<p>^^^yeah, but when your spouse works those hours routinely, shall we say it’s a challenge to get him to acknowledge this might not be good for a 15 yo?</p>
<p>My S did not work into the wee hours on IB. Most of his friends did. He wanted balance in his life, and frankly, after four hours of football practice, studying after 10 pm was totally pointless. He busted his tail, and when he realized that no matter what he did, some classes were going to be Bs, he moved on, maintained the Bs, made sure he got As in the other courses, and let go of the angst. (Not that I did, which is why I now have 6,000+ posts. OTOH, I vented here and not so much at my S, so he still talks to me. )</p>
<p>All that said, he worked a LOT harder than my S1 who was at the math/science program. IB expects that kids will develop a high level of competence across the board, in all major curriculum areas. With AP, students can choose to take APs that cater to their strengths. So, if you don’t like Spanish, noone is forcing you to take the AP. In IB, it’s a five-year minimum foreign language commitment.</p>
<p>4+ hrs is ‘normal’ for 9th pre-IB, many spent more hours than that each night & more time on weekend.
the most important thing is that your kid has to like doing it…to them, they enjoy the ‘learning’ part, so all those ‘time spent’ are not chores to them. They’ve the drive/motivation to do all that.</p>
<p>but if your student truly don’t think IB / AP are a good fit for them, then talk it over & see maybe the ‘regular / other honor’ classes will be more suitable.</p>
<p>My kid comes home at 5:30. 4 hours of work would mean until 9:30 non-stop. She is a junior in a rigorous program. It sounds too much to me. Your D is in the 9th. Can she do more if the course load increases in the junior year once she starts the program?</p>
<p>Well, I’ll be the odd man out and say that I do think it’s too much for a freshman. Now, you can take this with a grain of salt because one thing I’ve learned from being here the last 8 months, is that I’m probably defining success a little differently than the majority of CC posters.</p>
<p>I think freshman should have some time for exploration of interests, including those outside of school, and time to be social. Four hours of homework a night doesn’t leave much time for that. Even every minute in a scheduled activity isn’t good for kids, especially if the kid doesn’t seem to be thriving on it. Now, some kids really do seem to thrive on pressure, but a lot of them crack, too. I’ve got one of each at home. (Ironically, the brighter of the two is the one most likely to crack!) You’re the one who has to watch your daughter for signs that she may not be cut out for this. And if she isn’t . . . it’s NO BIG DEAL. Lots of successful people were not A+, top-of-the-class, AP/IB high school students.</p>
<p>I’ll join you, ordinarylives. The occasional four-hour night is fine and probably to be expected, but four hours EVERY night, plus what I’m assuming is weekend work is over the top, IMHO.</p>
<p>believe it or not,10th/11th & even 12th are even ‘easier’ than 9th,according to my kids.(IB & Science Magnet)
because of these reasons:
~ in 9th ,( Science magnet/AP /IB) they’re still trying to figure out all the classes & homework.
~ they say 10th is actually EASIER because they ‘got the hang of it’.
11th is even BETTER ,even though the classes are more rigorous & harder, they have become more efficient & have already learn to handle time management & can get right down to homework / study.
my D took 8 classes all through high school (As),
& still have time to join fun clubs/activites ,with friends, to fun conventions etc.
my pre-IB 9th grader still have time to listen to music, to concerts & to LOADS of school clubs & after school FUN activites each week.
They will manage their time better each day.</p>
<p>this is what i’ve noticed:
they’re doing homework for the NEXT block schedule !!!
they’re DONE with tomorrow’s homework, they’re doing homework that doesn’t need to be turn in until later…so STAY AHEAD of schedule !
if you ‘peek at them’ during the 4+hrs, not every minute is spent on ‘studying’, they take breaks in between to answer emails, do facebook thing, listen to music & go back to homework…so not all 4 hrs are actual homework time.
Cuz I know, I ‘peek’ one time & I thought they were studying & they were already DONE with homework & are just relaxing w/ their laptop still on.</p>
<p>I am a junior, and it is the hardest class. I have only 3 AP, but it takes me 6 hours. For my APUSH I had homework every day, every weekend and every holiday. For Thanksgiving I had 3 chapters to read and study.</p>
This was true of my son, who didn’t have very good work habits in 9th and 10th grade, but got his act together in 11th grade. My daughter had her act together more in the first place, so I think she is working harder as a junior than in the prior grades.</p>
<p>I’d like to distinguish between the types of homework, daily assignments versus long-term projects. </p>
<p>For my D, in both MYP and IB, 4 hours was perhaps average, but that usually didn’t consist of 4 hours of nightly assignments. At her school, IB was infamous for projects, and she often had 2 or 3 going concurrently. Typically, she could polish off her nightly HW in an hour or two, but then had to turn her attention to project work. </p>
<p>That did give her some flexibility on any given night; if she had something else going on, she could perhaps skip the project work, knowing that she’d have to tackle it later. Or if she got on a roll with something, she might work late into the night on it. There were times that she’d have several projects due all at once, and the runup to those occasions was not a pretty sight.</p>
<p>You may find that this is all part of acclimating to the rhythm high school coming from middle school. </p>
<p>My kids stressfully struggled their first fall of 9th grade–marching band practices ran until 9 pm two nights of the week, weekend tournaments, more honors classes and homework, etc. </p>
<p>During their sophomore fall, I noticed that they were very calm and cool and commented on it. They said that once they got into the swing of things, keeping on an even keel didn’t seem to be much of a problem.</p>
<p>You may want to monitor the stress level, but I wouldn’t give up yet unless the stress became debilitating.</p>
<p>Wait till you get to the fall of senior year–that’s when in addition to school, you have the whole applying to college thing going on!</p>
<p>As long as she has variety of activities every night and spends sufficient amount of time socializing with her friends, 4+ hours is pretty normal. My D. did not have IB available at her small private prep. HS, which also had very few AP’s. However, her regular classes were more rigorous than AP’s at other schools which became evident once she went to college. AP’s at D’s school were plain torture. However, she had superior college prep. and continued having straight A’s at college.
