<p>nerdydad – AP Psych was high on our list for next year, but then Son heard how difficult the teacher was and instead opted for AP Govt and taking some “required” ethics and religion courses. </p>
<p>And I’m there with you – my son has very little summer plans – 2 separate 1 week camps; no academic camps; no job or volunteering lined up – pretty much just bumming. I was not very happy about this, but I figure it may be his last summer like this. My Dad is having knee replacement surgery, so I’m sure Pop will find lots of need for help to keep Son active since Pop can’t manuever this summer.</p>
<p>Longhaul: AP Psych is really interesting, I went with my D on her curriculum night to this class, my D likes it very much, although same as ur son’s situation-teacher is not good from previous year’s feedback but my D still plan to get it on junior year or senior year. In my opinion, this course should be mandatory for all kids, so they can learn to handle difficult situations when they grow up. So many problems or crimes committed were directly caused by psych problem.</p>
<p>My D just got her driver learner’s permit this morning, she is excited although I don’t have any plan for her driving lessons yet. My wife asked me to teach her driving by myself since I did it for my S, but girls are different, they get more nervous when they sit behind the wheel. Anyone plan to teach kids driving by themselves? Is 15-16 a good age to start learning how to drive for a girl? Sorry this seems has nothing to do with school:)</p>
<p>nerdyDad - my son got his license last month. He is 15 1/2. He took his driver’s test on the first day he was eligible. Our state has mandatory driver training for teens. We choose to have a private instructor. I would highly recommend a good driving instructor. Ours was $350 with 6 hours of driving time and 8 hours of classroom instruction.</p>
<p>My son was taught how to react in lots of difficult and dangerous driving situations that I would never have known to teach him.</p>
<p>I completely defer to my DH when it comes to driving as I don’t want to mentally scar my kids like my mom did to me Apparently, I grab the “oh s^&!” handle on the drivers side when my kids start driving along with using the imaginary brake.</p>
<p>We happily doled out the $400 for the weeklong drivers ed program here that included 6 hours behind the wheel with an instructor with dual steering, brake & gas controls. They had D1 on the highway the first day (after only being in a school parking lot before that.) That was the last time she drove on the highway too. Good luck!</p>
<p>D’13 is at her journalism camp. Her realization yesterday was that she’d never want to be a sports writer and that she liked column writing better than feature writing. Not bad for a days work.</p>
<p>RobD: LOL:) I remembered the times when my wife wanted to save money then she forced me to teach her driving, we almost ended up with divorce:) My S maintained state of resilience when he was behind wheel while I had to keep my temper most of time and I needed to drink a lot of water during the driving lessons. I will think it again how to deal with my D. </p>
<p>DogsandBirds: $350 for 6h driving plus 8h lesson is good deal. I probably need to do this.</p>
<p>Done! Still waiting for the last two grades to fill in - both of which will probably fall short of A’s, but not sure how short. Once again, d falls apart at almost the end point and then rallies to get it back. How do I help her change this pattern? The one thing she didn’t do this year that she did in Middle School was fall apart 3rd quarter.</p>
<p>How do you get A’s in both 3rd and 4th quarter marking periods and end up with an A- for the semester? Can we do away with 20% final exams? ;)</p>
<p>mnmom62, at my D’s school, exams also account for 20% of the semester grade. When S was there, he once earned A’s in each of the four quarters in physics, but got B+'s for both semester grades. GPA is calculated from semester grades here. My D, however, is of the mind that you keep your quarter grades so high that semester tests don’t really come into play. This makes for a far less stressful exam period unless you are fighting for the A+.:)</p>
<p>At this point I have no idea how D’13 will end up grade-wise. She’s been playing the rollercoaster all year for a couple classes and hopefully she pulls them to acceptable levels but I have a feeling we’ll be relying on the leniancy sometimes showed to freshman years :)</p>
<p>My D’10 was easy to teach to drive - no nerves, no problems! I am quite sure D’13 will be a lot different in that regard so not sure what the plan will be for that. We’ll likely do the same local program that offers in class and then behind-the-wheel. I don’t think it’s boys vs girls being more nervous over the other but the individual learning to drive. </p>
<p>We still have 2 weeks left but fortunately we’re nearing the point where nothing useful is going on. D’13 will have finals the week after next but that will be light days, next week is the last full week and then to figure out what they’re doing for summer! D’13 has looked at many options but not much is panning on so we’ll see.</p>
Trust, that’s my d’s new philosophy and for most of her classes that’s where she is - but Algebra II and Spanish got her. Interestingly just like on the NSE, she failed the grammar portion of her final. I need to get that book that’s so highly recommended for the AP Spanish test that’s grammar based because clearly, it’s a HUGE weakness.</p>
<p>What I find sort of odd is that her classes are all over the map as far as semester exams go. Some have them, some don’t, some are 10% and some are 20%. Semester grades are what our GPA is based on as well, it is ending up almost the same as her quarter grade GPA so no harm no foul. Looks like she’s finishing freshman year with a 3.95, no real complaints, but all those 4.0 things are now forever out of reach; since I think that was probably inevitable, probably best to release that pressure valve early.</p>
<p>Our school also only counts semester grades as part of the gpa; exams are 15 or 20% of that. There have been one or two mid term or final exams where she hasn’t done as well as the marking period grades but her A’s were high and the B on the exam didn’t keep her from getting an A on the semester grade. D2 ended up with a much higher freshman GPA than D1 had (4.3 vs. 3.7; same classes but D1 was in the process of being diagnosed with her LDs at the beginning of freshman year) and D1 ended up with good college options so I am both relieved that D2 will have at least the same options (barring any unforeseen circumstances) but somewhat stressed that she’ll be going a more competitive route.</p>
<p>D2 got back from her journalism mini camp yesterday. She figured out that she has no interest in sports writing or public relations; she really liked media reviewing & column writing. Much to my delight, her interest in the school newspaper was revived (it had been killed in 8th grade when she was the editor with little adviser oversight & she ended up managing staff much more than writing.) She got some great feedback on her writing too, which is always good.</p>
<p>In our county if you take Algebra or Geometry in Middle School it counts towards your HS GPA, as well as languages and World Geography and D’13 took both Alg and Geom, 2 years of Spanish and World geography so needless to say my D’13 entered HS with a 3.0 so we’ve been able to release the 4.0 pressure valve as well which is big for us because my D’10 is a graduating valedictorian and is just a different kid all around and much more studious - well D’13 doesn’t have that same drive/interest and is still settling in to what she is passionate about so I already know she’ll be looking for completely different things in college which will be a break after the competition level of D’10s search and HS career but at the same time it is hard to switch gears so completely when I’ve been dealing with the kid who wouldn’t settle for anything less than an A to D’13 who prefers a more variety of letters in her approach they are both setting the stage though for S’15 to have no problems whichever way he chooses to go! :)</p>
<p>Interesting SS; in our district HS classes taken at the MS level are noted on the transcript as P/F but they don’t count towards the GPA. They do count towards the number of honors level or above classes needed for the state and/or county level honors diploma. And, of course, you can’t be in IB unless you’ve taken a HS language class in 8th grade plus finished at least Algebra I in 8th grade for the math component of IB. </p>
<p>So glad that I’m not a college adcom; it must be so hard to sort through what a transcript means when every district has different criteria!</p>
<p>My D took 6 high school classes in MS, and all of the grades are included in her current HS GPA. Parents can choose to have HS grade(s) earned in MS nullified, but the course(s) must be retaken. The HS classes taught in middle school are just as challenging as their counterparts in the local high schools. In fact, many of the language teachers are the very same teachers. My D has been very well prepared for the coursework she has found in HS this year and has not found the rigor more difficult due to her experiences in MS.</p>
<p>My D took 6 high school classes in MS, and all of the grades are included in her current HS GPA. Parents can choose to have HS grade(s) earned in MS nullified, but the course(s) must be retaken. The HS classes taught in middle school are just as challenging as their counterparts in the local high schools. In fact, many of the language teachers are the very same teachers. My D has been very well prepared for the coursework she has found in HS this year and has not found the rigor more difficult due to her experiences in MS.</p>
