Received a college solicitation email this morning for DD23 so it got me to thinking it was time to check in here. I have DS18 who is starting his sophomore year at Ole Miss with scholarships totaling just shy of full ride. Hoping lightning will strike twice with DD23. She’s very academically driven. She qualified for state recognition with Duke TIP in 7th grade with the SAT and did well on the Pre-ACT and PSAT in 8th grade. She’s signed up to take English Pre-AP, Geometry Pre-AP, Biology Pre-AP, AP Human Geography and Latin (sadly only offered on level). She also plays oboe in the band but will be marching flute during marching season. She is also a First Class scout in Scouts BSA with her eye on earning her Eagle in 2020 as part of the inaugural class of female Eagle Scouts. I’ve very excited for her to get started in high school. She’s been looking forward to this so much.
S23 Twins aka Thing 1 & Thing 2 got their schedules today…except for one elective they are in every single class together…LAWD ‘MERCY!!! Y’all please pray for my sanity this year!!!
They’ve been petitioning for separate bedrooms since…well…they were womb-mates basically…kept them in different classrooms all through elementary…middle school they managed to have some separation between their 7 class periods so this will be the first school year they are together almost literally 24/7 (thank you block scheduling!!). Unless one of them decides to drop out of marching band or AP Bio, I don’t see anything changing.
School starts Tuesday!!!
S23 still has almost 4 weeks to go but is gearing up for the start. Has done some captains practices with the cross country team to meet some of the guys. He just finished a summer swim league as he plans to swim at high school as well. He did really well and that has him excited for what’s next. Best to everyone getting ready to start!
D23’s schedule has been posted! 9th-graders have a pretty fixed schedule (that is, you might placed in a different, say, science class, but you don’t have the background to pick your own science course)—they get two electives. One of them is German III (she came out of a German-immersion K–8 school, thus the placement, since German III and IV meet together), the other is yoga.
Slowly, it becomes real.
First day of school here. S23 did not do very well in his high school level classes last year so is going in with a pretty low GPA. O was very annoyed because he is smart and knew all the material just didn’t d half the homework and slacked off on in class work. His test grades were always A/B and his finals and end of course exams were all A’s - s frustrating! He knows the year is critical to get back on track so hopefully he will step it up.
Because of his lack of motivation last year I hesitated to put him on the more advanced track that his sisters started in high school. I tried to balance out his schedule with a few higher level courses and a few easier ones, if he can prove he will work hard he can start the APs next year.
His schedule is Geometry Honors, Spanish 1, AICE General Paper (an english class), AICE Thinking Skills, Pre AP Bio, Weightlifting (never thought he would pick that as his elective!!) and Pre AP World History. he has asked to switch his history to another AICE class but I have to think about that and see if there is even space in the class. AICE classes are weighted at 6.0 just like APs which honors and pre AP are 4.5.
First day of High School - - Here we go!
First Day of high school today for Thing 1 & Thing 2!!! I’m buckling up for this bumpy ride!!!
Pure boastery: Just got word that my D23 passed the [Common European Framework](Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - Wikipedia) B1 German exam!
The B1 allows entitles to enter a Studienkolleg in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland upon graduation from high school (which she doesn’t want to do, but it’s always nice to have options), but even aside from that, it’s a really cool accomplishment. (The next level, which IIRC she can’t take until she’s 16 at the youngest, would allow her to apply to a German university directly upon graduation from high school.)
Congrat @dfbdfb on the exam! I’ve not heard of it before but it sounds very impressive.
Good luck to all Freshman on their first days of high school. We’ll be starting next week. Been at the school daily though for sports tryouts. First game is today. Been having practices w the varsity team so may make it on that squad instead of JV. It will be ok either way. We should know by the end of the week.
We finally got D23 registered and classes picked for HS. She is coming from a private school and going to a public school that is out of district for us so we had to wait for approval. This is the same HS her S19 brother just graduated from. They were delayed this year as out of district approvals usually come in July. She actually will be bringing more credits than her brother did as their private school now has more of their classes approved by this school district. Freshman year she will be taking Math Analysis (pre-calc), AP Bio, AP World History, Spanish 2, PE/Health, H English 9 and H Show Choir. She is bringing in credit for Algebra, H Geometry, H Algebra 2/ Trig, H Earth Science, H World Geography, and Spanish 1. As I mentioned before, she has been a high level competitive gymnast since age 6 but after this past season has decided to quit. We gave her the summer “off”, as she was burnt out, but now she is looking for a new EC. She won’t start school until after labor day.
racereer - those are some tough classes for your daughter. sounds like she’s used to that already - I’m sure she’ll do well. so – ECs from gymnastics. Well from former gymnasts we know - - there’s cheerleading, dance perhaps? diving? color guard with the band? and we know a top-ranked tumbler who went became an equestrian. Also, coaching little ones, or teaching/helping with some classes? Lots of options; those kids have muscles and core. My oldest did USTA (tumbling/tramp) for many years and it was always interesting to see where the girls who left would land. He ended up swimming as he wanted to do sports with boys in HS; another top-ranked kid is now a running back in HS; I do think diving is a big one. Ok - rambling here - but good luck to her.
@racereer I’ll agree with @bgbg4us in Diving is an excellent sport for gymnasts to transition too if her new high school has a swim and dive team. I know at our high school the divers train with a specific dive coach at a separate facility because the pool the swimmers train at doesn’t have a diving well. Most swim teams even if they haven’t had a diver in the past welcome them! And even though cheer is much more than just jumps and tumbling, she could make that as well, but I would guess try outs have already happened for this school year (typically in the spring as they train all summer). Also don’t forget about the non-sport EC think community service organizations, environmental club or other leadership… good luck to her with the transition!
