Such weird things in D’s AP Chem class (first AP class she’s done). The final exam was today even though school goes through the end of May. D said she felt like she did quite badly, though apparently the whole class felt the same way. Her teacher told her “Don’t worry about it.” Not sure that means anything before the teacher has graded the test! The AP exam is on Monday so I’m not sure what’s in store for the rest of the month – parties every day?!
What’s so ironic is that she has a low B in chem and we were at a college visit last week where the engineering dean was talking about rigor and said “We’d rather see you get a B in AP Chem than an A in general chem. Of course we don’t want to see you get a C in AP Chem.” Arrrgh, why did he have to use that example? I am really hoping she pulls out a B.
@HiToWaMom
Yep, what @Ynotgo said. It’s basically shorthand for “Here’s a summary in case you didn’t have time to read my long post.” Of course you only want to use it in regards to your own post and not someone else’s!
DS is taking his third year of Chinese as a senior next year as he switched from Spanish after freshman year. But, he started freshman year with a year of Spanish already so he will end up with 2 years of Spanish, one year of Latin, 3 years of Chinese, and then he’s learning Korean this summer in an intensive language learning program in Seoul for six weeks this summer. It’s a lot of language for a STEM kid who wants to major in CompSci, but he definitely plans to continue Korean and Chinese in an East Asian minor in college, so yeah. For a while he had his heart set on going to university of Tokyo but their academic calendar starts in March, so that’s a no-go.
D is going to take a 5th year of German. She doesn’t need it since she currently wants to do STEM. She loves it and it is one of her passions although she does not want to pursue it in regards to a career. She loves her teacher and it is relaxing to her and she looks forward to the class to decompress. I would love her to substitute something else but so far I cannot persuade her and I will probably stop mentioning it to her.
@carachel2 , Wow, the foreign language calss is “relaxing”!!?? That’s a blessing! My D quit FL after the third year. She dismissed my warning that many top colleges want to see four years of five core curriculum.
When we visited her top choice college info session, the speaker said exactly that. “Ideally we want to see four years of each five core curriculum.” My D cringed next to me. I wanted to shout out, “I TOLD YOU SO!!” but I didn’t. She hated the class anyway and I didn’t wish her a year-long suffering.
DS will take 4th year of Spanish. It’s not AP though. He could have skipped a level during 9-10th year but didn’t. 5th year is AP. He took 3 years of Mandarin but the teacher left so the program got scrapped. It was demotivating to start at Spanish 1 at high school. So far foreign languages come easy to him, so he prefers it, say relative to history.
My son is stopping language at end of junior year. H took 3 years in high school and 2 years in middle school, the guidance counselor said as long he made it to Spanish 4 he was good. He liked it, but he needs to fit in 2 AP’s next year, so he added a study hall to give him some extra time for homework and studies. Fall is very busy for him with soccer and then his school clubs start up again. Plus needs time for all the college app stuff.
That’s the plan.
D is taking AP Mandarin next year. It’s going to be independent study, so will give her an ‘extra’ period to play around with. She could have done a DE, but that was gonna be a logistics issue.
@HiToWaMom … She’s just always loved it. She has had the same two teachers now for all four years and they are passionate and not big on busy work. It’s a busy class … But not busy work if that makes sense. The language part has always come on the easier side for her. Maybe “relaxing” was too gentle of a word? She doesn’t just go and put her feet up lol! She does look forward to the class.
Dd is sticking with languages b/c that is her love and future major. My STEM oriented kids varied in how much FL they had. When oldest ds graduated from high school, 2 was pretty much the norm. (He took 2 yrs of Spanish, though he was completely fluent in Portuguese.) As time has gone by, the number of yrs desired has seemed to increase, first to 3, and then to 4.
@HiToWaMom My dd is the same way in the opposite direction. She didn’t take a science this yr and doesn’t want to take math next yr in order to make more time for FL. She will have 4 yrs of science counting an ecology course from 8th and took cal this yr, so her math is there counting alg and geo from 7th and 8th. But, she has 5 yrs of Latin, will have 4 yrs of Russian, and ?? yrs of French (I don’t even know how to even quantify her French) by the time she graduates, plus a yr of linguistics. So, it is obvious where her interests are. My mantra is simply, “It is what it is.” More importantly, from my perspective, it is who she is. Her courses reflect her, not an admissions check list.
@carachel2: Given Germany’s place as an industrial power (in both design and manufacturing), German isn’t a bad language to have.
Also, I’m in a very different sort of career field than your child is likely to be, but German isn’t central to anything I do for my job, but my high degree of fluency in the language has resulted in doors opening here and there—for example, I’ll be in Germany next month to give an invited lecture on some of my research into Alaskan varieties of English, of all things, in part because I’ll be able to converse freely with researchers there about more general principles in both of their usual languages. For a more down-to-earth example, airlines prize multilingual individuals for their customer-facing ground crews (e.g., gate agents) at airports where they have international flights.
Multilingualism opens doors, especially when you’re in a country where it isn’t the norm.
