<p>@sophmore1 my D16 has a similar course load:
orchestra
Pre AP German 3
AP Cal BC
AP Am History
AP English Lit
AP Chem
AP Physics 1/2</p>
<p>and will likely pick up a weekend CC speech class next semester, she’s already had college algebra. Thankfully she has only a few regular weekday EC’s this year so she should have more time to deal with homework. I think the biggest issues is to do the work as assigned and not put it off. D16 is also in charge of teaching S18 “the ropes” since it is his first time in school (we homeschool until 9th grade). I’ve advised both D16 and S18 if they feel that things were getting out of control to ask for help. The school has some tutors available and we would also seek private tutors if they want extra help.</p>
<p>D16 started school on Monday and is already behind but both her English teacher (sub) and History teacher (new) both messed up assignments but they understand that the issues are not the students fault and will help them get caught up.</p>
<p>Hope you D finds her grove and is less stressed as the year goes on…</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom, my S said that after one night of PrepScholar he learned some things about the SAT he didn’t know and is impressed. He has committed to 1 hour per night of studying. I hope he keeps it up. @Sophmore1, keep us informed.</p>
<p>So far the year has been a little rough. He has two A-'s, 3 A+'s and one teacher who has not put their grades on the computer yet. The A-'s are a wake up call even though it is the third week. FWIW, S schedule us</p>
<p>AP English Lit
AP US History
AP Physics
AP Calc BC
Honors Anatomy
Spanish 3
Orchestra </p>
<p>I am trying to wrap my head around how all A’s three weeks into the school year with a challenging schedule could be perceived as “a little rough”.</p>
<p>I think “perceived” is the key word. If a student is used to getting A+ marks with little effort and then really has to work to get A- I can see how that might be “a little rough” for that student. My daughter would feel the same way. </p>
<p>“A little rough” could also just be getting used to the particular expectations of a teacher. My D would also say her first semester of Chem last year was a “little rough” even though she got a great grade.</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom you are so right about getting used to working harder to get that “A”. Also, her APUSH teacher and AP English teacher are new to teaching this year, plus getting used to what is going to be expected from them. I really think it will calm down after a couple more weeks.</p>
<p>We don’t have online grade books and to be perfectly honest at first I hated not having it, but actually I like the reason behind it, in our high school they rationalize this to the parents freshman year; “must own the process.” </p>
<p>S has been in school for 2 weeks…no mention of dreaded teachers, awful assignments and really no talking about school. I believe maturity is setting in he finally gets it he is in control of this process.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth my husband ask about prepping for PSAT and he states he got it handle. Well being a mom I went online to check through the naviance PSAT prep program and it shows for the last few weeks nightly work being done. :D/ It’s our secret okay </p>
<p>I love having access to the on line grade book! Our school uses Skyward and I can see attendance, meal money balance (even what the bought for lunch), GPA, missing assignments, test dates and assignment due dates. The kids have the same access and it helps get them organized. For me it helps me avoid issues or if they do arise, catch them quickly. If one or both of my kids had pizza for lunch I’ll make sure I don’t plan pizza for dinner. I just noticed that S18 is only showing 2 transfer credits where it should be 3.5 since these are high school credits he took as an 8th grader while homeschooled, it’s my job to get them fixed. </p>
<p>Sometimes I think people forget that high school kids are still kids. Yes, I want then to “own the process” but I still want to keep an eye on that process and provide parental guidance and needed. @Hoosier96 I agree that our kids don’t need to know that we check up on them </p>
<p>Our online grade-watcher program changed this year. It now no longer tracks class rank, which is kind of annoying in a way and sort of freeing in other ways. Thus far, two weeks into the year, both kids have all As (our school system doesn’t break out pluses and minuses), so it’s good. Ask me again in five or six weeks and I may have a different answer.
