HS course selection for a very talented incoming freshman

Parents Forum
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<p>Please bare with me :) I did not go to HS in this country and yesterday, during an open house at the magnet program S was admitted to I was simply overwhelmed. So was S, althought he immediately told me " we are not making any decisions tonight, we are going to research it". So I am researching it on CC ;)</p>

<p>I would like to get some answers/opinions from the parents of very driven, smart kids. I need to have some experience behind this decision. I feel that we have to be very careful and weigh carefully every option.
Background - IB program, best in state, with non competitive admission. Basically they would like all the kids to be above 3.0 and interested in learning from a wider perspective.
S is very smart, very driven, interested in lots of things, good test taker . He has been accelerated in math since 5th grade and learning Spanish since 5th also. His middle school has been quite accomodatating.
For courses, I will go by subject:</p>

<p>Math - currently pre-calc and would like to take AP Calc BC. He has already discussed it with friends from ARML who are in the same program and the consensus is that all mathy kids should skip AP Calc AB.</p>

<p>English - will take Honors English 10, has reccomendation from middle school teacher. Majority of the kids in 9th grade pre-IB will take this course. It puts them on track for IB English HL</p>

<p>Science - school reccomends Honors Biology. S is OK with it.</p>

<p>Foreign Langugage - Spanish 3. He can move up if the class will be too easy. GC said basically that first two years of Spanish are not serious since a lot of kids who take it have no real interest in learning, they have to do it as it is a requirement for HS graduation. Serious studies begin in Spanish 3.</p>

<p>PE - will take. State req.</p>

<p>Social Studies- the problem begins here. GC differs here from departmental advisors. She said that if a kid is interested in Geography as an IB, skip honors Geography now and instead do 1 year of World Civilizations. If the kid is history buff, do one year of Geography. If the kid does not know what he wants to do for IB later on (majority of them), do one semester of Geo and one semester of World Civ. I am completely lost here. S states he does not like either, but he really does not know Geo yet and so far has been very good in History. I personally would love for him to take AP Euro and APUSH.</p>

<p>So we are done with 6 core subjects, he still needs two electives. Who knew I will be getting gray over freshman electives ;)
Choices are numerous. For state grad.req. he needs 1.5 credits in Fine Arts and 1 credit in
Career and Technical Education (CTE). There are lots of choices in CTE but to me those are dumb classes and a waste of his time. S is interested in doing IB Film SL in 11 grade which, according to GC, would satisfy CTE requirement. Have to double check with her on that, to be 100% sure. If it is so though, is this the way to go? S is interested in doing one more science, most likely Honors Chemistry as an elective.
Second elective - does he need to fulfill his Fine Arts req. now or is it OK to wait till later?
There are other tempting options for an elective, like Debate or Creative Writing. How important is is that you start Debate early? What do they learn there? How time consuming is debate team?</p>

<p>I know, lots of questions :)
Summarizing:
1. Is it Ok to do two sciences as freshman?
2. Does a full year of geography makes sense if he will pursue history later? Or should he do 1 semester of geography (all that is required by state) and then 1 semester of guitar (only one semester is offered and it would go towards his Fine Arts req.)
3. Let's say he takes full year of geo., how difficult would it be to prep self for AP Human Geo after a course like this? (called Honors Geography for Life I and II). By the way, i have heard that both Geo teachers are nightmares ;)
S is a violinist but wants to have absolutely nothing to do with a school orchestra.</p>

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<p>Question 1: For most kids, two sciences as a freshman could be difficult. It sounds like two sciences for YOUR son would be fine. Honors Bio and Honors Chem should complement each other well. I wouldn't add an AP science to the mix freshman year, however.</p>

<p>Question 3: I would not worry about having him take the AP Human Geo exam....it is not usually, I think, one of the AP tests that top colleges give credit for and I bet he will have plenty of other AP exams to show the colleges by then. You can always decide this time next year if he should prep for a couple of weeks and take the exam in May....but he certainly won't need prepping for a whole year. If this test has DBQ's (I don't know) he might not have the writing skills needed yet, anyway.</p>

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<p>Every school has what is called a "Profile". The school profile says what the school offers, academics, extra curricular, etc... Most importantly, it provides stats of the school. E.g. Percentage of students who graduate; percentage of students going to state colleges; percentage of students attending high profile colleges (Polite way of saying Ivy league, stanford, military academy, schools that require high scores. </p>

<p>Anyway; if you can decide what your child wants to do when they graduate; and you can compare school profiles; you should be able to determine which school can help you reach those goals.</p>

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<p>In my opinion, AP Calc BC is fine for a freshman who has completed pre-calc, provided that the course covers all of the material in Calc BC (normally the courses do that, but this might not happen at a school that expects all students to take AB and then BC). My daughter and two of her friends took Calc BC as freshmen, and all scored 5's. Very doable.</p>

