I have a friend who has three very smart kids. The oldest was a bit on the cocky side, and had his college all figured out. It is one near their home, but hard to get into. He was in an IB program, and if he didn’t like a class, he just wouldn’t do the work. So in his junior year, they went to the school, all of 15 minutes from home, and met with an admissions counselor who said exactly what his mother had been saying - he wasn’t going to be accepted with a half-assed effort in high school classes, that he needed to get A’s in these 3 classes and do better in those 4 classes and get a certain score on the ACT. Yep, hearing the exact same thing from someone who wasn’t his mother did the trick. All three kids went to this school, all three were on the swim team and did very well academically.
@twoinanddone AGREE! I have politely and repeatedly asked the counselor to have this exact chat with him. She refuses. He absolutely needs his over-confidence/delusions addressed by someone other than me, my husband, or his brothers.
@thumper1 Not sure where you’re getting I expect a 30 out of him. I don’t. For his goals both college-wise and major-wise (business), he needs a firm mouth foundation and an ACT north of 25. His math foundation is very weak. The sub-scores were in the teens. Trig was not even factored. Looking at prior years test scores, math has been a liability. It is my fault for not noticing sooner that he was receiving highly inflated grades with limited grasp of the material.
Really…if you are looking at years of deficit learning…your very best bet is a tutor. This tutor can hone in on your son’s areas of weakness, and help him better grasp the material, and apply it.
Taking the advanced geometry course would also mean your son is sitting through the the 30-40% of the material he already understands. I think he needs work on what he doesn’t understand.
Also, in advanced courses…there is more math doing…and less math “teaching” because the advanced students grasp the material more easily and don’t need as much teaching of the content. This does not seem to be the case with your son.
He needs some individual tutoring. He needs some pointed direct instruction.
If raising his math ACT score is your priority, it would be prudent to think of how you can best get your son the direct help he needs on the content he doesn’t quite “get”. I will stick my neck out…I don’t think this advanced course will achieve your goal.
How will it look on his transcript IF he doesn’t get an A in this second geometry course…and that is a real possibility.
Get a tutor. Show that capable tutor the problems your son missed. Let the tutor anaylze the errors, and were the breakdown is. That is the signal here.
The rest of this…is just noise.
@thumper1 I was told today 40% of the geometry material via tutor is approx. 40 hours of private tutoring. Very pricey proposition … compared to being taught for free while auditing the advanced section.
Most kids who struggle with math struggle due to basic level deficits…deficiencies in fractions, percentages, and ratios. If you know his math scores are consistently weak, a geometry class is not the answer. He needs remediation which addresses his actual deficits. Aleks is probably a good option if tutoring is not. A tutor would be preferable.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I’m thinking advanced geometry audit at the school + private tutor to work on Algebra I, and then Alg II & geometry as needed.
It’s really frustrating when a counselor glances at A’s, makes a sweeping assumption that he’s fine, and more or less labels parents as nuts while dismissing our concerns. I asked if she reviewed his standardized test scores … she had not. I asked if she knew what % of the math on the ACT is geometry … she had no idea.
What about the SAT? It has little geometry and is mainly algebra 2 trig with some basic geometry.
and if you can’t budget an actually tutor, what about an older student/ college student? Many go for under 20$ an hour.
I think you are being penny wise and pound foolish. You are looking for a cheap and convenient (for you) way to help your son. I’m sorry, but I’m going to be very pointed with this response. I don’t think you are looking at his needs. You are looking at no cost…and no inconvenience to the parents.
I had this thought as well. But he might need to prep for it also, and it sounds like the parents don’t have the time to guide test prep for ACT so probably not for SAT.
Then again, my D went up many points on her ACT from soph to junior to senior year fall with no prep at all, just became more familiar with the test and had more math under her belt. I think she went up 5 points.
We’re not talking about finding a tutor to translate the Odyssey into Sanskrit… we’re talking HS geometry, for god’s sake. In your real life you likely know 30 people who have a zest for listening and communicating, were solid math students, do something professionally which has kept their math skills sharp, who’d be glad to sit down with your son to figure out a list of where he’s weak. Then another 5-6 hours to cover the geometry.
I’m not getting why this is so hard. A HS kid would be happy with a Starbucks gift card. Your neighbor the engineer would be happy if you bought movie tickets and dropped off a home cooked dinner one weekend. Even the teacher at your HS who teaches the more advanced section might be amenable to some moonlighting which wouldn’t cost you a fortune.