Hard work ALWAYS pays off. It is up to a kid decide on her priority. Most places though are looking for well rounded applicants, so having fun with variety of EC’s and be surrounded by friends are also important.</p>
<p>Between school activities/sports/exercise, commute time, length of school day it leaves NO time for family, for paid work or for sleep. </p>
<p>My kids have a school day just over 7 hours. School sports practices are 1.5-2.5 hours/school day. Away games can be 45-75 minutes away. It is next to impossible to complete homework on the sports buses - my kid uses the time to catch up on sleep.</p>
<p>I work full time. I NEED my kids to take on some household/family responsibilites.</p>
<p>How can a child not burn out with this type of schedule? </p>
<p>If a student can manage it, great, but I believe it is a lot of pressure for a 13 -15 year old.</p>
<p>I don’t know that that is too much, it depends on what else she has on her plate. Also, remember that kids tend to work the hardest/be the craziest the first semester of high school (or college). They’re less used to the system and the level of work required, and frankly they haven’t figured out how to cut corners without damaging their overall learning experience yet, so they’re doing absolutely everything to the “t”. Once she gets past her first finals, she’ll probably relax a little bit and have more time for other things.</p>
<p>I have always work full time, so I could afford to hire help for household chores. I told my D. many times, I do not want her help, I want her to achieve, so that she also is able to hire help for household chores. I hope it will happen. She is extremely hard working person, but she does not know how to cook or iron. She had her interview clothes dry clean many times. So far this attitude has helped her to achieve her goal. She was spending more than 4 hrs on homework in HS and definitely much more in college. But she has very wide range of interests and wanted to pursue them all and she did. Being well rounded and social/outgoing has helped a lot. Did interviewers ever discussed her Research internship? Nope, it is boring for them. Her Music minor was much more popular item.</p>
<p>D has taken 12 AP courses since the 10th grade. She works on her homework an average of 4-5 hours/night. In addition, she is very involved in her ECs and academic competitions.</p>
<p>I personally think she’s crazy, and have often tried to convince her not to take so many AP courses (the worst thing about APs is the amount of material they have to cover in such a short amount of time). But, she insists on doing it because she honestly believes that the non-AP courses would be too “easy and boring”.</p>
<p>She loves the challenge. She loves the teachers (only the best teachers in her school are allowed to teach AP and all of them are multiple “teacher of the year” honorees). And, she loves the intellectual discussions that occur in the classes.</p>
<p>I still think she could have survived with 9 or 10 AP classes instead, but she’s happy, she’s willing to do the work, she never complains and she is doing great in her classes. If your child wants to work that hard, then my recommendation would be to take a deep breath (as I do), make sure that she is eating properly (a big problem for my D who hates breakfast), give her lots of hugs and let her choose her own schedule.</p>
<p>But, keep on top of her grades and her feelings. If she seems to want a lighter schedule because it’s becoming too much, listen to that as well. Don’t let her hit the wall.</p>
<p>If the student thinks 4 hours a night is too much, then it probably is. But lots of students do work that much and do enjoy the challenge (except when some of it is “busy work”). </p>
<p>Whether it will get harder or easier after 8th grade depends on a lot of factors. If the student skated through middle school and is learning how to be organized, subsequent years may be easier. But the projects for 11th/12th grade are grueling… so in many cases it really gets harder.</p>
<p>I think 4 hours a night is too much for a 9th grader. As others have said, it only gets worse as they take harder classes. My Junior does about 4 hours a night (with 3 AP classes), but probably only did 2 hours as a 9th grader. I hear about kids staying up till 1or 2 am every night and it breaks my heart. That is not a balanced life for a teenager…</p>
<p>sometimes kids stay competitive due to peer pressure,
my own example only ( & hopefully this doesn’t apply to any of you):
my oldest D , in 12th now, is surrounded by MANY MANY MANY classmates taking >>full scale , all out ,all AP available like, some total 20+AP << ( 9th/10th/11th/12th) & those kids get all As.</p>
<p>Now that she is applying to college, I finally realized now she is competing w/ those classmates who has an arm’s length worth of 20+AP ( all As) ! Now all others applicants ‘appear to be more competitive’ in the adcom’s eye.</p>
<p>long story short:
as a parent, there is no perfect answer, no perfect 'win-win" . I wanted a balanced & easy school life for them, yet when it comes time ( like now) to apply to these highly competitive schools, these school denied even the 2400SAT,& denied the best Val & Sal & denied kids w/ meaningful EC.
I suppose there is Never a perfect answer…if your kid is “liking” her schoolwork & truly enjoy learning every single minute of it, then the IB/AP/Magnet is right for her:)</p>
)</p>