However, a student aiming for other more selective colleges who completes precalculus in 11th grade or earlier and has calculus available to him/her should take it in order to avoid standing out in a bad way against strong competition for admission.
Daughter likes the NE liberal arts schools, especially Amherst (great aunt lives in area). If her school offers calculus, does she need to take it in order to be competitive?
Well… privileges for kids are things like use of the car, cell phones, allowances, etc. Rewards might be things like trips to movies or places they enjoy like rock climbing gyms, meals out at their favorite restaurants, an Apple or coffee shop gift card. My kids - ahem - used to like to get to buy a book at the bookstore if they did well. But that might not be every kid’s preference!
If you decide to go down this route, I’d say a couple of things:
Don't take away every privilege if they get lower grades. Like -- don't trash their whole lives (no phone, no car, cut off allowance, the whole thing). Pick something, let them know your expectation well ahead of time, and then do it.
Don't expect all As. There lie dragons -- you can easily ruin your relationship with your kids if you push for perfection. As I suggested above, kids with above a 3.0 have choices, and kids with above a 3.5 have better choices.
Do your best not to fight, nag, cajole during the semester. Stick to your end of the deal, and assume they will stick to theirs. If they don't do well, then remove the privilege with the understanding that they can earn it back with better performance next semester. If they do great, celebrate with whatever reward you promised.
Don't make it a big drama. Make the deal with them, and then let it play out however they want it to. Ultimately it is their life. You can prompt, but a heavy hand often backfires.
OP, right now I would really try to stear clear of talking about college much at all. The only things I’d suggest to her is that her grades will now count so if she wants a shot later at selective schools like Amherst, she needs to have good grades and have taken a rigorous courseload. Then leave it be. Starting high school is an adjustment in and of itself.
My D is a senior and we just finished up as she got into her first choice school early decision. Here’s what I would want to know if my child is in 8th grade:
If money is an issue, do yourself a favor and think about the money first so you don't get your and your kid's expectations crushed. Go to different colleges websites and run the Net Price Calculator and get your Expected Family Contribution so you can see what you are looking at for costs. Some private colleges are really generous with their financial aid (and personally I mean discounting of tuition rather than taking out loans, although you have to be careful since a lot of schools call loans financial aid), and others are not. Then you have the issue of whether your kid can qualify for merit aid and how much that might be. You could easily find that a private college will cost less than your in-state public, but you won't know until you run the numbers.
Don't talk to your kids too much about college at this point. The kids whose parents started talking about it too early ended up being nervous wrecks by the time Senior year rolled around. Instead, you should focus your kids on getting the best grades possible, and doing activities that are significant to them without talking to them about doing it for any particular college. It should all be about their own personal growth and making them into the strongest kids they can be.
When you eventually go on college visits, be sure to visit the safety and match schools first. Once your kid visits a super-shiny reach school, it's going to be much harder to find a safety school they will like.
Try to manage your and your kid's expectations. There are a lot of kids who have top grades and SAT/ACT scores who get rejected from the tippy top tier schools. There just aren't enough seats at these schools, and these schools aren't just looking at statistics, they are trying to create a really interesting class. I think of the stats as being the "greens fee" so you have to have them to realistically have a chance, so now what else to you have that's really going to get you in?
I think it's really important to manage the timing of the standardized tests. You don't want to bunch them up too much. There is the ACT or the SAT (you only need 1) and for the top schools many of them require two SAT Subject tests. I think only Georgetown requires 3.
You should google the subject tests and see which topics you think your kid will want to take, and how that fits in with their academic schedule. For instance, if I had known this earlier, I would have had my D take the biology subject test at the end of Freshman year because that would have been 1 test out of the way. For STEM majors some of the schools require you to take the Math 2 test and then one other. I’ve heard, at least for the Spanish subject test, that you shouldn’t take it because so many native speakers take it that the curve is really tough. The SAT Subject Tests (also known as SAT2) is given at the same time as the SAT, so you can’t take both on the same day. Each SAT Subject Test is only 1 hour long so you can take up to 3 on any given testing day, but I think you’d be tired if you took more than 2 on the same day.
With regard to the ACT or SAT, your kid should take a practice one on each and see which one they do better on, and then should just study for and take that test rather than the other. The only potential problem with taking the ACT is that if your child scores high enough on the PSAT to qualify for National Merit, then they need to take the SAT to get a “confirming score” which basically means that they score high enough on the SAT to prove that the high PSAT score wasn’t a fluke. The benefit of National Merit is that there are a handful of colleges that will give your kid free tuition or more, and some other colleges give a smaller amount of merit money for this.
