School is getting close! My D starts this week. She barely had any AP summer homework - I think one book for AP Lit and an optional calculus packet. Definitely not at all like some of you.
She’s got a lot on her plate academically this fall like all of your kids - AP Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Chem, APUSH, AP Spanish Lang, and then two easy classes: Consumer Science and Band. I told her to request a decrease in her work hours to 10/week for the start of the year just to make sure she’s got enough time for marching band (only goes through football season), work and studying.
She registered today for the October ACT. September’s date conflicts with a home football game (marching band) and I thought the extra month would be helpful anyway. She’s done some prep and has a calendar created so she does a little bit of prep about three times a week until the test; we’ll see whether she sticks to it. One of her friends is done - he took the test in June and was happy with his score. That would be nice. I think she’ll probably take it at least one more time probably twice, but you never know.
Good luck with the first week or last couple weeks of summer - whichever applies!
@Momof3B - my daughter is not taking Physics either. She’ll take it senior year. Physics is definitely the standard 11th grade science, but her rationalization was that she wanted to take AP Chemistry and figured she might do better by taking it right after Chemistry instead of skipping a year between the courses.
The Chem department and her guidance counselor are onboard and in the end about 5 of her friends decided to do the same, so it should be fine. She’ll take Physics senior year.
I think colleges want to see physics but don’t care what year you take it. The only exception would be for the student who wants to take two AP physics classes (say Physics 1 and then Physics c senior year). Like I said, S19 took physics senior year and had very successful results at top 20 LACs.
Hello everyone. school starts here on Wed. Open house tonight, D is happy with her schedule but kinda sad. All of her friends except one are doing the IB program. At our school, the IB program is a cohort and take all the courses together the 2 years. but she gets lunch with them. So all is not lost. She continues to practice driving and remains anxiety filled but improving. She will drive us to and from school and then I will drive the rest of way to my job (1.5 miles away). Shout out to you @SammoJ D is also prepping for NMF is our goal. We have not gotten near as much prep done as I planned (best laid plans and all). Summer AP and Academic Decathlon have taken way more time that we anticipated. And d spent 2 weeks in Calgary with her Dad.
D is taking: All weighted classes (same weight at our school)
AP Chem
AP Physics 1
AP Calc BC
AP Lang
AP Pysch
Academic Decathlon (it is a class and after school EC)
UIL math (preparation for UIL contest but really more of a study period)
Computer architecture
And the ridiculous thing at our school is the UIL math course is the same weight as any IB or AP class.
Thanks for the feedback @homerdog and @3kids2dogs!! I told him to talk with his counselor tomorrow and then go from there. They usually have last minute schedule shuffling the first few days of school anyway.
Chiming in (I do have a S21) you don’t necessarily need physics. My oldest didn’t take it and did fine with admissions. It depends on the kid, and what they want to study in college.
@inthegarden, we got really lucky. Our high school doesn’t typically offer honors physics either, not sure if this is a permanent shift or due to her class being a bubble year. But the summer work was kicking her butt and with 4 other AP classes we pulled the trigger early so she can start with the other group from day one. Good luck to your daughter!
@homerdog, the work for us varies class to class. AP Lang read a book and journal, AP French, similar, APUSH take notes in text, critically answer questions, AB review, pretest, etc. In our high school final enrollment in the AP classes is dependent on the successful completion of the summer work, not enough effort, they’ll bump you down
Our D got her schedule today…lots of conflicting schedules in her school this year and some people are still not clear on what they’ll be able to take. D’s yearbook class conflicts with something else so she has to drop it and instead take health/personal finance (a graduation requirement). Can’t say I’m unhappy about that…I think she’ll appreciate the wiggle-room in her schedule senior year by getting it out of the way. But the not-so-great news is that she and a few others taking honors precalc/trig had to be put into a regular precalc /trig class (with the teacher somehow giving the honors students more in-depth work.) The same person teaches the honors class so at least the students will be getting the same material. She will have this teacher for physics as well, so I hope she likes him!
@cinnamon1212 Physics is a graduation requirement in our school district. I talked to a few parents and they said it’s usually taken 11th grade to get it out of the way so that Senior year is easier but it doesn’t matter if you take it 11th or 12th as long as you have it. My son is going to talk to his counselor tomorrow when school starts.
@homerdog, D read a book (In Cold blood) for AP Lang, did about 8 =10 hours of AP chem work online that was required. read Frankenstein, but most of her work has been writing a speech and re-writing it. Also 4 meetings this summer at school for Decathlon to work/edit speech.
I’m sorry about the physics. S19 had the same problem at our small school - the only physics was AP Physics. As a kid who had little interest in science, he was concerned, but ended up passing the test. Can you at least delay to senior year?
Curious - does your 21’s school have a book that the whole high school reads? Our school used to, kind of a “bonding” for the students, but dropped the idea this year in favor of grade-specific reading (which S21 had a lot of for APs).
@3kids2dogs, at our school, students who plan to do AP chem are encouraged to take it right after honors chem, then physics the next year. Makes sense. My daughter was so tired of chem she just didn’t want to face it and put off the decision for another year.
@SammoJ, thanks! Maybe she should reconsider and do the physics senior year. If she were sure she’d end up taking AP Enviro (instead of AP Chem or Bio) she could just do enviro this year and focus more energy on AP Lang / AP U.S History (her strong suits) and math (where she’s competent once she “gets” it). Next year there will be no more AP History to take at our school (no econ offered) and the easier AP Psych will probably be her social studies. As senior year is supposed to show increasing (or at least continuing) rigour maybe senior year AP physics would be the way to go. Sigh. We really just need a regular or honors physics class for our smart, non-stem kids. As they say, it should not be a race to collect APs. but what can you do when there is no alternative?
@SammoJ No, we don’t have any whole-school reading. The freshmen all read the same book (D23 had to read Dr Jykell & Mr Hyde). I was really surprised that S21 has no assigned summer reading for AP Lang
Test prep? What test prep? TBH, I didn’t even go there. She prepped for two SAT subject tests in the beginning of the summer (and rocked them!) so I was not going to push it. She’ll do some PSAT prep starting next month.
D’s school assigned summer reading - one book in common for each grade and one free selection from a wide variety of choices. Aside from that, she had a summer job, pursued ECs that she enjoys out of school, and there was some binge watching on Netflix… She needed some down time and I was fine with that. Kids work hard these days.
School starts this week and it looks like D has a fantastic lineup of teachers! We have been following the “take APs in the subjects you love” philosophy so she’ll be doing AP Physics as well as APUSH and one other that is the logical sequence at her school.
Good luck to parents and students as they head back to school. Junior year can be intense so take care everyone!
@sammoj our school does. They start with like 50 books and the kids get it down to 5, then you can pick 1 of the 5, in addition to the other required book (or books if AP).
So test prep…D21 started her 1 week class yesterday to prep for the 8/24 test. She said there are rising freshmen in the class! When the teacher went around asking when they were taking it, they said, “I don’t know. A couple years I guess?” LOL No way my kids would be spending one of the last weeks of summer prepping if the test wasn’t imminent! She’s cranky enough!
@sammoj I think D21 is reading Invisible Man and Great Expectations in AP Lang this year but they are assigned during the school year. They will write six 500 word essays as well. And, yes, it’s a lot on top of all of the APUSH reading which includes an entire textbook and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass!