@NJWrestlingmom - oh no! I’m so sorry. I just want some normalcy for these kids.
@havenoidea our school uses weighted GPA for metrics for all honors societies etc. NHS, cum laude, etc. Our school profile does show decile breakouts of the class in both weighted and unweighted GPA for context. Unweighted numbers help show that we don’t really have much grade inflation since a 3.8 puts a student in top ten percent for unweighted (top 65 kids for class of 2021. Not a lot of 4.0 UW here.
@NJWrestlingmom That sucks! I am really thinking that will be the case at our school soon also.
@NJWrestlingmom – sorry! All our sports are cancelled until at least end of Sept.
My S just had his first college interview with Case Western. He didn’t share much but said it went well. He’s poised and good with people. He said there weren’t any questions that felt tricky.
Next week, WPI!
@NJWrestlingmom ugh! This virus moves really fast through a party. 100 percent compliance seems impossible. I guess we don’t get to have nice things like sports right now. I’m so sorry.
@AlmostThere2018 there seems to be quite a bit of this “waiting a few more weeks” thing at many schools across the country for sports or class. I’m not sure what’s changing in three or four more weeks. Feeling pessimistic today I guess. 
We survived the first day of school!! Our district has 52,000 students all starting remotely (due to the county health dept pushing back in person learning until Sept 9) on the same day on 2 very different platforms (depending on if they chose virtual learning or in person). The learning hub crashed…VPN couldn’t handle the load, lots of disgruntled and stressed out parents…I wasn’t one of them lol.
My boys got through the day relatively unscathed. S21 and S23 Twin 1 had all the right classes, and no connectivity issues at all. S23 Twin 2 had some issues with WebEx (getting kicked out of first period and missing 3rd period all together) but it’s getting sorted out.
Since I work from home, I was able to hang out and observe each of my kids and honestly I was laughing all day at some of the high school boy humor and responses I heard.
Grace and patience are the words of the week!
@inthegarden “It’s more of a matter of an AO (correctly, in this case) judging it to be of less rigor than the AP Bio she wanted to take.”
I thought the High School college counselor is the one who checks “most rigorous” course work for your student? Not sure why the AO would challenge that assessment? They spend 5 - 15 minutes on each applicants file, I really don’t think the AOs are going to go through each and every class you took and ding the student for a DE class vs AP especially if they already have taken numerous other rigorous AP, IB, or honors classes.
For example, D20 didn’t want to take AP Biology at her HS because it was taught by a notoriously bad teacher who also had a harsh grading curve. Instead, most of the top students at her HS took regular biology at UCLA over the summer. This was a bio class for non-STEM majors and an easy “A”. These high school students all got into colleges like UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC (CA), Duke, Vanderbilt Tulane, and Northwestern to name a few colleges. Taking an easy biology class (DE) did not move the needle.
Try not to overthink these things. If you want to take a DE, then take it. It’s all about your students “body of work” not any one individual class they took or didn’t take. (The exception could be if your rank gets you an auto admit into your state flagship but this is rare for most U.S. colleges and only really matters for the student on the edge of the cut-off).
and our school has a lot of grade inflation. The avg uw GPA is 3.6! Plus they give a point for honors, advanced, AP, IB, or DE, so all of my kid’s classes are A=5 except for PE, art, and band.
Regarding Dual Credit, in our district, either 1) the classes are taught by the community college faculty (they come to the high school tues & thurs, so it’s just like taking it there) or 2) students physically attend at the community college campus depending on the class.
S21 has a good mix of AP & DC and the DC classes are no less rigorous. I pay roughly $350 per DC class (3 credit hours). The DC classes are on the high school transcript. When S21 submits his apps, he’ll
have to send the community college transcript as well. Yes, I’m in North Texas, and DC classes are very popular here in our schools for those who know they are staying instate and applying to the public universities…it saves a lot of time and money, as all the DC courses transfer. S21 will be staying in state and going to a public so it’s a no brainer for us. When building his schedules junior and senior year, he secured DC classes first and what he couldn’t get he went for the AP version. It’s worked out well.