If your child takes algebra 2 sophmore year, I’d go ahead and have him/her study over the summer between 10th and 11th grades and take ACT/SAT at the end of that summer. If they don’t get the score they want, they can study over winter break Junior year and take it at the beginning of Spring Semester, and if they still don’t do well they can study the summer between Junior year and Senior year and take it at the end of that summer. Junior year classes are hugely time consuming. This schedule gives your kid lots of time to re-test if they want to, and yet doesn’t interfere with their classwork.
Since your D is getting B+ in English/History/Language, you might want to consider getting her a tutor early on so she can pull up her grades here. I had hired a private ACT tutor for my D, and she told me that she wished she had a tutor earlier on because he gave her such good tips on how to check her math that her math grade went up the following year.
Think about what your kid will do during their summers and how this can improve them and can improve their resume. There are some outrageously priced summer school programs out there. I'm not talking about this. I've heard that admissions officers don't really think that highly of over-priced programs because they aren't interested in kids who buy their way into things. However, if a summer program helps your kid discover something about themselves or helps tell a story of who they are, then one of these programs could be helpful (and some programs have financial aid). My D and several of her friends were able to get unpaid internships at a local university working in their labs. Their science teacher helped them with the introductions. Another kid I know was able to shadow a physical therapist a couple of times during the school year, and then during the summer he hired her at minimum wage to help out for 10 hours a week or so; that looked great on her resume and supported her story of why she wanted to go to the particular schools she was applying to for physical therapy. Another kid I know volunteered at a nursing home, which supported her application as a nurse, etc. Still other of the STEM kids used the time to work on science projects to compete in some national competitions such as Siemens. It's really important that your daughter start talking to her science teachers earlier rather than later to discover what types of programs or extracurriculars are available to her.
On another note, you should look at your D’s math and science progression to make sure that she’s on track to graduate with Calculus, and that she is on track to take at least one AP science Junior year and graduate with biology, chemistry, and physics. If she’s not on track for this, then maybe she can take a class over the summer to get on track.
Oh, I meant to add that you should go on the Common App website and look at the application she will fill out and what kinds of things it looks for. And also look at what the teacher recommendations and guidance counselor recommendations will state.
While Spanish has a large number of heritage speakers, it is also the most commonly offered foreign language in US high schools. The SAT subject foreign language tests that are most heavily loaded with heritage speakers are Chinese and Korean, since those languages are relatively rarely taught in US high schools.
Note also that 800 on math level 2 is only 79th percentile, but that is due to a self-selected group of test takers (i.e. those good in math and on the +1 or higher math track).
Oops. I hadn’t read your original post correctly, so I thought your daughter was going to be a senior next year! I’d encourage her to continue participating in the sport she loves, and also start doing some volunteer work or perhaps participating in a club or two at school. Maybe she and some friends could volunteer helping a team of younger kids doing the same sport, or spend a couple of evenings or Saturdays a month volunteering at a food bank or animal shelter. Have her take three consecutive years of a foreign language in school. If you happen to visit a city/town that has a college, on vacation or on one of her team trips, I’d drive around the campus with her to see what it’s like. Definitely have her take the PSAT when her school offers it; we didn’t due to a class conflict, and we regret it now.
One more comment. Don’t make your son feel like a “lesser” human because he is not as academically gifted or motivated as your daughter. The “so so” phrase in the title kind of implies that. Be sure you aren’t thinking that or treating him that way. All kids need to have parents who love them for who they are, regardless of their academic or EC path in life.
30, fair point. Used short hand in the title, but should not have done so. If anything, he has potential to be stronger student - fantastic vocabulary and great insights, especially in humanities. Does not have same kind of drive and can lose focus. Yet he gets frustrated when he does not get same grades as her. Challenging to figure out how to approach.
FWIW, I’ve heard multiple stories from friends and family about middle school boys not living up to their potential. Often, it’s due to them just not turning in homework (even when they completed it!). Middle school is a tough time for both boys and girls, but I haven’t heard many stories of girls being as spacey as boys in MS.
I wouldn’t worry about him right now as long as he’s got a good attitude and puts in enough effort to put him on the honors track in high school. It sounds like he’s a bright kid.