What are “TE schools”?
Schools listed on the tuition exchange program which is for dependants of employees at certain colleges.
my D23 has no idea on college and majors. I think she’s tired of hearing about it all from her 3 older siblings. Just like with our other kids, we are merit-seeking for schools and she says she feels pressure to keep high grades. I am not sure where she feels that pressure from. Us? her school? herself? Need to look into that pretty soon I think.
Our D23 also is unsure of major interest. She’s doing well in school in all subjects and has varied interests. She used to want to be an engineer but also loves zoology. She’s competed and placed in Regional and State Science Olympiads which she really seemed to enjoy. She likes art and loves to write too. She’s visited many colleges with her siblings and now it’s her turn to start visiting and make her list. I think we’ll start with open houses in the fall.
Her Sophomore planned schedule:
H English
H PreCalc
AP Chem
H Gov
Engineering
AP Psych
Spanish4
My concern for my son is lack of AP options right now as he’s interested in music as well which takes up 2 electives.
His courses for sophomore year:
Summer school-
Online fitness
Online American Issues
Then…
Accelerated English
Accelerated Chemistry (he may drop this to regular Chem)
US History
Precalc
Band
Choir
Spanish 2
The only true AP option is apush which he refuses to do because of the teacher.
I apologize if I have missed this in previous posts, but anyone here have a kid going to h.s. with an IB program, and planning to take the IB course load?
D23 goes to a different h.s. than my three older kids did/do and has the opportunity to pursue an IB diploma. I’m familiar with IB but don’t have any personal experience. Just wondering if anyone else has a D/S23 who’s planning to pursue an IB diploma or if any parents have previous experience who can share pros/cons following this path as opposed to just following the typical courseload of CP/AP classes.
@4kids4us I don’t have any prior IB experience but I know a few parents with 2017 grads that did IB and I can try to rope them into stopping by and give their opinions if no one in this group has prior experience. But let’s see how our little group does first.
It is comforting to hear that we aren’t the only ones with a HS freshman who doesn’t know what she wants for a career. She’s certainly getting the message that she needs to figure that out in order to choose a college, even though her dad and I don’t believe that to be true. It always seems like everyone else has things figured out already, doesn’t it?
Sorry, no personal experience here with kids in IB programs. I used to do credit evaluation for a college though and we would see a few reports come in (not as many as AP but that may be location-specific). We accepted specific scores on the HL exams for credit, similar to AP (no credit for SL).
It is hard to believe that are already a week or so into second semester/third quarter of freshman year! The first half of the year went well for D23 academically and she adores being at the HS, like I knew she would. Since we have block scheduling, she is done with English 9 and with Civics/Economics now and has started Geometry and Earth Science in those blocks (we have no advanced science track so all students take ES). Her Health class ended as well and she’s taking Intro to Theatre. Classes continuing all year: Band, Chorus, and Spanish II.
At the start of the year she joined drama club and successfully ran for a class council position. Now, halfway through the year she is still loving drama club (she didn’t get a role in the spring play but is looking forward to working crew for the production) but is lukewarm on student government. Seems there is more drama there than in Drama Club! I’m hoping that the drama passes soon and that she decides to run again. She’s talked about trying to convince a friend to run as well which I think would be good.
She has a few things coming up that are keeping her busier than usual. She wants to take Jazz Band next year which is an audition-required class, and that audition is coming right up. She also was recommended to move up to Choir but has to audition for that soon as well. She also has two dance shows coming in the next few weeks so rehearsals are starting to ramp up for those. We have a one week break later this month and she’s been hired as a CIT at her dance school for the elementary camp they run that week.
Overall freshman year is going well for D23. How is everyone else doing at this point in the year?
@4kids4us, my kid’s school has IB, but she’s not planning to do it—she’ll do dual enrollment.
As a college professor I have way more respect for IB than AP, but doing the full IB program is a horrible, horrible grind that I wouldn’t wish on any teen ever.
My sons grades dropped second quarter pretty badly for him (3.1 for the quarter). He knows this isn’t great. However, it was his first winter doing both ski team and the school musical, along with adjusting to high school.
He does band, marching band, choir, has a role in the school musical, football, ski racing and track. He wants a job but not till he turns 15 (after the musical performances).
@2plustrio wow! That’s a lot! As a fellow marching band mom I salute you!!!
@dfbdfb she can take the IB level coursework without pursuing the full diploma but fortunately she can decide that later. The coursework doesn’t start until junior year, but if she’s thinking of doing it, then she will have to take certain coursework next year to be eligible. She has to have completed both Geometry and Alg 2 by the end of sophomore year. Unfortunately, she didn’t test out of Algebra 1, so she’s taking Honors Alg 1 this year. It’s been a breeze for her as it’s basically a repeat of her 8th grade math and in hindsight, I probably should’ve questioned her placement. At the time I decided I’d rather she have a strong math base and take Algebra 1, although at the honors level at least. Her middle school math program was not great so I wasn’t confident she could move on and therefore didn’t question when she didn’t place out of it. So, that means next year she will have to take both Geometry and Alg 2 simultaneously. She doesn’t seem concerned about that, and her teachers recommend that, but I need to have a separate conversation with them and her guidance counselor.