Mine know I check up. They don’t seem to care, or if they do, they keep it to themselves.</p>
<p>Our on line grade book never had rank but starting after the first semester of 10th grade rank showed up under the the student profile in Naviance. According to the school course book, rank is recalculated the end of every semester from sophomore year until the senior year when it is calculated mid way through the second semester for final rank placement. I spoke to the GC near the the begging of summer break and asked when rank would be updated and was told “mid summer” I asked again when my S18 went to register for class and now hes says mid September. @-) </p>
<p>Since our school is officially a non-ranking school and only ranks the top 10% because of state law, it’s not up there on his priority list.</p>
<p>Our school has an online grade program. I love it. Being that I teach at S’s school I can immediately go in and talk to the teachers. It does do class rank too. </p>
<p>DS decided to take Mandarin and is loving it. He is already talking about taking 2nd year. I told him his entire schedule has to be planned around his art class since he needs it to graduate. It may be him and the freshmen in both classes since most freshmen take Art and the current 8th graders can also take mandarin this year. I guess he will be the “bad influence” as I am sure senioritis will kick in at some point. </p>
<p>The range of high school worlds that we all live in is pretty broad. I wouldn’t have a clue what’s going out there if it weren’t for this thread, given how different so many of your experiences are from ours.</p>
<p>I am astounded by all the kids on this thread taking a full (or near-full) course load of AP courses. S16 will finish his junior year without a single AP course. He may take two (less likely, three) his senior year. . . We have no way to check any aspect of his academic performance online. . . His school doesn’t rank, or give the kids even a whiff of what sort of GPA’s their classmates have. . There’s no such thing as an A+ at the school. Despite the fact that admission to the school is very selective (i.e., it’s a pretty smart group of kids), A’s are altogether hard to come by. Only a small handful of kids there would be concerned about getting an A- on a progress report. Given that the median GPA at the school is about a 3.5, kids with the equivalent of an A- GPA think they’re doing pretty well. S16 has a 3.8 GPA, which he thinks is pretty darn good, but he has no idea if that puts him in the top 10% or 25%. . . We don’t have Naviance or anything like it. Just a table aggregating the data from the last three graduating classes regarding the high school’s admission rates to a list of about thirty colleges.</p>
<p>I’m of coursed biased by this perspective, but the opportunity for the parent and/or the student to follow their grades (and their class rank?!?!!) on a continuous live basis has to breed a whole bunch of unnecessary stress. Yes, it would have been helpful at times with S14 (who stumbled here and there) for us to know about his occasional C or D test scores, but ultimately he learned to deal with these mis-steps himself, either by letting us know and seeking our help/advice, or by somehow fixing (or not fixing) it himself. </p>
<p>@fretfulmother- I plan on sticking around, but I just can’t seem to keep up with you all so I may seem a little flakey at times but I am at least trying to keep up. See, here I am…less than two weeks between posts!</p>
<p>@ Asleep- The '13ers would know that I have a reputation for multiple posts. That’s party because I am trying to catch up and partly because I do tend to post late at night and then even I end up shaking my head at my posts the next time I log on. Sorry, I do ramble on at times! S '13 chose Stanford but I don’t tend to say that directly because sometimes people get weird about competitive schools. He has three older sisters, one who chose a top-notch LAC from some great selective choices, one who went to big state U for a specific major and the oldest chose big state u when she could have gone just about anywhere and lived to regret it. (We lived to regret the better $$$ she missed out on by not going to a private school with better finances!) </p>
<p>Anyway, we have done this college thing to death…tours and admission sessions, admitted student days. We had a couple of really wild college road trips- one in the West and one in the East to Midwest. We are now older and tired. Not so sure we are wiser, but a few things seem to have sunk in because son’s gc keeps trying to get me to help with the kids at his school. He says we know way more than the guidance office does and sadly, that’s probably true. Anyway, he always ends up asking me the questions when we meet. But as you know, by hanging around here and putting one kid through the process you can learn a ton!</p>