<p>Rankings are out - her venture into A- semester grade land dropped her from 1 to 16. I knew that wasn’t going to last! We just realized that she has the highest level of rigor (Alg II, Spanish Immersion and the rest pre-IB) in her class, sure makes unweighted grading painful! ;)</p>
<p>
Indeed!</p>
<p>Further to the conversation, none of d’s grades for high school work in middle school are on her transcript.</p>
<p>From RobD “I’m really encouraging my '13-er to follow her bliss during the next 3 years. Stretch herself, try new things, drop things if she stops having fun.” </p>
<p>I know I am late to reply here, but this is the best advice I have seen on this board to date (and something I have to keep reminding myself). My daughter had a great freshman year (not over yet- 3 more exams). She grew in ways that just astounded me. She had great grades, but I am most proud that she started a club, led a club, managed to find 40 members including seniors and juniors, and organized the heck out of it. All without any prompting from parent or teacher. I couldn’t have been more proud, and I think she learned more from keeping it away from parents and teachers. The best is she had a blast doing it. Better than any A.</p>
<p>Our school does not provide class rankings except senior year. It is an IB honors only school. I have no idea where my dd would fall in class rank, definitely not in the top 10, but certainly toward the top. Most of the student at the school would have garnered a top 10 spot at any other high school which is why ranking are really a non issue here. </p>
<p>It will be quite a while until we find out our final grades. Year is almost but not quite over. I am happy with her effort no matter the grades, so its all good. </p>
<p>DD is taking two AP courses next year (Lit, and World History). She is dropping band because it is no longer fun, and is picking up music theory because she thinks that will be more enjoyable. I would actually prefer she not put something in its place because she will have to give up lunch or part of it. </p>
<p>I too have mixed feelings on our IB program. Going full IB is a lot of work for the students, compared to those who take some IB and the rest AP. It also allows less flexibility for student to really explore areas of special interest. That may just be a function of our IB program compared to others.</p>
<p>ARML - our team did well.
For those that know something about ARML - they have advanced from Division B to Division A last year so of course no major awards this time, but to put things into perspective: they finished 30 something out of 50 something teams in Division A and looking at Division B, they would have been only beaten by one team (and many of those B teams are from VERY strong states).
I have been also told that this years competition was much more difficult than last year.</p>
<p>My freshman is a sophomore! The ending of the school year was a little stresful as there were issues with his LA class cheating, so some of the grades were erased and they had BIG exams, but it all ended well for him.
He has really loaded up with some heavy classes for next year plus will be taking an equivalent of Physics C at the college. I was actually asking him in front of the GC to drop some of the APs he has signed up for, but GC was actually on the site of my kid.
He is a strong student and was not too overwhelmed by the freshman year, so we will see. Looks like his schedule request has 4 AP, 3 Honors and one other.
He is at an aviation camp all this week. Flying planes and choppers. Mom is petrified, although I know I have to let go. It is so hard though ;)</p>
<p>Yikes Kelowna! Flying planes…I’d be a nervous wreck (another example of why God didn’t give me boys!)</p>
<p>4 APs next year! Our school is so rigid with the AP policy. Unless there is an exceptional situation (and I can only think of 2 children in 4 years this has applied to) the kids can’t take an AP class till sophomore year. And then, it’s only AP European History. Well, OK. They added a .5 credit AP Economics class for next year (and kids have to take a .5 economics class to graduate unless they’re in IB, but that’s confusing things.) D signed up for the economics class and I asked if she should take the AP version. Oh no, the administration is concerned that overloading the sophomores with APs would be bad. But junior year they’re expected to take 4 APs? </p>
<p>She’s not taking economics at all anymore, since the state waived that requirement for IB kids; it’s apparently fulfilled in some other way in the IB program.</p>
Apparently, I grab the “oh s^&!” handle on the drivers side when my kids start driving along with using the imaginary brake.</p>
just like on the NSE, she failed the grammar portion of her final. I need to get that book that’s so highly recommended for the AP Spanish test that’s grammar based because clearly, it’s a HUGE weakness.</p>