@homerdog, our school did senior sunrise yesterday morning (1st day of school) in the park next to school.
@homerdog What a nice tradition. Our school usually has a fun parade/march through our little downtown ending at the schoolās victory bell the evening before the first day of school. The kids each touch the bell for good luck and to signify the start of senior year. They do the same thing but ring the bell on graduation day.
This year the kids had to do the parade in cars but were allowed to go up in small groups and touch the bell, masked with hand sanitizer before and after. I was so glad they came up with a way to make it work. It may be one of the few senior traditions they get 
Oh, gosh, I have never heard of senior sunrise. I actually just teared up and got a lump in my throat just thinking of it. Thanks for the imagery!!!
D had a bit of an angst-ridden day but I think itās resolved, for better or worse. Found out Dās school will not be able to arrange for her to take an online AP Spanish class that will go on the high school transcript. Even if she does the online course (and the transcript sent separately to colleges) she is disappointed that she wouldnāt get the GPA bump for it on her high school record. FWIW, she still cares about that, and the only way to keep her rank would be to take the AP physics 2 class. In the end she did decide that honors Spanish 5 makes more sense than physics for her educational goals even if physics ālooksā more impressive and that it doesnāt make sense to make herself miserable all year over it. So no AP physics and likely no chance to be Val because of that choiceā¦ Iām still looking into various online AP Spanish courses but Iām thinking it may be too late to sign up already. Also, some kind of placement test may be necessary and Iām not sure how that works. but I figure since her school doesnāt even start until September 8 she could drop school Spanish if she does an online class. I just ordered an AP Spanish study guide to get a feel for the level covered (Iām pretty good at Spanish myself 
) ā¦I think it would be a good supplement for her Spanish 5 class anyway (plus I would like to brush up on my rusty grammar too).
I worry a little that her schedule will look like sheās purposely padding it with āeasierā APs but, except for physics 2, there is literally nothing else rigorous or especially of interest for her to take senior year at her high school that fits in her schedule. Plus, she is actually excited about the content of psych, enviro sci and human bio. Her schedule is:
AP Lit,
AP Calc AB
DE BIO- same teacher who would have taught the cancelled AP Bio
AP Environmental Sci
AP Human Geo
AP Psych
Honors Spanish 5
She may continue band second semester instead of the second DE Bio course.
I hope the GC indicates in the recommendation letter that my D requested to take AP bio and AP Spanish but the school couldnāt offer the classes.
When filling out the Common App, do you group all athletics as one activity and then put the detail in the description or list them separately? My kid is a 3 sport varsity athlete.
The Dual Credit classes at the community college that my son takes are offered/scheduled through our school district so they have the same weight/grade multiplier as AP classes.
Our high school started the Senior Sunrise tradition about 10 years ago, it takes place in the football stadiumā¦iām interested to see how they handle it this year!
Ours usually does it in the stadium also, but this yr they did it in the parking lot and kids drove up to take a picture and get treats. I heard it was a flop and not well attended this yr. We also do senior sunset in May.
@DOTexe Our CC classes are weighted like AP and IB. They are counted in our HS GPA.
@sushiritto D21 got the email yesterday that her SAT was cancelled. We are remote until late October.
Ours is usually at the start of the year, end of August/Early Sept, but we havenāt received any dates yet. We havenāt even gotten our Senior Packets yet lolā¦Graduation Date was just announced last week so IDK whatās going on ??āāļø
Dual enrollment classes should have higher weight than regular classes. They are treated as similar to AP classes.
@HMom16 - If your child has room to list each one separately, Iād go for it. There are 10 spots total for activities. There may be different descriptions for each sport- ie: Captain, won MVP or Most improved, starter, etcā¦and with the tiny character count it would be hard to give each sport their own descriptor of participation and what role your child took with each sport. If they have other activities that are a priority and space is an issue - then grouping would be fine.
Thank you!
I agree with you about the rural advantage. We are from Mississippi and we donāt have to many opportunities. With the pandemic, it only got worse. My D21 did good on ACT and school GPA is good. But she didnāt do well on the PSAT. In fact she did better in her 10th grade year than in her Junior year. I donāt know if she will make it to NMF.
Fortunately she volunteered from her 9th grade in local hospitals. Although she canāt do it now, she has several hours in her resume. Thank you Once again for your encouragement.
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Please donāt worry about the UW GPA. I was so concerned about this last year with my D20. (Also 4.0 UW student). Colleges know and adjust for it. Your D will do great in the application process.
As a side note, I feel the rural advantage is over inflated. We didnāt see that really and we are extremely rural. There are enough disadvantages that make it a bit harder to compete. My D had her heart set on LMU. The kids that got the most money last year all had essays about working for start up companies and volunteering at huge corporations. Not to mention just the amazing opportunities in the cities, easier access to testing, tutoring etc. She found it harder to compete. I have yet to see it be an advantage for S21. We have less access to football ranking camps, testing, ability to travel etc. But one can hope I guess! This has just been my personal experience. That said D20 ended up a NMF, so that helped with her choice of where to go (spoiler: Not LMU).
Anyway, just wanted to say your D will do great. She will get lots of acceptances and the UW GPA will be fine. Best of luck to her!!
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@anaray thatās what I saidā¦in our schools district Dual Credit classes and AP Classes have the same & highest multiplier/weight.
Regular class: 1.1
PreAp: 1.15
AP & DC: 1.2
D21 is taking a political science class at the local directional U to satisfy her HS American government requirement. If she gets an A+ in the class, it will still lower her GPA. We get a bump for honors or AP, but thatās it.
At our school the DE course are not included in the calculation of GPA. Rather they just have a transcript at the college that provided the course. The students then have to be sure to get the college transcript sent to the school they ultimately pick to get the credits earned at the DE college
@dadof4kids ā you raise a good point. If a DE class is a graduation requirement, it needs to be on the HS transcript. If DE classes are not needed for graduation (to fulfill a requirement and/or to meet the number of required HS courses for a diploma) and bring down GPA/rank, then they may NOT need to be on the HS transcript and you can send two transcripts to colleges, but thereās likely state policy that factors in so it depends.
The reason is that every state has different policies around this. Some require DE classes on HS transcripts b/c the classes impact funding allotments due to formal partnerships between districts and CCs. But if youāre just picking up a ārandomā course at a CC or local university, you likely have more control on where the class is transcripted.
We had an issue in NC about 8 years ago where AP classes were more heavily weighted than CC courses but that got fixed. We have tons of DE in our state b/c of a strong CC system.
Same as @burghdad . Nothing not taken in the high school is counted - including high school classes taken in middle school.
I only recently learned from my D that the DE teachers physically come to our school (or rather, did pre-Covid) to teach the DE classes. So really, itās more like an AP class in the sense that itās a class full of high school students getting college credit that shows up on the high school transcript. The DE classes tend to be easier than AP here, and I donāt expect them to earn credit at the LACs my D will apply to. But they do give the 5.0 bump for an A on the transcript and so they are popular at our high school (duplicating and edging out AP classes).
Not it our school
We donāt have any DE classes really. We have one class (Earth Science Honors) that I guess is equal to some CC class and the kids can fill out a form from the CC to get college credit if they want it. The high school teacher gives them the paperwork for that when they start the class. I have no idea if anyone actually does that. S19 didnāt bother since he was going to be taking a lot of science in college. I donāt think many of Dās colleges take CC credit so she wonāt do that either.
I always wonder about DE classes elsewhere. I think they are particularly good in states where CC credit transfers easily to the flagship university and a lot of kids go there.