Wow! My heart goes out to everyone with kids in highly competitive schools. Especially knowing colleges compare to only other students in their school. D21 school is tough on Honors/AP in which you are ONLY allowed 3/yr and if you want a forth it has to be petitioned. Therefore you will be one of the tippy top students with only have 4 Honors/AP classes and will probably need a 4.0 UW to justify them allowing you. Also in Freshman year you really can only take 3 MAX and that’s only if you are coming in at an advanced Foriegn Lang (Honors French 3/Spanish 3). Otherwise only 2. OK I’m LOVING her school right about now. She had ZERO stress last year. Stated MS was much harder. Done with hw by 6pm most nights. Ended the year 4.0uw/4.33 weighted.
Hello!
I’ve just come across these boards and am excitedly diving in. My oldest child is class of 21. GPA was just mailed, but they won’t give class rank. She was thrilled with weighted 4.73. She is in a magnet program for Health Sciences and wants to be a PT. She took all honors courses and AP Human Geo last year (got a 4). We are researching colleges that have a direct admit to the Doctor of Physical Therapy program and will tour one next week at their open house. I want a better understanding of what AP or dual enrollment classes will be beneficial in a DPT program as she decides on Jr and Sr year courses. She wanted to take a Jr level Health Sci elective next year (Intro to Therapeutic Services) so she’s currently taking a full year of both Health/PE 10 and Honors Economics online in 6 weeks to open room in her schedule. She also lettered in 2 Varsity sports as a freshman.
Sophomore schedule
AP US History
AP Spanish 5
Honors English Literature 10
Honors Algebra 2
Honors Chemistry
Honors Medical Terminology
Honors Intro to Therapeutic Services
Hi everybody! Hope you are all having a good summer. Ours is coming to an end, school starts Monday. 
We are so not ready, summers seem to get shorter every year. D21 had a good summer with lots of travel but we want it to keep going!
She finally got her schedule and she is happy with it. They hand out a schedule at the end of the year and hers was all messed up. Our dean likes us to just email the changes we want instead of going in to meet with him - makes it easy for us! I emailed him to ask for some changes and to beg to get her into the AP Biology stand alone class (in the past they one let a few kids in) and he replied that everything I had asked for including the AP was what was already on her schedule. So strange- why do they even give the kids a schedule at the end of the year if they are going to change everything over the summer anyway?
A few weeks late I realized the dean had never sent me a print out (so I could be sure he was right!) so I sent another email. He answered that he was not our dean anymore and would forward the request to our new guy - we were so sad! The kids say this dean is not very nice in person, but he has always been such a help to me through email that I hate to lose him, especially after hearing nightmare stories about other deans never responding. Luckily the new dean has been as responsive as the old one so hopefully he continues like that.
If she ever wakes up today I am going to try to get her to go shopping for a new backpack and maybe some clothes, time to get organized again.
:((
@momtogkc school starts for D21 this week as well. Tuesday. She received her schedule mid summer and is slowly finding out who her teachers are via their portal. They do not have them listed on their final schedule until the First Day of School. D21 is soooo ready to go back to school. So this ride continues…
Hello all. School starts Wed here. Open house this evening. D got a great schedule (all the classes she wanted) but sadly none of her very small friend group have the same lunch with her…Hopefully she can widen her friend circle this year. Best of luck to all our kiddos.
One week to go over here. S21 decided it was time to dive into school activities. He joined cross country (he’s been participating in practices all summer and running at home) and plans to do track in the spring. There is also talk of Spanish club, art club, and stage crew.
I’m proud of him. Extracurriculars took a dive last year after the sports stuff got super competitive. He is finding his way back. Cross country and track will be great for him. We all just wish that practices were not at 6am before school starts!
The big to-do is that the school is switching from a block schedule to a static one. His schedule is fine. Honors English and history. College prep math and science. Just like S19. Oh, and me back in the day. LOL!
Wishing all the kids a great year!
Good luck to everyone!!!
Gearing up for the new school year! I posted a couple times early in freshman year but never checked back in.
9th grade turned out to be a very long, challenging year. DS21 had been trying out a new project-based learning HS. From early on he was struggling a lot in his French and English classes so we decided to have a neuropsych eval done to see if there were any language-based learning disabilities going on (his dad was diagnosed with that as an adult) but it turned out he actually has ADD-inattentive. Looking back, the signs were there before but waved away as maturity issues since he’s young for grade and always did fine academically. But, with the project-based school, he hit the limits of his executive function skills and he’ll be going back to the regular HS this year.
He started medication and tutoring mid-year and ended up the year quite strong so I’m hopeful that this year will be better. He’s definitely feeling more confident and after being resistant to taking honors English and insisting he’d drop French, decided to take the more challenging English class and continue on to French 4 (much of this change I think we owe to his very encouraging tutor. I love his tutor).
Hope everyone has a great year!
@JESmom Glad to hear testing revealed the issue your son getting the help he needs.
My kids (D21 and D23) being most of their classes this coming week. It’s been a great summer with lots of travel, and both girls attended an academic camp they enjoyed. I am really not ready for the school year to begin.