<p>@petrichor- Wow, our schools sound similar. We have a fair amount of ‘running start’ kids here. Not a fan, unless the family plans on sending the kids to a state school and need to save on the tuition. There are some very large families here that count on doing just that. Sometimes they end up right back at the HS having to make up classes-no attendance taken…no grades until the end of the quarter. To be honest, here at least, the rigor is better in the HS AP and honors classes and the upper end colleges say the same thing-exhaust the offerings at your HS first! For example S '13 did take a whole series of econ at the local cc after running out of social studies in the HS. He had a great prof and it was a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>Gee, I don’t even know if we can get rank until the end of jr year. I don’t think we would want to know but somewhere along the line it is asked for on apps. We just say do your best and don’t drop out of the top 10%. I think they tend to know kind of where they are compared to their peers although it is tough if they are off-sequence for their grade. Sounds like a lot of pressure (for the parents too)!</p>
<p>I was pleasantly surprised last night when D16 offered to pick up a tab for her 6AP’s fee. Actually I really loved it! She got this part time job she has been working for 3 month now. It is not much, but it makes me really proud when she pays for something like this, or her entire new back to school wardrobe or for her SAT tutor.</p>
<p>Wow! that’s great @seal16 Your daughter is really showing that she a mature independent individual. I’d be thrilled if one of my kids offered to pay for their AP fees. You really should be proud of her and obviously you’ve done some very good parenting to get to this point so you should be proud of yourself too!</p>
<p>@Seal: that’s awesome! Well done, her! Mine would be spending it frivolously, I’m sure. S16 has a girlfriend, so that requires a fairly high percentage of his money these days now that he’s no longer having to save for his school trip (it was this summer). Fortunately our school pays for AP fees unless they’re self-study, because with two kids they add up quickly. @Critter: I had heard the same thing about “exhaust the school’s options first” and relative rigor of AP vs Dual Enrollment. The guidance counselor at the school mentioned it as well. D prefers the DR classes because she doesn’t test terribly well, but she’s taking a couple of APs this year just because of what fits in the schedule. We’ll see what happens this semester. S has one B at the moment and it’s in his non-AP class. Guess I have to give him the “easy classes are what will sink you because you get complacent” speech again this year. I should have just recorded it back in 7th grade.</p>
<p>I am convinced that my DS still uses my “1 or 2 Bs are still good grades so focus on your Honors classes first” speech from 7th grade to justify not putting in that last bit of effort to get all A’s. In junior high it let him maintain his rep as more of an athlete than a “smart kid” and avoid the teasing that happened in elementary school. However, I do sometimes regret that speech. The honors classes are weighted so his GPA still looks good overall but I would gladly pay the bribes I have offered if he got all A’s just once in HS. =D> </p>
<p>@petrichor- S '16 is fascinated by hurricanes, but then again, we don’t live on the Gulf Coast. We are from the PNW so no hurricanes here! Our ocean is way too cold!</p>
<p>@Dragonfly- nice to ‘see’ you again. Is D '13 back at Pton already? We are bringing S '13 back home this weekend for about 2 1/2 measly weeks before fall quarter starts. Doesn’t it seem like we just went through all of this? (Probably because we did!) </p>
<p>@Zagmom- good to ‘hear’ your voice again as well. I remember your D took the year off. For some reason I want to say she is a skater or am I way off? Which college is she at again? I hope everything is going well so far and that she had a wonderful gap year! </p>
<p>All of this test talk makes me feel like a slacker. I’m just not back in school mode yet, for sure. S '16 just picked up his schedule although turnout for fall sports started this week and band camp the week before so we have been easing into things. </p>
<p>S '16 will use the same prep program his siblings did with the same success, I hope. It’s called mom puts out a practice test every weekend for 6-8 weeks and then I score it and he goes over the answers. Oh, and he took the PSAT last year for a first taste of the format. I think he will be more of an ACT kid, like his brother and Apparently, Dragonfly’s kids too. Two of his sisters did better with the SAT but they are super strong in English. We are debating if he will take the SAT in November after the PSAT or just wait and take the ACT and do the SAT later if he has too…meaning if he makes national merit. His brother still hasn’t forgiven me because he did really well on the ACT and I told him if he did so it meant no SAT and then he went and blew it with the PSAT and had to take it anyway. I haven’t mentioned that scenario to s '16 yet-don’t want to unmotivated him before the big day!</p>
<p>I’m seeing some impressive schedules for our juniors. It looks exhausting!</p>
<p>@AKFirefly- I see you have a '13 too. How’s it going at the UW? S '16 will be taking a closer look later on this year. He’s not sure about the size. How was the transition after homeschooling?</p>
I went online to check through the naviance PSAT prep program and it shows for the last few weeks nightly work being done. :D/ It’s our secret okay 
</p>