Our school does a presentation when 8th graders are picking classes, and one part is about “rigor”. The ranking was this:
Class at state flagship
IB
AP
DE at CC or directional
honors
advanced
regular
They warn students about taking classes as DE when the AP or IB is available at the HS unless they are staying instate and will therefore get credit.
They also suggest taking a class at the flagship (2 miles away) that you feel you can make an A in because it shows you can handle college. They strongly advise against taking Calc for engineering majors at the flagship because it can be very tough. I think socal’s D nailed this by taking Bio at UCLA. I’m sure no one at Duke checked the difficulty of the class.
ETA: Our HS has 20+ AP/IB classes, so colleges are expecting to see a lot of them. If your HS doesn’t have that many then DE is great. AOs understand this.
So your school expects 8th graders to know what they want to do with their life? Even those who do “think” they know, will frequently change their mind.
Kids are allowed to leave during the school day and go to a UC? Wow. That’s so different than here. Kids aren’t allowed to leave early unless they are training for the Olympics or something.
They don’t come out and say it, but yeah there is pressure to pick your path. It’s absolutely crazy.
Yeah, we have an open campus so the students regularly come and go.
I used to jog by kids smoking weed in the park and blame the open campus, but I’ve now realized those same kids would be smoking weed no matter what.
@NJWrestlingmom So sorry to read that!!
Our school is trying very very hard to keep the kids apart. Starting tomorrow, students aren’t even allowed to go outside to talk to one another during “activity” period. That’s what they call the 30 min break for clubs, free time, what-have-you. Each classroom will have shows and the kids can choose where to go but have to commit to the same room for two weeks to reduce interaction. Seniors get first choice. Choices range from British Cooking Show to Marvel Marathon to Parks & Rec to football film.
NHS inductions will finally happen next week early AM before school day starts, but no parents allowed. Honestly, I’m just thrilled we get anything done. Every day we aren’t shut down is a win in my book. I think I’ve accepted that nothing is in our control including the whole college admissions process.
@socaldad, not worried about the “most rigorous” box. I asked the guidance counselor about that about a year ago and she said she checks the box if the student has taken the most rigorous schedule that would meet that student’s future goals. So, if D stated she were a future engineering student the GC might expect her to take advantage of that AP Physics 2 class. But my D is a future social science or humanities major and, except for that physics 2 class, has taken (or will be taking) every other AP class offered by the school in every subject. Will be ten APs in all and the DE class. So, I hope you’re right with regard to the AO’s.
I still think that any DE class taught at UCLA (no matter how easy) will register differently in an AO’s brain than a DE class from podunk community college in a town nobody’s ever heard of . But I won’t worry about it anymore because what’s done is done and I have no control of it anymore!
@NJWrestlingmom Sorry to hear that. I’min the Northern burbs of NJ and as of now fall sports are still a go. Cheer practice in full force. Hybrid school schedule still a go. Hoping we get a few weeks to a month before it implodes again, which is inevitable bases on everything around us.
Everyone talks about the 2020 class, I’m feeling like the 2021 class will suffer worse.
Football in Illinois moved to spring. How weird will that be if it actually happens. Only tennis, golf, Xc, and swimming happening.
I hope you get some games in!
@homerdog there were talks of moving football to spring. We live in an area where there are lots of smaller school student populations. There would not be enough players for baseball, football at the same time as many students play both. I’m really hoping we can get a few games in. Our HS won State Championship last year for first time in 30 years and would hate to see season cancelled.
S21 and his XC team will have their first meet mid September and are supposed to compete in six meets. I hope the meets are not cancelled, but I don’t know how they will social distance. There will be 6 schools at each meet and with boys and girls Freshman,JV, Varsity each a school has over 100 kids at the meet.