This isn’t like prepping for the bar exam- where there is exactly one company in America which sells the bar prep materials and teaches the class, and it costs a small fortune. This is HS geometry. Even I- a math phobic who had to take remedial math before entering grad school (we started with arithmetic and ended having completed the first semester of college calculus) can tutor geometry.
Expend one hours effort in locating a cheap tutor before you decide that it’s too expensive. My neighbors and I barter services all the time in an informal “what goes around comes around”.
@blossom: You took my breath away with that response. Absolutely the most critically minded, objective and comprehensive I’ve seen. (And I’ve given a nod to quite a few, particularly where cpamom is implored to let her son make this her son’s issue, and not hers.)
Blossom is so right. I am the neighbor the engineer. I tutor math because I enjoy it, I like working with kids, and it’s satisfying to see their success and their increased confidence in themselves. And I do it for free! Parents usually give me a gift card, which I do appreciate. I was going to suggest this- find a friend who is an engineer or scientist who likes doing this. As I mentioned earlier, it will be a little bit of work on your part, but the right tutor can work wonders. And with one-on-one tutoring, the focus can be on his weaknesses, not the entire class.
I am afraid he will audit this class and still end up sub-26. By the way, has he taken an old test out of the ACT red book? The book has 5 old exams in it. This would give additional data points. He can just do a math section, not the whole test. He can time himself. Simply practicing might yield some improvement.
A few of us have asked whether this test was a real ACT exam, and weather it was administered at the beginning or end of the review course. You haven’t answered. Your answer matters. One can draw different conclusions based on your answer. By choosing not to answer the questions we ask, you are choosing to not seek out alternative solutions.
Post 166…so now the OP is apparently thinking about a private tutor…and an audit of that advanced geometry course.
To OP…what is the point of that audit? A good private tutor should be able to fill in the blanks!
the OP is just trying to blame others- the HS counselor, her son, the Math teacher, the school, etc, etc so she can continue to complain and does not have to do anything about it, because it’s all “their” fault.
She wants the audit so she can point her fingers at someone at the school as the one who is “to blame”.
Is an audit going help her son? Of course not.
Shes the “victim” and is not at fault and seems to care little that her son is the one who will ultimately be the one who suffers.
All that matters is that some one- besides her -is the fall guy.
And she evidently has no interest in helping her son quickly catch up on what he missed… because then the problem would be solved and there would be nothing to complain about.
I’ve seen this type of myopic “poor me” parents before on CC- nothing changes their minds.
I would think for an undisciplined student, auditing would not be a good solution.
parents like the OP come here to complain, not to find solutions.
they want sympathy, not advise.
She picked the wrong place to gripe, imho…
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Well…it does seem that the OP has been convinced that paying for private tutoring is well spent money.
Now…why would,the kid also need to audit this advanced geometry course? He is already taking another math course…and math really isn’t his strong suit.
I think the private tutoring, if done by a competent tutor, should be able to fill in the missing skills for this kiddo. He may not get a hugely higher ACT score, but he will surely be more confident in his math overall.
I hope the parent isn’t only doing this because she wants the kid to get a much higher ACT math score. That just may not happen.
“Most kids who struggle with math struggle due to basic level deficits…deficiencies in fractions, percentages, and ratios. If you know his math scores are consistently weak, a geometry class is not the answer. He needs remediation which addresses his actual deficits.”
Yes! My D went briefly to a tutor last year. The tutor said she was “getting” the complicated stuff, but was unable to do some very basic things…I can’t quite remember, but something like she couldn’t reduce a fraction. It was super frustrating for me to find out that I was paying for a tutor to teach her elementary school math, but the tutor identified the real problem and got her up and running.
“Also, in advanced courses…there is more math doing…and less math “teaching” because the advanced students grasp the material more easily and don’t need as much teaching of the content. This does not seem to be the case with your son.”
Absolutely agree. My D was moved to Honors after 2 consecutive years of teachers telling me how “advanced” she was. However, once she made the switch, she didn’t get the same level of instruction she was used to and quickly started falling behind. I constantly hear “the teachers don’t teach”. Your son will be expected to do a lot of self-teaching in the advanced class. They do not hold your hand…trust me!