D3 had her first college visit over winter break. I was in Atlanta for a job shadow for my middle D and staying with my cousin. SCAD At had a visit day with open spots so we decided on the spur of the moment to go. It was a great first visit for her. She’s doing great in her classes, and is doing very well in her art classes. We have another visit planned for Spring Break… we will see how it goes! I have no idea when she takes tests! I know the school makes them take PSAT, and ACT, they pay for that. Usually PSAT end of sophomore year and ACT end of junior year. We will have to sign up for SAT on our own, school doesn’t do that. Guess I’ll need to look at that! Seems like things are on fast forward!
S met with guidance counsellor today. This is what my son put forth as his intended junior year class schedule. AP English language, AP Statistics, Honors Chemistry, Honors Math Analysis, Honors US history, and spanish 4. He will take spanish 4 in summer school. He may also end up adding AP Micro Economics second semester if he can handle it. Looking for opinions on the following…Is 2 AP’s, 3 honors, and one regular class enough rigor for top 25 universities? Does he need to make one of the honors an AP? Will two math classes be too much? Thoughts on this schedule. In addition he will have student government as an elective…
@BigPapiofthree – rigor is typically measured in comparison to classmates, as in, are there more AP classes offered that he could take? Students in our HS really can’t take AP courses until Jr year and even then, not in every subject. AP Lang is not offered until Sr year, but an 11th grade H Eng is offered.
Random questions: if he picks up Micro Econ second semester, will he cover enough material by the AP exam date? What is Honors Math Analysis, as in, what material is covered? Is APUSH not offered? What math & science courses does he have in mind for Sr year?
Will two math classes be too much? Not if he really enjoys math! My son is planning to take AP Stats as his elective and assures me it will be ‘easy’. We shall see…
CT1417, you ask smart questions. APush is available, so is AP Chem. Both Honors and AP history and Chem are 5.0 A’s. He is better at math than history. He took AP world this year, and is killing himself for an A-. US history is harder at our school. He thinks he might not get an A if he takes AP. He doesn’t want AP Chem, as it is two periods, and it requires going to school an hour early each day. Honors Math Analysis is our highest class for Juniors. It is honors pre calculus, and sets him up for AP calc. BC. Ap Stat is not usually taken by juniors, but he thinks it will look good.
Our HS school offers 12-13 Ap’s. His goal is to graduate with 8. I guess it will have to be enough?
@BigPapiofthree – it appears that he has given great consideration to balancing workload and GPA. I have been trying to convince my son not to take APUSH b/c of the heavy workload, but he is not listening to me! Our school offers Jrs either APUSH or ‘Regular’ USH. The AP course grade receives a .5 bump to a 4.5 A, but the non-AP course is just an unweighted grade. The difference in workload between honors/AP courses and regular courses is huge; I wish they offered an intermediary option.
I can’t see going in to school an hour early to take Chem! Will he pick up an AP science Sr year?
I had to look this up as I didn’t know the count. Our HS offers 20 APs but I would be shocked if anyone took more than eight, unless they consciously went around taking AP courses as electives: Human Geo, Econ, APES, Stats, etc.
If your son is taking eight out of twelve, that seems like enough to me…but what do I know!
Our school doesn’t offer any “AP” classes; however, the kids are able to take any of the AP tests that are offered. S will probably take AP calc BC and maybe physics. Our school has dual enrollment at our local U, so the kids get actual college credit. It works out well and I think it is more fun than the busy work of the AP classes.
Good luck to your S BigPap. Try and remind him that he should have some fun in HS and not overwhelm himself. I know that it is about positioning for college entrance, but it is also about the social aspects of HS. It sounds to me like he is on a good track. He should show rigor, but he also needs to succeed in the classes he chooses. If he loads too much on his plate, he might be at risk of not doing well in some or many classes.
@BigPapiofthree 8 out of 12 or so APs seems like plenty to me. Especially considering that some of the ones your DS isn’t taking are probably other foreign languages.
