Welcome new comers…hope your kiddos have a great Halloween. We live in a very unique neighborhood and 1/2 the town comes to our neighborhood to trick or treat. I love seeing all the costumes. D will help me pass out candy.
@Darcy123 Ah, Nutcracker! That is a dirty word in our house right now, lol.
Welcome!
Hi I’m late to CC as I just joined for D18 during this application cycle, maybe I can get ahead for D21!
@Darcy123 and @bearcatfan We have 3 in Nutcracker this year H (party host) D21 (running through pointe shoes at a $$rate) and D25!!
Freshman year has proven tough even though I’ve done it before, every kid is different for sure.
Taking tough corseload against better judgement, struggling a bit socially, plus autoimmune disease that increases her absences. We have the anxiety trifecta here. It probably doesn’t help for her to hear us getting after D12 to finish this app or study for SAT…
Anyway, any insight to help transition would be appreciated, thanks
For my friends from 2018 thread and other new friends- D21 just got Q1 report card, unweighted 3.9 all honors level. She’s hardcore and is disappointed. Two ‘sophmore’ level classes in the mix. I told her I’d rather her push and be challenged than be bored with perfect scores. She’s trying to trust me!
Interesting thread. Thought I would join.
I have a DS 2021. He goes to a Catholic high school. He’s in the Honors Program there and enjoying it.
I haven’t really thought about college stuff yet. I definitely want to keep up with what he needs to do, so this will be helpful.
Other than that we are taking the “Let the chips fall where they may” approach.
Looking forward to chatting here 
S21 is struggling this year from an organizational standpoint. Our school uses an online program for grade management that teachers can also use to post assignments and due dates. But relying on that hasn’t been working for S because not all of his teachers use it, some use other programs and some just don’t use it with 100% reliability. So some things are falling through the cracks. He is so lucky to have mostly forgiving teachers that “get” a freshman but I’m worried about what happens when the leniancy wears off and he’s stuck with the zeroes. D18 has always used an old-fashioned planner with success where she writes everything down diligently. S is pushing back on that idea, he says “no one uses them” 8-| wondering if there is some app or other magic bullet out there that we are missing. This kid needs to get organized, quick.
@VikkiG5 - so true, better to have the academic rigor out of the gate. You can always step down but you can’t go up, at least not at our school.
With D18 we found that if you’re not on the highest track with honors/AP classes (especially in math, science and English) then you’re in trouble come standardized test time. The math in particular doesn’t get taught to the level they need outside of the accelerated classes. Key learning with oldest child 
@Veronica02 are you finding S21 affected by the “following in the footsteps” of high achieving D18? In our house think some of the GPA/test score stress is trickling down from D18. I’m certainly not helping by fighting with D18 about meeting deadlines etc. Organization definitely not D21 strong suit, she lost/dropped her phone sometime last week
@Veronica02 It’s funny that your son says no one uses planners. Here, even at the high school level, they are given out at orientation and students are sort of forced to use them. They can’t get any kind of pass without a teacher signing their planner, so that means they have to at least carry them around.
My oldest, a senior, lives and dies by hers. My younger, a freshman, is learning.
We have found that teachers are horrible about updating anything electronically, even the grade book (no offense to any here). I am a pencil and paper person myself, so I get it. But so much is moving to Google Docs and other things, it’s a shame many don’t take advantage of it.
@VikkiG5 my D21 also very hard on herself, anxious re grades etc, did well in rigorous course load Q1, but not “good enough” by her standards. Our public HS has also published real time class rank beginning Q1 freshman year. I am working hard with school to keep this info from her as I don’t see the value in another number to produce anxiety! In our big classes of 600-700 kids, only hundredths of a point separate the top 10 or 20, kinda like swimming or track.
I’m hopeful that they will do away with rank as most local private schools haven’t used them for years… It drives these kids crazy and forces them into AP and honors before they are ready just to “keep up”. Kids are skipping unweighted classes they might be interested in because it will “bring down” their GPA, very sad
Our school gives out planners at the beginning of the year. S19 never uses it. Never writes anything down and has never missed an assignment. “It’s all up here, Mom. Don’t worry,” he says as he points to his head. Our D21 loves her planner. It’s color coded. I wish I could post a picture. It’s beautiful. S19 tells her it’s a waste of time but it makes her feel organized and so far, so good on getting assignments done.
D21 definitely feels the pressure of having a bright older brother taking the hardest classes at school. She’s no slump herself but quite different. We have to watch ourselves when we talk to S19 about college, etc., as I’m just realizing that it’s stressing D21 out. We never talked about college in the house when S19 was a freshman so it’s different for her seeing S19 visit schools and taking standardized tests.
D21 is in deep with Nutcracker now. Rehearsals after barre each day now until 9:30 and all day on Saturdays. She loves it. It’s a good thing. She’s keeping up with her homework and grades. We are all remembering how different freshman year is from junior year. S19 is slammed with homework - up to six hours a night - so the junior ballerinas are a complete mess trying to make it all work. We are telling D21 to take it year by year. Right now, freshman year in all honors plus ballet seems to be working ok.
