<p>Wow - kudos’ to IJD’s daughter’s violin teacher! What a great idea! I love when people have great ideas and actually implement them! :)</p>
<p>I’m leaning toward having S3 take the bio subject test like S 2 did. S3 is in honors bio and has a tough but effective teacher - S2 was in regular bio and had a teacher who had just transferred from a very bad school with low expectations, so I would think S3 will know a little more than S2 did when he took it. </p>
<p>IJustDrive - do you want to share some of your summer ideas? S3 has the soul of an entrepreneur and really wants to start some kind of business this summer. We’re just not coming up with great ideas. I want him to do an Art Of Problem Solving class over the summer. By this age my other two had kind of accidentally fallen into full time commitments over the summer by age 14 or 15, and so far that isn’t shaping up for S3 quite the same way.</p>
<p>Whoa. It hadn’t occurred to me to have my D15 take the SAT subject tests in Bio and Geometry (oh wait - there is no geometry? Or is that Math 1?), both of which she is taking this year. Hmm. </p>
<p>S12 is a B student and has not applied to any schools that require those tests. But D15 is an A student and might benefit from taking them…OK, off to check out the schedule for spring.</p>
<p>ohiobassmom - I don’t think it’s necessary to take the bio subject test now. Chances are your D will be much more qualified to take some later - you usually only need 2. At some point she’ll take an AP class that preps her well for a subject test (US History, Physics, Lit, Chem, etc). My guess is that S will end up with 2 higher scores down the road, but doing bio now will probably get him a decent score, one in the bank, and the experience of doing a subject test. I personally would put it into the not-a-big-deal-but-might-as-well category. And of course, if she might want to take AP Bio, you might want to wait. </p>
<p>As far as math goes, Math 1 covers material through Algebra II but has a tough curve, and Math II covers through Pre-Calc but has an easier curve. If she’ll get through Pre-Calc in time, it makes sense to wait for the Math II. School won’t accept both, and a ton of kids do better on Math II than on Math I. So, she’ll probably have Pre-Calc junior year? Then she could take it at the end of junior year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. S, D and I just had dinner (on S, who works and paid for it!) and S said that she should wait until AP Bio, if she takes it. Yes, she’ll do Algebra II next year, then pre-calc then calc…I imagine. Math and Science are her stronger subjects.</p>
<p>If you have a kid who is interested in math and science, there’s no point in taking Math I, since selective programs will want to see Math II, and non-selective programs don’t care about Subject exams.</p>
<p>My elder was a “math kid” (as PN knows). D’15 is a “science kid”. We’re looking into local research labs to see if she can spend some time in one this summer. Some of them have formal programs, which she’s too young for, but perhaps she can convince them that she’s mature enough and has enough background to be an asset. We’ll see. But we won’t really know for a good long time.</p>
<p>I would love it if some high school kid around here would start a lawn mowing service. I don’t really want to hire a landscaper, but I’d love to have someone else mow my lawn and weed my garden. My kids won’t do it!</p>
<p>You know, around here it’s really hard for kids to make money mowing lawns. The services just come through and do it in 20 minutes with their fast mowers and edgers and blowers - and they don’t charge all that much! My kids tried but gave up - everyone just has a service do it. Well, except us, but my kids mow ours for room and board, not money. </p>
<p>IJustDrive - I read something recently about a high school kid who thought of some research they wanted to do. They did their background work, wrote it up extremely well, and sent their proposal out to some profs with very specific questions and areas they needed guidance on or equipment they needed access to. They did enough looking to find profs that were specific to the focus of the research. They got some nibbles and ended up with a pretty cool experience.</p>
<p>Wow I went away for a few weeks and this thread was buried.</p>
<p>D. is pretty much set for the summer – CTY first session (chemistry) and then she will help with a science summer camp – a volunteering RA. Then we’ll travel a little bit.