My kids are homeschooled, which, for us, means (accredited and highly interactive) online classes through a bunch of different providers (D21 will attend in-person college classes for some of her coursework starting next year). For D21, all classes except two of her AP classes start next week, but I am encouraging her to start those two AP classes unofficially next week anyway (by going through Barrons and Princeton Review books). Those two AP courses are with a provider that doesn’t start their AP courses until late September, and the course lasts 30 weeks, so my kid will (if she heeds my advice), start studying now and stretch that learning experience for those specific APs out to 34 weeks. She is used to juggling all kinds of different systems and schedules, so hopefully this year won’t be too difficult for her in terms of dealing with two classes that start a month later than her other 5 classes (she is doing 7 credits this year - four APs, one and a half credits of honors, and one and a half credits of non-honors arts and humanities electives). Her extracurriculars all kick in next week too. This fall, she is leading a coding in-person seminar and writing and leading an online coding series for Girl Scouts, hopefully giving a talk at a conference, going back to her regional sports competitions, and shooting for a high goal in her main extracurricular which involves the outdoors. Then there is the volunteer work and the paid part-time job. She and a bunch of her friends are also planning multiple weekly study sessions and get-togethers, which is important since they don’t see each other every day at a brick-and-mortar school.
I am tired just from writing all that out. D21 is very type-A and thrives being busy, but I get stressed sometimes worrying about her deadlines and commitments. She handled everything well last year though (except for a couple of weeks during the first semester when a new cute boy distracted her and she lost her mind and forgot about everything but hormones…a couple of bad test scores snapped her out of it and she recovered her grades, but let’s hope she doesn’t go through that again this year).
Hope everyone had an enjoyable summer and that everyone’s kids feel refreshed and recharged.
@JanieWalker Hi, nice to see you here! I have been enjoying your descriptions of campus visits elsewhere on this forum.
I appreciate the updates from so many of you. School started last week here. The homework load already is more intense than last year. Calc BC promises to be the most time consuming - the teacher is really passionate about math and definitely pushes them! This is D’s first AP as her school does not permit them freshman year and limits them to two for sophomore year.
Wishing you all a great year!
Hi @mamaedefamilia, thanks, and nice to “meet” you!
D21 is taking AP Calc too, but the AB version. With her schedule, I thought BC would be too much this year so I “suggested” (demanded) she take more of an ease-into approach with Calc. Will your daughter go to a college (dual credit) for her math classes in 11th and 12th grade? That’s the plan for my daughter for math for her senior year.
@JanieWalker Happily, my D’s school offers a math curriculum that will take her to senior year. We are very fortunate!
Hi! I posted a while back but have been busy with S18 who I dropped off across the country last Sat.
D21 and S21 started school last Thursday. It looks like they will be having much more work, even in non-AP classes, this year. I’m a bit worried about D, who’s taking AP Chem and AP world, because she is a slower worker than S and already got stressed this week. She’s adamant about sticking with her schedule though (I suggested switching to bio), but my kids typically don’t heed my advice.
I don’t know what happened but the rest got cut off. D,S’s school only lets them take 6 classes, the required 5 and then an elective. But if they stick with their art/music (which they take from 6-9), they can’t take another elective. S18 stuck with his music and went off to college with no real idea about what to study, I want the younger 2 to drop their art/music (can do outnof school), so they can take electives to help them figure out what they like. Of course they didn’t. But, how else do all these kids figure out they want to major in computers, finance, engineering, etc.? Lots of the colleges require that you apply to a particular school. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Oh, and this got cut off too. S is taking calc bc and AP Chem. He’s a quick worker and very math oriented so I think he’ll be fine. His school also offers math past calc bc: multi variable calc, and logic and probability. But I’d like opinions on whether he should take AP stats instead of the last (though I know it’s an “easier” AP) bc you can get credit for it and it could be applicable to something he studies? I’m decidedly not a math person.
I think you are right that it’s good to try out electives. At our HS, the kids generally drop PE after 10th and that leaves an extra class slot to try out electives. S21 has 1 elective slot now because he’s not doing music and so is taking psychology. He’s been interested in that for a while. Next year, if he drops French (doing french 4 this yr and unsure if he’ll continue to AP), he’ll have 3(!) elective slots to fill.
Even if they have limited ability to take a class, look for events at universities around you for HS students that could help expose them to different fields. D23 has been interested in ecology/wildlife for a long time. I took her to JMU’s STEM event for girls last year and it really helped widen her ideas about what she could do in different science fields, how getting a PhD works, and how important it is to do as much math as possible. I’ve seen a big shift in her math attitude since then. Planning to take S21 to a different U’s event for HS students this winter – it has a series of workshops to expose the kids to different potential major areas.
Hello all. Wow there are some very advanced schools and kids here. We have nothing beyond AP calc BC. I personally would not worry about AP Stats if our school had MVC, Logic and Probability. Color me jealous!
Welcome to all who are new to the list!
D21 (and S19) started school last Monday. Both had summer homework, and they are well into school work now. Our school has an A/B schedule, each with a 4-block day. D21 is taking three APs (APUSH, Psychology, and 2D Studio Art) along with the regular load of Honors English, Math, Chemistry, French IV, and also Dance.
@havenoidea, I think I’d make the choice about whether your S should take AP Stats vs. Multivariable Calc/Logic/Probability based on which has the better teacher, unless your S plans to be a math major. Then I’d encourage him to take Multivariable Calc.
If it were me, I’d adopt a wait and see approach regarding AP Stats. If your son gravitates towards social sciences as opposed to math/physics/engineering, then stats could be a very good option, assuming it doesn’t place him below the “most rigorous” curriculum category for college admissions. With Calc BC as a sophomore, I doubt that would be an issue, but it never hurts to verify.