I counted, and DS’s school currently offers 16 APs, Several of them are 1 semester classes (AP Stats, the 2 AP Econs, & AP US Gov), so that lets kids pack more APs into junior and senior year. They let kids take AP sciences and math any year they are ready; English and History are grade-level specific. Several are actually dual-enrollment classes taught on the HS campus by community college professors (Calc BC, the Econs, Stats). The kids decide whether UC-transferable credit is enough for them or whether they want to take the AP test. Some kids take AP tests after the equivalent IB class. DS plans to do that with IB Spanish next year. I guess that would also be possible with IB Psychology and IB Visual Arts, for which the corresponding APs are not offered.
@CT1417 Our kids take AP Macroeconomics and AP Stats as one-semester spring classes and I haven’t heard that it’s a problem. But they are both dual-enrollment classes with professors who normally teach them as 12-week classes (or 6 weeks over the summer).
Our school doesn’t have honors classes for any course where there is an AP. So, there is honors English for 9th and 10th and honors math up through precalc, but no honors history courses. So, for history especially, kids pretty much have to choose between the high workload of the APs vs. “regular” classes where the teachers basically don’t expect kids to do any homework. If there were an honors course, he might choose that for history or English. (DS actually took world history on the community college campus last fall, which is a somewhat “secret” 3rd option.)
@BigPapiothree - AP Stat is not normally a hard class. In fact not all colleges will even give credit for it.You might want to check your target schools. APUSH on the other hand is a hard class and IMO would look better on his transcript. Plus I think all colleges give credit for APUSH. But this is coming from me , my older son is at Georgia Tech which doesn’t give AP stat credit… He ended up taking 8 AP’s including the AP Stat and APUSH.
So Middle son did not take AP Stat as a sophomore. He is in AP World this year. He has been told that AP World sort of helps you get ready for APUSH…We shall see next year.
MichGeorgia,
I will look at some schools and see if they take Stats. Son wants to go to business school. I would not be bummed if he were denied credit. If 5 of 8 AP classes end up with college credit, that could save a semester of tuition. Not so bad. Kids at our school are taking Honors US history and still taking the AP exam. I might have my sone do that. He will understand the AP test from World history, and would just have to study a bit more. We have a year for that decision. The feedback here has been very helpful. Thank you all for this supportive forum…
^ that would work. Our school only lets the kids who take the AP classes take the tests… Perhaps if someone jumped up and down and complained enough maybe they would let them take an AP exam they didn’t have the class for. I don’t know but I do know DS17 wouldn’t spend time any extra time study for an AP test on his own…lol. so my hands are tied.
@BigPapiofthree I think Stats is a really useful part of math that gets ignored in the standard sequence. I didn’t take it until college (not calculus-based, so probably similar to AP Stats), and was surprised at all the useful things I didn’t know. There are parts of Stats that are more useful for everyday life than many parts of Alg II, etc. It should be particularly useful for a business major.
So, I wouldn’t worry so much about the credit if the subject itself will be useful to him. It’s certainly easier to pair AP Stats with Precalc (I think that’s what Honors Math Analysis is, right) than it would be to take it concurrently with Calculus senior year.
Hi, I just found this thread thanks to @Ynotgo and wanted to ask a question on application and SAT2.
I have already posted the same question on the college major thread and repeat here hoping some other parents would have the similar question.
My son is a high school sophomore. (class of 2017) He wants to major in biology in college, more specifically ocean biology at a graduate level. I have no idea why he chose biology as his future college major, since natural science has not been in our family ‘blood’.
The problem is that he not only hates the related science such as chemistry and physics, but he said it was very difficult to understand it in classroom. I was told that they are closely related to the study of biology and was worried if he could do well in college without falling in love with chemistry and physics.
More near-term issue (and concern) is the SAT subject test. He is planning on taking it (SAT CHEM) in a few months and is worried if he will not have a great score.
My question to those who entered colleges as a bio major (or who have such children): Do you think it is ok to NOT take SAT subject test for CHEM or PHYSICS and still apply for a bio major at top colleges? Would it look bad? He will take SAT Math 2 soon but we may skip the SAT Chem or Physics.
Your inputs will be greatly appreciated.
