Need advice on priorities

Parent Cafe
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<p>Does your daughter dance outside of school? If so, then maybe she should drop advanced ballet class in favor of a higher GPA. If not, I strongly urge her to keep dance. I myself am a recent HS grad (battered but in one piece after admissions, whew!) and a dancer. Over the past two years, I really came to appreciate dance for its stress-relieving function; your daughter might discover the same, especially during the next two incredibly stressful years she has ahead of her.</p>

<p>In addition, should she take both AP Chem and Hon Physics, there’s no guarantee that she would be able to handle the workload. If she is taking other advanced courses (and I assume she is), then putting in an additional adv. science might stretch her too thin. I agree with Hunt in that an unweighted 4.0 is extremely important. Colleges do like to see students challenge themselves in course selection; but they do not like to see students fall short of that challenge. Is risking that 4.0 for a class she doesn’t even love worth it?</p>

<p>Also, how are her ECs? Even if she does feel as if she can definitely maintain her 4.0, her increased focus on school may risk her ECs. The same goes with studying for the SAT. As you said, it might be better for her to take the time to try to score high. </p>

<p>Lastly, one more tidbit: I ended up with an approximate unweighted 3.97 GPA because I foolishly took on more than I could chew during course selections. I was too confident in my straight-A abilities to realize that I had stretched myself too thin with my other advanced courses, my many ECs, and my other responsibilities. All I’m saying is that it’s definitely good to have a balance. However your daughter eventually chooses (and it should be her choice in the end), I wish her (and you) luck! :)</p>

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<p>OP’s situation seems clear cut to me. There is value to keeping dance. And risk to doing two lab sciences… without any gain. </p>

<p>DS had to make some tough decision science/math vs music. He was passionate about both, hoping for admission at top engineering schools. He indulged both, but it meant few study halls and a lower GPA/rank due to 10 semesters of unweighted music courses. It was still the right decision for him.</p>

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<p>She’s making an assumption that the two sciences will raise her rank - when in reality she may be overwhelmed and not do very well in either. The risk doesn’t seem worth the reward.</p>

<p>I think she should continue to do what she loves.</p>

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<p>Is there another less strenous science class she could take if determined to do so?
When S1 was a soph. he took honors chem and AP Environmental Science. </p>

<p>I agree that she should take dance if she loves it. S1 was in the top ten in his class and took a PE class …Team Sports his senior year just because it was fun.</p>

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<p>LOL - My son took PE senior year because he couldn’t complete it earlier due to all his music electives. He got one of his very few B’s because he was too busy his last semester to make up the classes he missed (due to illness, music trips, state meet for quiz bowl etc).</p>