<p>My daughter is a rising Junior. She has a 4.0 UW gpa at a highly ranked magnet school. She is currently ranked 16/320. She is trying to decide whether to double up on her science classes this year. She is already taking Chem AP/lab and wants to take physics honors too. Not because she loves science or wants to pursue a science-based major in college but because she wants the weighted A that she would not get if she sticks with the class she really loves - advanced ballet. She wants to raise her ranking and cannot do it without weighted classes. I think she should have at least one class she loves, even if not weighted, and use the extra time she would have to study for her upcoming PSAT and SAT. What do you think?</p>
<p>Let her choose. But I will say…at the end of the day her ranking may not change because she has no control over the classes and grades of the students ranked higher than her. </p>
<p>We insisted that our kids take a music class all four years of high school. Yes, one was a music major, but the other one did it for the love of the class. She didn’t give two hoots about her class rank…which was 8/215.</p>
<p>No one should take that Chem class and that Physics class at the same time unless they are absolutely driven by a love of the material and/or a crushing need to master both subjects in pursuit of more advanced studies. If she isn’t secretly a science type, and she truly is only doing the for the fractional increase in her GPA, she is not using the brains that her current class rank would seem to indicate she has. Your instincts are dead-on. An A in an unweighted class that she likes will be better than a Not-A in a weighted class (even worse, Not-As in both weighted classes) that she has come to hate. Tell her that a little bliss in her day will make the tough stuff easier.</p>
<p>Aw… Dance, Sticker’s D!! Dance!!</p>
<p>And while she’s at it, she should get to work lobbying for honors weighting for that advanced dance class. Sheesh. Just as hard as Physics I’d in a very different way.</p>
<p>Stick with dance. The golden numbers are top one or two in the class, highly unlikely she will move up that much in one year because of one class, and the other is top 10%. She is solidly in the top 5% and that is just as good as moving up to the top 2% or 3% she might hope for, but again, unlikely and gives her no boost for admissions. Longevity of an activity weighs heavily for college admissions as well. Also, taking that other science class might do the reverse and move her down because the workload might be such that it affects all her grades.</p>
<p>She should focus that extra study time from physics in preparing for the SAT/ACT to compliment that nice GPA.</p>
<p>I SO appreciate everyone’s views on this. I am letting her choose but we will discuss the decision quite a bit in the coming weeks and I really like having these additional thoughts and reasons I had not considered.</p>
<p>She should do what she loves. Life is too short!</p>
<p>It is worth noting that selective colleges do prefer to see all three main sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) in the high school record, but that does not necessarily mean having to take two at the same time or take AP/honors versions (for someone not intending a science major) beyond the general preference for “more rigorous” courses. If science is not her main interest, then it may not be a good idea to double up on it, especially at the expense of something that she really likes, and which may be somewhat more unusual when applying to highly selective colleges.</p>
<p>In our experience, schools wanted to see three lab sciences. DD took biology, chemistry and anatomy/physiology… All were lab sciences. But she never took two sciences on one academic year.</p>
<p>Dance. Definitely - she should do what she loves. </p>
<p>College acceptance is based on just the fall grades. An extra weighted class for one semester won’t improve rank much. Also extra academics without the dance outlet may make it hard to keep all As.</p>
<p>I think she should do what she loves. Doing things just to get into college really isn’t a great way to live, and can even backfire: for instance, pursuing an interest like dance, in depth, may actually help with admissions more than a very small change in GPA.</p>
<p>If it was an AP class, that would be a different situation–college credit.</p>
<p>Here are some pros:
- The class will add rigor to the schedule–not only does it look great to colleges, more importantly it’ll challenge your daughter and help her build skills / know her potential for college.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The teens to top 10 is highly competitive (plus there are two more years with many weighted classes for mobility), a single class can be the difference to getting in that high ranked spot. I know straight A people sometimes take an easy senior year or run out of ap/honors courses they like / have to meet program requirements at the end with unweighted classes.</p></li>