<p>English: fine. Honors Bio: fine. PE: well, he has to take it.</p>

<p>Social Studies: Based on what you've posted, I think you need to read the IB graduation requirements really carefully, and work from that. Our local school did not offer IB, so I'm not familiar with it. It seems as though students are expected to take either honors geography now or IB geography later. Is that right? Is one semester enough for both the state and the IB program, overall? Is IB geography (later) a full-year commitment? So your son could limit the "nightmare teachers" to a single semester, but only if he takes geography next year? Also, there are many different ways for a teacher to be a "nightmare," and some of them are only nightmares for particular types of students. You probably need to ask around to find out the specific nature of the problems.</p>

<p>The title "Honors Geography for Life" seems almost like an oxymoron to me. Most of the "XXX for Life" courses are watered-down classes intended to give students who need them enough credits to graduate. But "Honors" courses tend to be the more challenging courses. Not sure what's going on there.</p>

<p>Other things being equal, I'd think that a full year of either geography or history would be preferable to two one-semester courses--but at your son's particular school, maybe not.</p>

<p>Whether your son can take two honors sciences at once depends more than anything on the workload involved in those classes and in AP Calc BC. This is highly school-dependent. It also matters whether the nature of the workload is such that a student who grasps things quickly can do the homework quickly, or whether the homework is very time-consuming, no matter how well the concepts are understood. So you probably need to ask around about that, too. </p>

<p>The time consumed by debate is highly variable from school to school, but at schools that are competitive in debate, it is extremely time-consuming. Debate repays the time investment in terms of learning how to frame an argument, how to speak effectively, how to listen to and analyze the opposing teams' viewpoints (and how to refute them), how to gather massive amounts of evidence and organize it quickly in support of your argument. For the students who can work it in, it's great. I'd recommend starting it as a freshman, if possible, if your son is interested. There are "novice" debate teams at most schools, and then a student can work his way up. It's not so much fun being a novice as a junior.</p>

<p>IB Film SL sounds great for CTE, to me.</p>

<p>Most of the top schools like 4 years of literature, 4 years of science, 4 years of math, 4 years of history/social science, and 4 years of a language, if the schedule permits. So I probably would not suggest that your son take the geography/guitar combination. Does the PE requirement run through all 4 years? If not, it opens room in the schedule for fine arts later.</p>

<p>Hope this is helpful.</p>

<p>Oh, P.S., you mean "bear" with me, not "bare" with me.</p>

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<p>^^ yep, I did mean that^^</p>

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<p>Definitely have him skip AB Calc and go straight to BC. It is superfluous for gifted math kids.</p>

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<p>I am much more concerned with those "dumb" courses that need to be taken in order to graduate. How do you deal with this?</p>

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<p>Agree on skipping AB Calc for a kid who likes math. Will comment that for my mathy kid, IB HL and Further Math would not have been enough, and he was doing math competitions and BC Calc as a 14 yo.</p>

<p>My IB son who tolerates math is doing well in Calc AB and finds it blessedly easier than he expected. Has even contemplated taking BC next year. Whoddathunkit?</p>

<p>S2 did Honors Chem and AP Enviro as a soph. Had no probelms with either, and the chem dovetailed nicely with the Enviro.
S1 did physics and chem as a freshman. If one has the math, that is not a problem.</p>

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<p>CountingDown - if you do not mind -what was your S1 science progression?
Freshman - physics and chem (honors I presume) and later?</p>

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<p>The "dumb" courses are just something you have to put up with. My kids recommended getting them out of the way early on, so that your schedule opens up for more interesting advanced classes in your last two years - D2 ended up not being able to take a class that she was very interested in for her intended major because she needed to get "Keyboarding" out of the way senior year. Even though she finished all of the required class exercises in the first three weeks, she was stuck in the class for a full semester.</p>

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<p>Our school does not give weight to 9th grade classes, so we found it was a good place to get the arts requirement out of the way. Who knew... my mathy-science kid who never progressed from drawing stick figures totally loved ceramics. Still (as a senior) goes in at lunch to throw a pot on the wheel. Maybe the "dumb" classes aren't so dumb after all.</p>

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<p>In our school it would be difficult to do two science as they have labs every other day that they usually schedule to alternate with required gym classes every other day. My oldest ended up doing a Chem course in the summer so he could do all three AP sciences. They started offering AP Physics B to sophomores instead of honors physics since his time. I think you are probably doing the art elective - pick something unusual and if he likes it, it might be something he could pursue. Sounds like saving the technical requirement for the film class would be a great option. I can't speak to the history/geography dilemma. We don't have geography as a subject here. I agree with everyone else, a math whiz who is doing well in precalc should take the BC Calc.</p>

