I was thinking more of tequila @payn4ward
S19ās school offers Cal BC and Multivariable (heāll take in 11th and 12th). I feel fortunate that this track is available to him. Last week of regular schedule for us as well, then finals for the next few days. Heās hanging on, so needs just to stay focused a few more weeks. Good luck to all during finals and to anyone taking the SAT Subject tests in June. I canāt believe how quickly this year has flown by.
DS19 just came home and told me scores for his EOC exams 90 in English ( thatās a B here) and 100 for Science. Finishing strong I hope.
Hooray for the last day of school. Lowest grade so far is a 96%. The teachers have one more grade to enter, but I suspect she will do well in it.
I just wonder how she will do next year. She will be attending a much more competitive school next year. All in all, thatās a positive because I think she needs to learn how to work hard. She hardly studies at all now, and that will come back to bite her if she goes to a competitive college. Hoping she finishes in the top 10%. Auto admission for TX colleges will make the college application process so much easier.
How many years of language are your kids taking? S19 is having a fairly brutal to the finish time with French 3. We still have 4 weeks and I am hopeful he can turn it around but UGH! A- first semester but had a D for 3rd quarter. Not a kid who does well when he doesnāt understand, will not ask for help and kind of shuts down when things donāt come easily as they typically do.
That aside, I am questioning whether French 4 is a wise choice for him next year. I am getting clarification as to what exactly will show on his transcript from middle school, if anything. He will not want to carry those grades over but carrying an āSā for the first 2 years would be fine I think. My concern is having only 1 year at the HS level show up on college apps, even though it was level 3.
@eandesmom The general wisdom on here is that colleges look for level reached, not necessarily years taken.
DS19 had Spanish 1H in 8th grade and Spanish 2H this year . All of his target schools require 3 years of a foreign language. He is registered for Spanish 3 H next year and will most likely be done at that point. Iād like to free up his schedule to be able to take some classes at The Fine Arts Center or Career Center like drafting or CAD because heās interested in architecture and engineering ( right now anyway). Itās hard to know what to do @eandesmom . Weāre his MS classes HS classes for HS credit ?
Our daughter flunked Spanish 3 (from not turning things ināthe stuff she turned in, including the exams, she scored int he high 80s!) this past year. Sheās taking it again this coming year, and weāve told her that there is one and precisely one course weāre expecting she gets an A in: Spanish.
After that we can talk about whether she goes on to Spanish 4 or not.
@awesomepolyglot I have heard that but does it reflect poorly if that level was freshman year and none since?
@carolinamom2boys yes. His online transcript currently shows F1 and F2 as being āsatisfiedā for HS graduation credit, our school requires 2 years. However, what that will look like on a college transcript I am less sure of. The MS grades were nothing I would want to carry over. French 1 was an A/B+ but French 2 was a B-/C. I thought weād turned a corner with a new teacher (MS French teacher widely disliked) with the A- first semester but apparently not. I am confirming what things will look like on the transcript and what the GC thinks.
Quite frankly I think heād be better served by taking AP CS.
@dfbdfb that is his primary issue as well, not turning in, although he is actually struggling with content at the moment. He is at a high high risk of pulling a D for the semester unless something dramatic changes and his GPA cannot afford that. Heās really shot himself in the foot with this.
Each school has their own requirements and recommendations @eandesmom . Iād look at several schoolsā website to see what they require. Also, at DS16s school, he will be required to take a language placement exam , so I would think it may be difficult with a lapse of 3 years of a language. Just a thought.
@carolinamom2boys is your S16 at an LAC? Iāve run into 3 years required at a few for S17 but so far only one that would have an optional placement test. Optional in the sense that passing it is required to opt out of their 2 semester language requirement in their core.
Of course S17 is having his own nightmare with Spanish 3 so right now taking a different language sounds better to him than a placement test lol!
Currently S19 plans to major in physics. Not sure what that 4th year of language gets him but the gap is a concern.
@eandesmom He will be attending College of Charleston Honors College in the Fall. Itās technically not an LAC because of its size ( a little over 10,000 students) but definitely has a Liberal Arts focus.
@eandesmom My D is going to a large research university that has a language req in the school of A&S. I donāt know if engineering and business have the same reqs. You can satisfy it by taking three years of a language in high school with a grade B or better, or by passing a placement test. If you donāt meet those reqs you must take two semesters of a language in college.
It sounds like your S19 and my D19 are traveling similar paths,@eandesmom as my D19 wants nothing to do with Latin (sheāll be in Latin 3 next year) after the third year. She would rather take another language in college. She is likely to take AP Computer Principles in her Junior year instead of another year of a world language.
On a side note, she did score a pass advanced in her biology state testing yesterday. (Adds 10 points to her final exam grade. 
)
Ugh. My daughterās Spanish is her most hated class by far. She didnāt particularly like it in middle school either, but didnāt absolutely hate it and did very well in it. She took Spanish 2 honors this year and I really thought it could be more interesting than non honors. Maybe more fun culture and arts and stuff like that. Wrong. Itās really just much more word (and spelling) memorization. Add to that a teacher that was out on maternity leave the first few weeks (so rotating subpar subs) and fairly frequently misses class now, including the day before tests so there arenāt opportunities the day before to ask clarification questions, then add that the teacher seems to think nothing of last minute changes to testsā¦itās a recipe for disaster. She is taking nonhonors Spanish 3 next year and Iām hoping itās easier and less stressful. This class has just caused so much stress and anxiety this year. My hope is that she doesnāt mind it as much next year and then will take Spanish 4 the following year. However, if next yearās Spanish stress levels are anything close to this yearās, Iām not going to protest if she decides to stop after Spanish 3.
@eandesmom There appears to be two issues you need to address. First, what are the graduation requirements of the high school for language, and does the classes taken in middle school counts towards meeting those requirements. For example, my sonās high school requires 3 years of language, allowing you to take more than one language provided that you have reached at least a level 3 in one language. So if your son attended this school, while he would not be required to take French 4, he would still be required to take 2 more years of another language. Second, what do the colleges he wishes to attend require. As noted above, most just look to the level reached.
Ugh, and Latin by far is his most challenging subject. You just canāt substitute the time necessary to memorize and conjugate verbs. Heās pulling strong Aās in all subjectsā¦except the dreaded Latin.
We had lots of freshman dislike Spanish or French in middle school and decided to go the Latin route for freshman year. I think all of them are regretting it. Even the kids who are stacked with honors classes would say that Latin is their hardest class.
German and Italian are usually easier and a nice change of pace from Spanish or French.
I donāt want to think about Latin. I took it as a seventh grader, and was quite happy to switch to German for eighth. Iām now a rising sophomore (yeah, I know, itās a little intrusive to be a high schooler on this thread) and Iām signed up for German 3. Next year will be the first time my school has ever offered that class.
It may be late at this time in the school year, but Quizlet may be a good option for Latin students.
Parent tip:
Some schools allow students to exempt one class from being counted towards their GPA. We ended up doing this with Spanish. My kids just take regular Spanish, no interest in honors. Even regular Spanish is sort of hard to get an A in. But now, without the pressure of getting the A so it doesnāt ruin their GPA, they just take the class to learn and have fun. They still get credit for the years they take it, and it shows on transcript, just not included in GPA. Great strategy.