@bgbg4us and @ASKMother she actually did cheer at her private middle school but has been turned off from it for HS for the moment. From talking with other girls and going to watch some of the HS cheer, her impression is that all they do is stand on the sideline and twerk. Maybe she will change her mind. While the HS has a swim team they don’t do dive. Also, she is not big on heights and large drops so not sure diving would be for her. I took here a bit to get comfortable on the high bar. She is planning to get involved in Show Choir and maybe some theater. As good of an athlete she is it would be nice to see her try another sport.
My D23’s main interests are karate, K-pop, and Japanese anime. She loves to be creative and artistic. Her walls are completely covered in things she has created and in posters of k-pop “idols.” Academically, she tends to prefer social studies and creative writing as subjects, but she also tends to get inspired dependent on where her best teachers are, and for both 8th grade and 9th, it seems her favorite teachers have been in science.
I am a bit worried about having her get too accelerated too soon. 1 or 2 APs sophomore year would likely be reasonable, but I think she may be on a path to 4 APs plus Pre-Calc sophomore year, so I’m trying to figure out how to best navigate the available choices with her in a way that challenges her and will eventually open up some great college choices to her while still allowing her to be her authentic self (and a kid). We are trying to figure out how to strike a balance of some kind. @lkim10, I have similar frustration with our math sequence. On the path D23 is on, she will be expected to do Calc A/B in 11th grade. She is not a particularly STEM-y kid. Her middle school prep felt inconsistent in terms of building that really strong foundation. We considered not taking the Algebra credit from middle school and slowing her down, but the alternative path wasn’t right either, and she wanted to stick with this accelerated path, so she willingly worked on some of the concepts with me over the summer to solidify things a bit.
She is our youngest. Oldest is S21 (who is incredibly different from his sister in most ways but definitely academically due to ADHD and processing speed challenges), and, in between, we have an internationally adopted daughter who probably will take a different (non-college) path and is also a freshman in high school this year.
Our DS’23 tried out for the fall play and got a role - so we are happy that he has an extra curricular activity that will bring him new friends in his new school. Onward!
Congrats @glido on the fall play. My DCs were involved in plays and they were wonderful experiences. It’s time consuming but very rewarding and they really enjoyed getting to know people. Still talking about some of those experiences years later. Wishing her much success. My kid is not sure of ECs or school clubs yet besides the Fall sport. May try out a Spring sport too. Really enjoyed Science competitions in Middle School but there’s no HS club for that.
I posted a bit ago that my D23 has realized that, despite being focused on ending up in something medical (probably occupational therapy) since the middle of elementary school, she’s realizing that maybe she doesn’t actually want to do that.
So I sat down with her last evening and we paged through a College Board Book of Majors we bought a while back for her older sisters, and out of the whole big book, she ended up with three possibilities alongside OT:
[list][]Sociology (yay! social justice! she basically said)
[]Political science (as the study of politics, not in the hope of becoming a politician)
[li]Computer forensics/list[/li]
The thing that really appealed to her about computer forensics? The writeup included a warning that up to 70% of the workload could be child pornography cases, which many people find disturbing—but the fact that she could help put people like that away got her kind of excited, to the point that she now has a goal of becoming proficient in Javascript by the end of this school year (and preferably Xmas), to be followed by Python, and then work her way up to C.
So I figure it’s a good test—if she actually does that, she’s found a passion. If not, then we’ve narrowed the field. Either way it’s a win.
The twins have survived Rookie Band Camp and Band Camp. They are looking forward to classes starting Tuesday so they have a break from marching. Of course, Tuesday night starts county GT Orchestra. Most decisions here seem to be made around music, not sure how long that can last. They are getting fitted for invisalign, but won’t start until after Nov. 19, all-state band auditions. Neither older child played an instrument or was involved in a sport so this is a new world.
@Glido Congrats on the fall play. Theater kids are great, they seem to accept everyone as they are.
In non-band news one of the twins passed his Algebra 2 final and will be starting HS in Pre-Calc. I still have my doubts about this, but he very much wanted to do this so he could take linear algebra in HS. I guess I’ll know if this was a good choice junior/senior year. He worked a little with a tutor, but taught himself most of it.
Hope everyone is having a smooth transition to HS and no one is in the path of the hurricane.
Jumping into this thread since I have a DD23 that just started her freshman year. She had a successful first week of school- likes her classes, likes her teachers, didn’t get too lost in the big scary high school and has friends in most classes. At the moment she says she wants to go to college for physical therapy but who knows what will change in 4 years.
@racereer My DD23 is also a competitive gymnast. She was close to quitting this spring but decided to commit to it for another season, so we’ll see. If/when she does decide to “retire” from the sport, she says she might want to try track. She hates running so that will be interesting. Her high school actually has a decent gymnastics team (which she can’t do with club gym) and also a dive team, which she’s not interested in. In any case, these gymnasts know how to work hard to reach their goals, and most seem successful at whatever new sports or activities they try. Good luck to your DD!
S23 survived the first two weeks of HS. He is happy. He has friends in all of his classes. He’s not in any fall sports but he’s been practicing basketball and tennis for winter and spring sports.
He’s in 3 honors classes; H Geometry, H Biology, and H American History.
He took his first H Geometry quiz last week and did not do well. It’s too early to tell but it seems like he will need supplemental learning. He wants to do well in all his classes, most especially in Math and Science.
Any recommendation for supplemental learning online aside from Khan Academy?