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<p>About fine arts. You may already know that the UCs (Berkeley, for example) require a full year of study, and not in different disciplines, but in the same one: 2 semesters of choir, or painting 1 and painting 2, or photog 1, photog 2, for example. </p>

<p>Maybe this is the year to explore an area of the arts....</p>

<p>Debate is tremendous training for logic, public speaking and thinking on your feet. For freshmen, it can be pretty low key-no more homework than any other class. People who pursue debate later in high school, at the varsity, competitive level spend hundreds of hours per semester on it, and usually attend summer camps to prepare, but this is not necessary the first semester/year. Best class I took in high school, and required for my children. I don't care if they take it beyond the first year.</p>

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<p>I'm hoping your DS is not only very bright, but also the type of kid that hits the ground running. I have 3 very bright, motivated kids who ended up at MIT, Amherst and Dartmouth, but I wouldn't have put them in Calc BC and 2 lab sciences as freshmen.</p>

<p>Your DS is so far ahead in math, my temptation would be to let him take AB and 1 science to truly excel and get a feel for the school. You describe it as non competitive for admission, but do you live in an affluent area with many very bright kids who will also be attending? To any adcom, he's remarkable taking AB as a freshman.</p>

<p>Once he gets his feet wet and establishes himself as king of the hill, then I'd lay on the super hard stuff. I'm just afraid if there are any new things to handle (like HS social life and the commute you wrote of) he won't have room to breathe.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>I had no idea !!! Like I said, he plays an instrument and already went through some art and drama classes in middle school. He probably would prefer drama, since it is linked with his current pasion of filmmaking. I do not like that our state requires 1.5 of Fine Arts. Those one semester classes...</p>

<p>

Homework in Debate??? What kind?
Like I have said, I am a european product and we did not have Debate but it looks very interesting and something he is interested in.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>This decision came directly from S. He spoke to friends on ARML team who go to same school and they all skipped AB (apart from one, but this guy skipped Alg II and pre-cal).
Apparently the BC class is only two chapters ahead of AB at this point. S has never skipped any math classes, he started Algebra I in 5th grade and progressed naturally.
He is natural in math.
The sciences I am not so sure about . I really do not want to overwhelm him but he would like to try his chances in the science olympiads. To do this, you have to double up at some point, if you just follow regular curriculum you are ready for the olympiad by the time you are a senior, which is too late. Also, where I come from kids do take two science a year, sometimes three. But I do worry about it, just don't know how HArd those science classes will be. I figure that since he has a math brain, intro to Chem and Physics should be easy, different with Bio, which is a lot memorization.
I should probably sit down with him and draw a 4 year plan of some sort, maybe this way it would become a little more clear...</p>

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<p>Your kid sounds a lot like mine, who is a current freshman. Don't knock the arts requirement--it was nice to see my "mathy" kid learn something about art. And it is good to get those requirements out of the way early, instead of worrying about how to fit them in later.</p>

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<p>ingI know I'll get flamed, but the mom of the applicant in me would just want to make certain he's able to get all A's. I'm probably paranoid as my kids went to highly competitive schools that did require testing to get in, so almost every kid was extremely bright. Many of them who had never seen a B at the top of a paper got a rude awakening freshmen year of HS.</p>

<p>I would think he could double up every year hence, but if there's any risk that he could get in over his head I'd really consider that there will be little benefit from a college admissions standpoint to having such a tough freshmen schedule as long as he takes all of these classes by graduation.</p>

<p>I think the parent needs to lead at this point because the kids that have always been successful can be overly confident and not fully understand all the implications and consequences of taking on too much.</p>

<p>He also needs to leave time for fun. Your son sounds like an excellent candidate for the great summer programs like RSI, so he can get even further ahead summers.</p>

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<p>I can only guess as to how succesful of a student S will be in this program.
The school has a magnet 7-8 grade program for the cream of the crop in the district. At the end of 6th grade all the students from gifted programs are tested and assigned into three middle schools. Like I have said, cream of the crop comes to this school.
S was not able to attend as he is out of district. I tried to move heaven and earth - was not able to acomplish anything. But I dare to say, based on the information I have gathered and other things, that S would have been one of the top students in this 7-8 program.
Now, majority of this "cream of the crop" stays for IB, but school also accepts many others. The total IB population for classes 9-12 is about 400 students, entire school is more than 2000. So those science classes are not going to be taken only by IB kids.
But I totally understand the "A" problem ;) If I only had a crystal ball...</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I am much more concerned with those "dumb" courses that need to be taken in order to graduate. How do you deal with this?

[/quote]

my kids took some of them by correspondence. But you have to make sure that your HS will allow this/award the credit.</p>

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<p>Kelowna, I'll PM you.</p>