URGENT! In all regular classes for high school in 9th grade. Am I not smart?
I had a 3.5 gpa in 8th grade but screwed up badly. Here is my schedule:
Algebra 1 Evreyday (gives me extra help in math)
Biology 9
English 9
World geography
Writing lab 1
Reading lab 1
This gives me room for 2 electives.
Avid
Student Leadership
Its sad, really. I screwed up badly and realized how bad I was in school. I am quite sad frankly. Those labs are for idiots like me who can’t do work properly…
Am I screwed? Since I am literally in the lowest classes possible in 9th grade, is it odd to even care about grades? An answer would be sweet
I don’t understand what you mean when you say you had a 3.5 GPA in 8th grade. That’s not so bad, how does that get you placed into the easiest classes? Can you meet with your GC and parents to discuss this? If you feel you can handle more difficult classes they may let you try.
Bring your parents to your guidance counselor’s office and discuss this. You can’t handle this alone as this is a grown up conversation (that you’ll be part of but that you need adults for).
Make sure the adults ask these questions to your guidance counselor:
What triggered your placement in these classes (with special help in math, reading, and writing)?
What classes can be replaced by a harder version considering you have a 3.5 GPA in 8th grade?
Rather than student leadership, can you take a foreign language (will be important for college)?
Now, so that we can help you, you need to help us understand, you need to answer all these questions. (Brace yourself, there are a lot of them :p)
what’s your current grade in ELA?
Are you currently taking Reading? Writing?
Have you started on a foreign language?
What’s your current math class and what grade are you getting?
What grade are you getting in social studies?
Do YOU feel you have a “best” subject where you currently do A-level work (or 94+%)
Is the high school you’re going to the regular high school for your middle school?
Do you think a high percentage of students at your middle school are on free/reduced lunch?
What about at the high school?
Do you know the percentage of students from the high school who go to college?
I was in pre algebra and had a B in it, have no classes with above a 94 percent, and got average on all tests. Best subject is tech with a 93 percent. I have no clue about the percent of high school students going to college.
I am going to my local high school. Sadly, there is no way to change my schedule, and I am quite jealous of my friends going into the IB program and honors because of their 4.0 gpa’s and the fact that they were in Algebra 1 in 8th grade.
Sadly, it seems like it is too late now… Should I still care about grades even in these crappy classes?
Why would you not care about grades that makes no sense you’ll never move up a level and what do you think will look worse taking regular classes or failing regular classes?
You are not even close to being screwed. You are the opposite of screwed, which is not screwed.
The easiest thing to do (and most common thing in my school for people, such as myself) to do to make sure you remain unscrewed is to try to double up on Geometry and Algebra II your sophomore year for math and try to get into a honor’s science class your sophomore year. Build up from there.
You said you had a 3.5 GPA in 8th grade. For middle school, where kids begin to realize that middle school grades are effectively useless, a 3.5 GPA is great. My GPA was much, much, much worse than your’s and I wasn’t placed in any lab classes. Were you in special needs classes in middle school? If not, there is no reason for you to be in lab classes (which is a euphemism for lazy and/or special needs kids at my school). I’d try to contact your guidance counselor and get your parents involved.
Contacted school, now I am in algebra 1 honors (not that great, still average) and got my labs rid of. I am pretty happy now, god knows why I had labs in the first place! I am so happy right now! Thanks to that, I have more elective choices and I am now an average student and not behind anymore.
Congratulations both for being proactive on this and for solving the problem!
Algebra 1 Honors will be hard, I’d advise you start “previewing” it using Khan Academy videos over the summer.
Biology 9
English 9
World geography => can you take AP Human Geography?
Avid
Student Leadership
2 more classes => you MUST take a foreign language. For the last elective, I’d suggest art (choir, orchestra, 3D Design, Drawing… )
Biology in my school is considered “advanced”. If you’re on this track, you should be fine for science.
Biology --> Chemistry --> AP Biology/APES --> AP Chemistry/AP Physics
For English, a lot of people do English 1 (9) and English 2 (10) but still make it into the APs.
English 9 --> English 10 (Honors/Advanced English 10) --> AP Lang --> AP Lit
Same for History.
World Geo --> AP World History --> APUSH --> AP Gov/Econ
Student Leadership and AVID are fine (IF you really want to do them; if you were forced/persuaded to do them, then I would recommend changing them.)
Change to Algebra 1 or Algebra 1 Honors if you can:
Algebra 1 --> Geometry --> Algebra 2 --> Precalculus (or even AP Calculus if you take one over the summer).
Take Spanish/French/Italian/whatever 1 and another fun class to replace labs!
All in all, there should be some slight modifications (foreign language, MAYBE change to honors in mathematics), but your schedule is fine, assuming that your school has the same prereqs and such for AP classes as mine. To check, I would recommend talking to your counselor about your 4 year plan and seeing if you could change your classes. Also, don’t compare yourself to your friends in the IB program; what you need to do is to improve yourself rather than compete with others.
AVID is important as it’s a “signal” for top colleges as well as programs such as POSSE and Questbridge, and automatically qualifies OP for fly-ins and various programs. So, sticking with AVID is important.
Don't compare. 2. Spend time in the summer taking classes in math and science so that you can move ahead. I would not worry about IB-I've yet to be impressed and see no evidence that IB or APs are better or more impressive than non-AP or non-IB honor classes. 3. Regardless of what class you are taking, try to get top grades.
Thanks to everyone who has replied! I feel much better now! Sadly, I can not change any of my classes, but I feel much better now. Certainly, I should be able to go to a state university even with my standard classes. Not really interested anyways in going into the top state colleges or anything like that.
May do summer classes so I can go into Ap calc AB in 12th grade, though I think pre calc will be more than enough.