@MPT3D - for sure S21 feels the pressure, he even has a few of D18’s teachers which makes it worse. I tried to get him to take a mock SAT this weekend and he totally freaked out. I decided to put the brakes on and let him just figure out freshman year. He is every bit as capable as big sis but lacks the organization skills and competitiveness. He also doesn’t have her work ethic; D18 works until she’s got it 110% down but he does just enough to get by. And sometimes less than enough to get by.
@bearcatfan - I’m sure some kids are using planners. Our school gives them out but no one polices their use, unfortunately. He’s just being lazy…
@Veronica02 Our kids are at S18,D21 are at a private Catholic high school and it’s all online, assignments, grades etc. So no planners for them. They’re also apparently the opposite of yours and as others mention we have to parent so differently. S18 is super bright, and super lazy. Good to great grades, test scores come by accident. D21 works so much harder to achieve the same or slightly lower results. She’ll be ok, just need to convince her not to check the portal daily for updates on grades!
Welcome all…D21 loves her planner! Maybe it’s a girl thing.
Welcome to all of the new people! D’s school gives them a planner as well. I know D21 uses it, D19 used to but she has been slacking off more as she gets older and S23 very rarely uses it!
Not much new here - D has been sick and missed school yesterday and this morning. It’s always so hard to catch up even when you only miss one day.
She decided she didn’t want to be in the musical because it is too much time after school so she signed up for costumes. Makes me sad because she is so great in shows, but she says high school is kind of ruining it for her because it is so serious.
Welcome to the new folks! I haven’t posted in so long that I’m practically new.
We just filed the papers today for DS21’s name and gender change. His court date in Jan. 3, so he is looking forward to that!
Classes are going fairly well for DS. His grades are sooo much better than in 7th and early 8th when he was struggling with identity issues! He’s even doing well in his hardest classes–AP Physics 1 and math compaction. Fingers crossed that it stays that way!
We are picking DS17 up from his college on Wednesday! Everyone misses him, though we did get to see him for a few hours on Parents Day.
@Ynotgo Wonderful news for DS21, very happy for your kiddo and family!
Honors Bio is kicking S21’s butt. He’s a physical science guy but the earth science class for freshman at his HS is the low-track science class. We encouraged H Bio because he qualified for it due to his 8th grade math & science grades and it opens more doors academically down the road. He doesn’t see it now but we have the benefit of experience with his older sis, seeing how CRITICAL class selection is early on. Not only from a course of study standpoint but also for standardized testing.
But now I’m starting to regret it he took it, it’s just not a good fit. He doesn’t love the subject matter and the teacher is very tough. Its going to be a long year 
@Veronica02 Honors Bio at our HS is also rough. The teacher spends most of the time doing labs in class with very few lectures. The kids are expected to read their textbook on their own and in advance of any labs in each chapter. She gives no study guides and her website is chock full of articles the kids “could read” but aren’t assigned necessarily but then info from those articles sometimes shows up on tests. Basically, the class is self taught. The result has been that more than 50% of the kids use this tutor in town and she reviews all of the readings with them. She’s crazy expensive and making a ton of money off of these parents.
When S19 was in the class, we refused to use this tutor. I met her and I didn’t like her. She’s all about getting the A and not about learning. We really want to teach our kids to figure it out on their own anyway. So…he spend probably 60% of his study time on this one class. He would go to the bio teacher probably twice a week in the morning with questions. He got a B+ first semester but eeked out an A second semester. The teacher called me to say that he’s taking the class the way they hope kids would. Not leaning on a tutor but learning how to advocate for himself and really dig into the subject. If you ask me, I think it’s a little too much to ask of a 14 year old. D21 is not taking honors Bio. We learned our lesson and, since her EC takes up 25 hours per week, she was not going to have time to spend 90 minutes on bio every night.
Maybe your S could approach the teacher? Sometimes showing extra interest will get the teacher excited about a student and he will maybe get some extra attention that could help. It could be a long slog no matter what.
Choosing the right classes can be hard. I tend to rely on parents and kids who have taken the class in the past and who are similar to our kids. Then, we figure out how much time the kids really have to spend on homework and prioritize. Both of our kids tested into all honors classes but doing that would be insane. D21 opted out of honors bio but is taking honors for the rest of her classes and that seems to be working well.
S19 is taking BC Calc, AP Lang, APUSH, Honors French, Honors Art and Honors Earth Science. Earth Science was our compromise. Almost all juniors take AP Physics. With his other classes, though, and the info we had on how ridiculously hard AP Physics is at our school, we decided he can push it to senior year. It’s been the best decision. He is still loaded down with homework (5-6 hours a night) so we can see that there would have been no way to keep his grades up if he added Physics to the list. Is Honors Earth Science easy? Yes. And there are kids in there who are taking their first honors class. Is S19 happy he’s taking it. You bet.
Honors Bio is a complete joke at D’s school. She has a football coach who does not believe in giving homework (read that as he does not want to deal with homework). There is no textbook (only AP classes get textbooks, title 1 school)
No way could she take AP Bio after this course. I am not pushing this as she will be taking AP physics and AP chem.
But really, this is high school. we do have a state Bio EOC…the kids score high on it (that is not saying much).