not immediately, but generally some time over the summer.
And just food for thought: when considering colleges, the most selective will want level 4 before switching to a new language. 1 year of language A plus 3 years of language B does not equal 4 years of foreign language unless one reached level 4 in one if them.
Oooooooh. I’m trying to wrap my head around BS entry, haven’t even THOUGHT about what she’d need for college. That’s really good to know.
Most BS seem to want kids to pass language 300. It’s interesting that selective colleges want 400.
She has been taking French for 5-6 years already but the pace is glacial, I’d probably guess that she’d place into French 2. In which case she’d start mandarin immediately anyway.
Anyway I’ll file your info nugget away in the vault to look into more deeply after M10 when we figure out if she’s going to BS, and if so, where.
Highly selective colleges will have HS curriculum recommendations which exceed any HS - even a BS - graduation requirement. Just something to keep in mind.
