HS Senior schedule help, please!

@dbandmom - you mentioned PE. Have you asked if its possible to waive the PE credit with an organized sports or fitness class? We were able to petition for same a few years back for mcson.
In his case, because he knew the specifics of what was required at his top 3 schools, we could demonstrate that the PE requirement caused scheduling problems that would negatively affect his preparedness. He was also able to dual enroll at a local university. Its possible his program was more flexible as it was a small g/t magnet program where the size gave outliers scheduling grief, but it might also be possible for you to make such a case for your D.

While I wholly agree your d, given her interests, should take jazz choir, I’m less certain which of her courses are truly safe to spike. But I’m also looking at it from more of a preparedness standpoint than strictly an options standpoint, though there are circumstances that support the latter as well.

For example, the math might be useless nine times out of ten, particularly in a pure performance degree, but if she were to end up in a music tech/production program at a rigorous school like my son’s (Umich), she would have a Calc 1 grad requirement which would be murder without at least precalc (if not AP Calc). It really depends on the school, but the last thing a music student needs to worry about in college is spending time and energy catching up on math concepts. (That said, my son’s production program is perhaps unusual in that it included engineering classes, and required/recommended previous study in programming and a minimum math ACT/SAT score. So the portfolio requirements pretty much spelled out that math, science and programming were closely regarded in addition to the primary considerations of music composition, production and performance experience.)

While my son’s program may be unusually rigorous on this front, when you’d mentioned her interest in production it prompted me to mention it. Belmont had also been a school my son considered but I don’t recall if the preparedness was as emphasized there.

At the same time, many liberal arts schools and University of Michigan’s other degrees like to see the fourth year of language. The school of music and Engineering are the only two degree programs that do not have a second language grad requirement. At Umich, for example, even with the fourth year, they test proficiency and that determines the number of language classes in your sequence. But if you don’t have the 4th year, which is a recommended but not required element, you can make it up, but that’s more time (and possibly money) out of the schedule.

To make a longish explanation shorter, its a safe bet that in your shoes I’d be trying to get the school to waive PE to make her course load work by saying that everything else in her schedule might for SOME programs be foundational for her college success if she includes either music production or LAC-style general music study in her college shortlist of applications. When you put it that way to them, they are sometimes given to recall that THAT is what they’re there for :wink: Best wishes sorting it out!

@dbandmom - My S is a senior at Belmont. For music majors, the gen-ed requirements for math, science, and language are pretty basic and don’t require AP level high school work. My S had only the high school minimum 2 years of academic Spanish (and got a C in it one semester), but he did have 4 years of Math (highest level Calc 2), 3 years of science and 2 AP classes. He had hoped to be in both the jazz band and symphonic band his senior year, but the band director decided at the last minute to eliminate one of the guitar spots in the jazz band so he did not get in. He also had signed up for AP Music Theory, but the class was cancelled because of insufficient enrollment. By that time there were not other classes he could get into, so his last semester he had only symphonic band and AP Macroeconomics. (Our high school allows seniors in their last semester to take 2, 3, or 4 classes and have an early release and/or late arrival.) He also played in the pit orchestra for the school musical and performed and produced two coffeehouses, so he took advantage of other performing opportunities when he did not get into the jazz band. He also went to a local “school of rock” where he was able to take electric guitar lessons and play in a bunch of shows, and started his own band. All of this helped him more with Belmont than his academics did. He was busy his senior year but not overwhelmed.

Vocal performance is the most competitive major in Belmont’s music school, so your D needs to do everything she can to demonstrate her talent if that is what she is applying to. (Songwriting is in the music business school and that only requires a portfolio submission and no audition). I would strongly advise that she do the jazz choir, and drop the AP Spanish but try to keep up with the math and science. Most colleges “count” APs in math/science/English more than they do foreign languages.

My D is a HS senior (prospective art major) who also hates science and only did the minimum 2 years of it. But she is very strong in math and took honors physics last fall semester as well as AP Statistics and AP comparative government. It was a tough fall with all those classes plus doing college apps and SAT/ACT tests, finishing an art portfolio, and she was both art director and in the cast for her HS fall musical. But she managed, and got all As. She did wait until the show was over before starting a job and doing most of her college apps. You just have to budget your time and focus on what is most important.

It took us awhile (several counselor meetings and lots of long talks) to figure this all out. By the time we did, we were “on to the next” problem (and taking a little break from college planning) and I never got back here to thank you all for your replies. So, thank you all so much!

The school was adamant that waiving PE was not at all an option. So, she ended up taking standard Government in June summer school and standard Economics online through the school. She is keeping the AP Spanish, enrolled in Jazz choir and some Honors Science class that’s supposed to be “easy” for next year.

Government was super easy (she usually takes her social studies AP) and she is hating the online Econ. She is not the happiest camper right now, but hopefully her easier Senior year will make up for the crappy summer! Our only concern is that this will drop her class rank considerably- possibly out of the top 10%. Her HS is super competitive. She is around top 5% right now, but the counselor did say it is possible to drop that far and it’s hard to tell if Senior year will be enough time to pull it up. The biggest concern is that she would lose eligibility for free community college. It’s an option we were hoping to keep open, while at the same time hoping to not need to use it!

The online Econ was not nearly as flexible as we had hoped and she ended up not being able to enroll in any music camps. However, she did get a job offer from the music school where she is a student. So, she has been teaching guitar since April. She doesn’t have many students yet, but it is very good money and even better experience. So, that worked out nicely.

Time will tell if she made the right choices, I guess!

Thanks for the update!

A word of caution on the advice given from honestmom in her post of 2/3/2015, where she says, "Most colleges “count” APs in math/science/English more than they do foreign languages."A score of 4 or 5 in an AP will count for credit (almost all schools will take a 4) whether it be in AP French or AP Physics.IF your student is planning on majoring in Vocal Performance,languages are a must and they are a big help for those looking at performance careers in general.

If a kid plans it right, there should be time to take most everything during the four years of high school- my daughter did, and although she didn’t get much sleep it did make it so that she had all of her gen eds out of the way by the time she got to college.

The guidance counselor (or you) can write a note to accompany the transcript, explaining the drop. For some schools, those that are “holistic” in admissions (or music schools) this evidence of dedication to music will be a big plus.

For state schools such as cc’s that are more driven by statistics, I can see it could be a concern, especially when finances are involved.

But I think a lot of us are very happy to hear she is doing jazz choir!

What an impressive hard worker to do the two courses during the summer so she can take the jazz choir. I think that should be explained in the note too :slight_smile:

compmom says what I was thinking very well. I’m glad to hear she is taking jazz choir. Kids should be able to take some things they love in high school.