We are absolutely not one to pressure our kids when it comes to academics, and I’ve heard how tough the IB diploma is to earn which is why I’m starting to gather information about it now. From my limited understanding of the program so far, the coursework seems aligned with her interests so we decided to at least have her take the coursework that will satisfy the prereqs in case she decides to pursue it, or at least take some of the coursework (they are allowed to be a “core candidate” and take the coursework without completing the full diploma requirements).
Well, marching band is required for our band and they work around his football schedule as both are at the same time. Living in the Midwest, marching band season is limited.
Hes now sitting at a 3.5 overall but says he’s more focused now and going to take school seriously. Middle school was a breeze for him so it was a bit of a shock for him to actually have some homework in high school.
@4kids4us having that strong Algebra I foundation makes sense. My daughter didn’t have a good teacher in 8th grade for Algebra I, and I questioned whether to let her move on or repeat Algebra I. She moved on, so she’ll be in pre-calc for sophomore year, but I wanted to tell you that with a strong Alg I foundation, your daughter will probably be just fine doing both Geom and Alg 2 sophomore year. My daughter is not especially mathy by any stretch. And by sticking to the accelerated path (and without the strongest Alg 1 foundation ever), she has had to do Geometry and Algebra 2 in approx 3 semesters total (for the two classes), and she’s doing fine (has gotten As in both). Geometry, especially, is pretty straightforward. Algebra 2 is tougher, I think, but having a full year to do it built on top of that strong Alg 1 foundation, it will likely be fine.
We’re in Texas where Marching Band is huge! Band camp starts in July, football season is aug-november, the whole month of October is contest season…fall semester is intense! Spring is quieter and is mostly concert season, and if you’re in percussion then drum line competitions. Most students here find it hard to commit to other extracurriculars outside of band. My junior is getting into Debate and Speech, but can only participate in completions in the spring because Fall is all about band. I have a tuba/sousaphone player, a French Horn player and euphonium player…we’re a brass family lol.
June-Nov is football here. My son will move up to JV this year and those games don’t interfere with the varsity games where marching band plays.
Marching band camp is 1 week in July for us then games Aug to Nov. Maybe a parade or two (although the band is traveling to Disney next spring break). My son plays flute.
I grew up in Texas so I remember what a big deal marching band was. Here in the Northeast, it’s not quite so intense.
My D23 is in “band” which means in the fall (just Sept-Oct, really) they perform a halftime show at some of the home football games and serve as a pep band at others. They march in two-three parades and have a few rehearsals outside of school to prepare.
After October, they switch over to concert band. There’s no summer commitment at all - no band camp or other rehearsals. But, her current director is fairly new, he’s from a big marching band college, and he’s been slowly growing the program, so I think there will be more to it by the time S27 is there.
My D23 is a trumpet player but tried out French horn in 8th grade. Now she’s a Melophone/French Horn player in the band and hoping to get into Jazz Band next year so she can play trumpet again.
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I don’t really know what IB is or it stands for to be honest. But if IB means taking courses at the local community college then yes our HS has a program that the students can take CC courses and they an graduate HS with an Associate degree from CC. They still take classes at the HS but they get bused to the CC to take, mostly liberal art courses, daily. The last semester of HS they only take CC courses. They started to have this program 8 years ago, the enrollment was over 20 kid. 8 years later there may be less than 5 kids enrolled in this program. It was said that AP courses at the HS are much tougher than the CC courses.
It’s not clear if the program helped kids gotten into colleges. But it seems that the smarter kids don’t care for that program, they take more APs instead.
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Regarding my son’s first year in HS, so far he has not been busy at all and it sort of bothers me. We don’t have A, B grading but they give out absolute score and so far he is average 99 out of 100 with all honored classes. He spent maybe 30 mins a day on homework but most days just a few mins. I mean shouldn’t he be busy learning stuff even if he caught up with school work?
@Nhatrang IB is “international baccalaureate” which is a very specific rigorous educational program offered at high schools around the world. You can google it for a better description. Where I live, it is a magnet program that is only offered at three high schools in our public school system - kids have to meet the general requirements first, and then it is a lottery system to get in.
My daughter goes to a private school that also offers it. Anyone in the school can be in the program, which starts their junior year, as long as they meet the requirements.
It is completely different from what you are referring to, which is usually called dual enrollment.
@4kids4us Our high school offers the full IB diploma but S23 is not planning to do it because, as the poster above said, it is a “horrible grind.” Our school also allows any kid who is able to do the work to enroll in IB classes, so kids can take IB classes without the commitment of completing the diploma. Approximately 10% of students at our high school complete the full diploma. S23 will take a mix of IB and AP classes instead of going for the diploma. Both of his siblings did that and were accepted into their first choice colleges (T10 LAC and an ivy).
CS has been S23’s passion for quite awhile and will likely be his college major, but he is also interested in mathematics, history, political science, and philosophy. He has no interest in engineering so my list of colleges for him includes schools that are also strong in the humanities.
Lots of band parents in this group! Kudos to you all. Band is a year round commitment here and those kids usually only do band. Participation in any band (jazz, symphonic, etc.) requires a marching band commitment too. The parents and kids seem to have a lot of fun though! S23 is in choir and seems to be enjoying the mix of kids. I hope he sticks with it all four years.