First welcome to this thread. Your SAT question is pretty easy I think. I say do not take the chem or physics SAT 2 tests if he thinks he won’t do well. Take the bio and maybe math (if he likes that), or a humanities or language SAT2. And don’t think he has to take a boatload of SAT2 tests. Many schools only require two. Check before he tortures himself that way. Also, Some of the schools want to see that the kids are more than just science focused all of the time. My D15, who is going to do sociology at this point in time, did the bio and Math 2 tests. She was fine. And she only took two SAT2 tests. She did not apply to the Ivies (she didn’t like them when she visited) but she did apply to a couple of highly rated LACs. She so far has not had admission issues.
I think the harder question is that it is hard to avoid chemistry if your S wants to be a bio major. He will be able to avoid physics, but probably not chemistry. I was a geology major in college and had to take all of the sciences before settling into my rock classes. Physics about killed me. You son better be able to handle the other sciences because he will likely have to take a couple of the ones he doesn’t like.
Welcome @patronyork!
I agree with mtrosemom on the SAT 2 tests. As far as I know, Georgetown is the only university that still requires 3 SAT II tests. One science and one math is a fairly common requirement, and lots of universities either don’t require SAT IIs or only require them for certain majors. I see a lot of kids on here who say they have >2 SAT IIs, but maybe they were just searching for a subject where they would score higher. I don’t know if there is a benefit to having more test scores except for homeschoolers. If he is considering taking the SAT II Chem test, have him take a real practice test from the CollegeBoard. No sense in taking the real one unless you know you can potentially score within the range you want.
Does your son know whether it was “very difficult to understand [chem and physics] in classroom” because of the content or because of the teacher/teaching style? That might make a big difference. Are the chem and physics classes he has taken math-intensive, and if so, is that the part that he hates?
I don’t know much about biology as a major, but I recall that there were separate sequences of “physics for physics majors”, “physics for engineers”, “physics for biologists”, and “physics for humanities” classes at the large state university I attended. Similar situation with chemistry and math, though not quite as many options. However, I’d expect that a biologist would have to take Organic Chemistry at some point. I’ve never taken it, but I hear it’s tough.
There are undergrad biology majors with a focus in marine biology. The UC next door to us has an undergrad “aquatic biology” major. Your son might look at the degree plans for those undergrad majors to see how much physics and chem is required. There may be some classes that most biologists take that he doesn’t need to take if he is sure he is not pre-med.
@mtrosemom and @Ynotgo
Thank you for the warm welcome and comments. I apologize for asking the basic question. I should have done my homework. Anyway like you answered, more fundamental issue is how to get around whth Chem ad a bio major. Thank you so much for your help.
Basic questions are fine @patronyork, especially if he is your first (or only). I have the luxury of having a 2015er, so we sent the past 2 years figuring it all out. Only to realize that what she did won’t be the same as what he does! Best advise is to complete the testing early (by end of Jr. year if possible) so that they can be test free their senior year. It is hard enough to get the college apps done, and adding additional testing makes it too much.
@Ynotgo
I think he has difficulty understanding the general concepts of chemistry. It has nothing to do with teacher or teaching method. That makes me think about the family genetics. LOL! We have never been a math and science family. Anyway his math is ok. As you guys said, I will disciss with him and tell him to not bother with chemisrltry SAT II. He plans on taking SAT Math. He may take English as language arts has always been his strong suit. Thank you for the help.
Do you live in CA? So do I.
I found some UC schools recommend taking specific SAT subject tests for certain majors. I heard from someone that they ask for 3 SAT subject tests and somehow that is incorrect info, as I did not see any UC school specifically requires 3 subjects test.
@mtrosemom
Oh I have a daughter who is a senior at Art Center in Pasadena. As she was a fine art major, the application process and content were far more different than the regular applicants like my son. It was easier for us. She did not have to take the subject test. All she did was take The ACT and a portfolio.
Since my son is a sophomore, he may easily change his mind about the college major. If he can take only two subject tests, it will reduce a burden. He plans on taking Math II and since he does not have to take Chem, he can either take Bio or English depeding on which major he chooses. Thank you.
michigangeorgia, I am surprised that your high school can dictate who can take the test on behalf of college board. I I guess you could always sign up at a different high school. much like the SAT. I am going to go out on a limb, but your high school might want a high pass rate for some kind of ranking. Maybe they don’t want kid who are not taking the class to increase the fail rate. Who knows. Either way, seems wrong…
Happy Spring Break season! Have any of you had Spring Break yet? My S did nothing but relax and it was great.