DD '14 got up to Spanish 4 and French 5, but she is a linguistics major. (This involved self-studying in summers and challenging the Regents exams, b/c our school is not set up for kids who want more than one language. At all.) DS '15 stopped with Spanish 4 because he was going into engineering, and it didn’t seem to hurt him w.r.t. admissions.
DS '17 has only 3 years of FL so far, and we have to decide whether he should take the 4th next year. This year we had a long-term substitute and DS was having a terrible time in that class, so we let him drop it.
Like @Mom2aphysicsgeek 's D, my D will be continuing with languages next year. In the fall, she’ll have fourth-semester college Arabic (independent study) and either third semester Russian or first semester Chinese (depending on how the summer intensive Russian goes!); spring’s Arabic will be either a conversation or an advanced grammar (depends on the offerings and their times) plus continuation of the other language.
Comp sci S had three years of Latin in high school. AP conflicted with a class he wanted more. No problems with admittance nor merit monies.
Current college junior D, an English-French double major, had to choose between AP French and a post-AP writing workshop her senior year. She chose the writing.
Looking for thoughts, opinion, insights…After multiple extended college visits, my S has decided on his dream school. I know and have read that ED increases the odds of admission significantly at this highly rated school. His stats put him in the middle 50% of accepted students. I also read that ED is a tool that really benefits the wealthy, who have little concern for Aid. Our situation is different. Due to layoffs, a failed business, and now looking for a new career, we will qualify for a lot of aid. At his dream school, the net price indicator shows that we could afford to send him if he gets even 75% of what they project. Do you think when a school says it is need blind, it really is? Will they consider a kid with need equal to many full pay kids in the ed round? S has worked hard, we set aside some 529 money a long time ago, and it will fill the shortcoming…Thoughts on trying ED when you are need qualified?
Can’t recall who asked about taking FL Sr year. My advice to my older son was that he could stop after Jr year as he had completed Spanish 4. But, I recently attended a seminar by a college admission advisor (had been Dean of Admission at F&M in prior life) and he said that colleges like to see language Sr year. So…I guess my advice to older son was not good. Exception would be if student has reached terminal year of language offered in his school.
The presenter really stressed importance of both rigor of courses and strength of grades senior year. Not new news.
Re: Passing APs and HS profile. Our school profile is only two pages long but really packs a lot of very useful info onto those two pages. Students are not ranked, however, the profile includes a chart showing distribution of GPA in 1/4 point increments. So, 19 students above 4.0, 62 students 3.75-3.99. Ranking in broad strokes.
For a few years, no one in the school had scored below a 5 on BC calc, until last year, when one student scored a 4. It will be interesting to see how the scores come out this year as a large group of Jrs (maybe 18) are enrolled in BC calc, bringing total enrollment up to 45 from 25. Physics C has also seen an influx of Jrs (much of the same group taking BC calc) so those AP scores may differ also. The school started offering the second Physics C and now allows students to enroll in AP Physics without having first taken regular or honors Physics. If they did not allow this, no one was able to enroll in the second Physics because fitting two lab sciences in the schedule is almost impossible.
I had never seen TL;DR either but should use it on myself often! Especially in emails to my H.
Except he wouldn’t get thru the email to see it.
On FL we’ve had quite the variety.
SS11. Digital music major/business minor private LAC. 2 years FL. Didn’t make their graduation requirements so somehow we ended up with a pricey summer immersion program in Spain to make up for it.
SD14. Stem kid, currently a Biology major @ competitive OOS school, 3 years FL. Would’ve taken a 4th but not offered at her HS. ED may have helped here.
S17. STEM kid. 3 years FL will stop after this year to allow for an actual elective that isn’t music. Not going for super competitive schools.
S19. STEM kid. Will do 4, possibly 5 but would be done at end of junior year if he does 5 since he started in MS. Plans on more selective schools.
S11’s experience definitely made us go to a 3 year min at our house.
My S is taking AP Japanese and his third year of German next year. At his school, languages aren’t weighted until AP so taking two languages has hurt his class rank but it is what he wants to study and makes him happy. We talked about the class rank factor last year before signing up for classes and he still chose them. He was upset in January when his rank fell but I reminded him that it is the path he chose and he is probably happier taking those FL classes instead of extra APs where he has no interest. He really likes all subjects and it torn about what he wants to major in in college. He thinks everyone else has it all figured out. I reminded him that about 50% of kids change their major in college and it is ok to be undecided at this age.
My D took AP Spanish lang this year. She went into the year thinking about AP Spanish Lit next year, but she didn’t like Spanish much at all this year. She’s done.
The high school used to include two years of middle school spanish on the transcript as Spanish 1. Freshman year was Spanish 2/3 and Sophomore year was 4/5. Junior year is AP Spanish lang. So her transcript will reflect 4 yrs of language even though she will only taken 3 classes in high school. They have since stopped doing that.
DS '20 has two years of Spanish in middle school, but will start over in German 1.
Her courses reflect her, not an admissions check list.