<li><p>Status. It helps you become the academic role model to other students… But it’d be hard to say with “advanced ballet.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It’s not all about rank but a combination of the above. Your daughter may not have reached top 10, but at least she’ll get an experience of a college preparing schedule. High School makes us take all these honors courses in various subjects to be at the top so that we’re well rounded. Maybe your daughter might like Physics or one of her Ap/honors in different subjects.</p>
<p>Stick with the dance class. Then write about the difficulty of that choice for your college essay 
It’s a shame that students feel they have to make sacrifices like this for some tenth of a point on a GPA 
Some colleges will be more impressed that she has a “passion” she has followed…</p>
<p>She’s a junior? It will be impressive to see she took two tough sciences in jr year, especially if she gets a 5 or 4 in AP chem. It always looks good for girls to push themselves. But, what is she aiming for, in college? If it’s not STEM, and she’s already top 5%, if she’s not trying to wedge herself into a tippy-top, maybe you choose life over rigor. Can she take H physics in senior year?</p>
<p>She can take physics senior year which is what I recommended. She can even double up with bio AP if she wants to. I just don’t want her to be overloaded junior year when she also has to prep for SAT/ACT/PSAT. I’d rather her have one class she loves and can breathe a bit. I can’t say for certain what her college major will be, but she has never expressed an interest in STEM. She’s more of a Classics/English/law school kind of girl. And she dances (as a pre professional) in a professional ballet company. Ballet is her passion, although she does not see herself dancing as a career She likely will minor in dance in college.</p>
<p>I don’t want to reveal private information gleaned from PM’ing, but this girl is dancing a lot outside of school and is very accomplished. Many girls who dance this well don’t go to school at all! Those who load up on AP’s and concentrate on top college admissions often find they cannot continue to dance. So there is a bigger decision here than one course: does the daughter want to dance while in college? If so, then a different set of schools might be on the horizon (conservatory or college).</p>
<p>I strongly suggest that Sticker and daughter purchase the Dance Magazine college guide, which is an amazing resource, and also a book called “Creative Colleges,” which has information on colleges for dancers, musicians, actors, writers and visual artists. There are many great schools with excellent ballet and other forms of dance, where a student can major in dance for a BA, BS, or BFA.</p>
<p>Other dancers we know also take the route of dancing in a company and taking a class or two through extension schools or continuing ed or online.</p>
<p>At any rate, to restate this: top colleges such as Ivies will be far more impressed by the dedication to ballet than by the extra science. Dance would be an extracurricular but students manage to continue even at a Harvard or Yale, taking class as much as they can and performing in a school company. She will contribute more to the mix that colleges are hoping for, with her dance, than with SAT’s or AP’s.</p>
<p>compmom is exactly right. It is much more likely that her serious pursuit of ballet will get OP’s D the coveted admission spot than a second science class for a non-STEM kid.</p>
<p>I will say that finding an academically rigorous school for a kid with a strong ballet background is very hard–much harder than for, say, a musician. Good luck!</p>
<p>My D took IB HL Physics and AP Chemistry senior year - not for the weighted grade, but to smooth the path in chemistry as a college freshman. She had a good, practical reason for doubling up but the work load was killer and she finished with a B+ in chem (first ever). We took the opposite tack that it was about the learning experience and NOT about the grade. That was the only way to maintain sanity along withe the rest of the IB schedule. I would stick with dance unless she has a better reason than rank for taking the chem.</p>
<p>If she’s a rising junior she can take physics as a senior and still have all three sciences. I do recommend that if she’s serious about considering some of the single digit admission schools. Someone who is in the top 5% of the class should have some good choices if their SAT scores are in line with her grades. My top 6% son got into Tufts, U of Chicago (EA), and Vassar, but not into Brown or Harvard. (His GPA had been helped not hurt by double orchestra every year, so we were pleasantly surprised by the results since in academic courses he was a B+/A- kid.)</p>