She’s doing well in school. Kinda struggling to get an A in AP gov. but she loves the subject. We just signed her up for all state band practice/concert. The parents are not allowed to be with the kids during the practice, which is fine with me – the site is about 3 hours away from home. We’ll drop her off Wed. and go to the concert Saturday. She is very excited about it. She is also doing the mock trial in school and is having fun with it. They had a talent show. She played a Beethoven Sonata. I didn’t get to go because I was overseas. Husband said D. played wonderfully, and several singers in her school were fabulous!</p>
<p>We are heading into the first finals period. It’s a tad insane. They’re back in school for a week of classes, then MLK day, then 3 days of finals and a(nother) long weekend, with the second semester starting Jan 24. So this should be a crazy busy period, but there’s so much down-time that it’s fairly laid back.</p>
<p>I was waiting for this thread to pop back up!</p>
<p>IJustDrive - my S1’s high school did finals a couple weeks after Christmas break. Ouch. I much prefer the schedule of S2 & S3’s high school - getting finals done before heading out for winter break. It never bothered S1, but I really like the break to be a BREAK, not a study session.</p>
<p>H&Hmom - sounds like your D is a real go getter! My S is taking AP Gov this year as a senior. At our school, the only AP class available to freshmen is World History and my guys have all stayed away from it!</p>
<p>We have honors classes, but not in any subject that AP is offered. So S is in honors bio, Eng, Alg II, but there is no honors World History since they offer an AP class in that one.</p>
<p>Our local HS is very large and very diverse. Every academic department has at least 3, and sometimes as much as 5 levels of courses, and passage from one level to another is relatively easy. So in math, there’s Highest honors (either honors or AP), Honors, College Prep, Foundational and probably a remedial, though they don’t call it that. Honors and AP courses give a small (0.1) bump to the grade for the first 3 honors/AP classes (so there’s not a GPA incentive to take a lot of honors classes, and no GPA incentive to take the AP class instead of the honors class). There are some AP classes that Freshmen can take, but for the most part, AP courses start in 10th grade. All require a recommendation or permission from the teacher. It’s an odd system. In order to be qualified for the top freshman honor award, you are required play a sport. It’s all very strange.</p>
<p>The good thing about the size of the school is that there are always enough students to run classes, though sometimes they fill too fast.</p>
<p>At S’s HS, a level higher than regular class is either pre-AP/H or H. S has pre-AP/H Eng, pre-AP/H geometry, H bio, H world geography and H French II. Basically pre-AP and honors are at the same level and weighted (0.5 higher grade point than regular classes).</p>
<p>World History- There are three levels-regular, H and AP for the sophomore year.</p>
<p>Good to know. The pre-AP thing is only 4 years old at our HS></p>
<p>Our HS also does not weight gpas at all. Our GC told me colleges do it themselves so they do not. We also don’t do val/sal, or specific rank (decile only).</p>
<p>Smallish public school in Ohio, known as one of the better in the state (and actually one year WSJ named it one of the 10 best in the US, but I think the writer was from here ;))</p>
<p>…that little blurb actually just reminded me - has anyone seen the “school description” letter that their school sends out with transcripts?</p>
<p>It’s nice to see this thread showing some life! Waving hello to all the 2012/2015’ers!</p>
<p>Our large-ish public HS has no AP classes available to freshmen. For many years, the only AP class offered to sophomores was AP European History, but the teacher that taught that retired at the end of last year. Instead, they just started offering AP World History and AP English Lit (both newly approved AP classes). This year’s sophomores are the guinea pigs.</p>
<p>There are no classes formally designated as pre-AP, however the many of the AP classes require the kid to have taken the honor’s level antecedent or else get teacher’s permission. E.g, I’ve never heard of anyone taking AP Bio without having taken H.Bio first, nor AP Chem without H.Chem first. There are lots of AP classes available to Juniors and Seniors, 18~20 in all, although it’s exceedingly rare for anyone to take more than 10~12. </p>
<p>My D2015 is taking H.Bio and may or may not take AP Bio later (it’ll be a trade-off between that and advanced theater). So we’ll encourage her to take the SATII Bio this June. Also, her music teacher offered to help her self-study for the AP Music Theory exam, so she might do that. Or she might not. It depends on how busy she gets with extracurriculars in the springtime. She’s the type of kid who just has to march to her own drummer, and there’s no point in trying to persuade her to, say, study for a Bio exam if she’d rather be working on her History Day project instead.</p>
<p>One thing I learned from shepherding my first kid (D2012) through HS and the college application process is that it’s best to let the kid take the lead. It’s fine for the parent to research and suggest opportunities, but the kid has to make the call on how they want to expend their time and energy. Anything else quickly turns into trying to push spaghetti!</p>
<p>From what I observed, AP gov is really difficult for D. and her whole freshman class. I just don’t think they’re ready at that maturity level. But she really loves it, so that’s fine. Taking/passing the exam will be a challenge. </p>
<p>Next year she is planning to take AP chemistry. It’ll be hard but in a different way. Hopefully CTY chemistry in the summer will help.</p>
<p>@IJustDrive, Our school is quite different. I thought it was big, but I was only comparing it to the middle school. There is not much diversity either. So classes like AP physics are often not offered.</p>
<p>h&h – I think part of why EVERYTHING gets offered is that in addition to having a huge student population, the HS also has a very, very diverse population in every way possible, and a very high college matriculation rate for a HS with our demographics. If they ignore the top 5% of students, they’ll lose their best students to private schools or other districts. If they ignore the bottom, there are severe NCLB problems (and there are in any event). But it’s just not that hard to find 20 kids for ANYTHING, and if the program is good, it tends to grow, which is why there are now 3+ sections of Latin I and many, many AP offerings.</p>