Just coming to say hi and introduce myself. I have three kiddos, oldest is DS23, followed by the middle child, DS24 and youngest is in 7th grade this year. We are getting organized for DS23, who may or may not be college ready, it’s yet to be determined. DS24 however, does seem to be doing better. His freshman year GPA is a 3.2, and his ACT Aspire 09 is Ready in English, Math and Reading and Exceeding in Science.
DS24 currently has no AP classes and feels kind of “meh” about school. He does seem to be on a college path though if he wants it. I do not know the boys PSAT scores yet, both took the exam this year.
I am wondering if I should encourage DS24 to try AP classes next year. He is unlikely to want to go there unless pushed a bit. The last time we talked about college,
DS24 said he wants to travel around the country with his friends after HS. However, he has no real plan for this. He is dragging on some things (his Cooking merit badge) and is only involved in games club at school. I have tried to get him to do more at school and it is not working. It is unfortunate that in November he wanted to join stage crew for the weekend show but we have Covid in the house and he had to quarantine instead of helping out.
High school AP classes are a mystery to me. The course catalog says for college ready students. DS24 appears, sort of, to be college ready. Should I ask him to try one? What would you do?
DS24 has expressed interest in getting a summer job with kids camp at YMCA. He is also in leadership in his Scout troop which he seems to enjoy.
Welcome! What does his guidance counselor say? The science and history classes are very very intense and the english classes generally involve a lot of writing. In our school you need to have a B+ in a non honors class to be recommended for an AP class. Does your school have honors classes? is that what he is currently taking?
Wow 2 Mandatory science in one year I have not heard before. Our school will only allow one science class in 9th and 10th ad even 11 and 12 we are not guaranteed and we need a agreement from the GC. Some kids here take a second science class outside during 11th/12th.
Glad your daughter has more flexibility moving forward.
Thanks, we do not have honors classes, although he is taking Accelerated Chemistry. Here is his mid-semester report
Ceramics A
Choir A
English 10 B+
Accelerated Chemistry B+
French 3 D+
Algebra 2 B+
Civics B
The counselors will start working on this in January so no discussions yet. I think S24 will want easier classes because – less work. I need to encourage him but of course do not want to push or make the kid miserable.
She goes to a local charter school. It’s part of a group of charter schools all over our state (AZ), but they also have some schools in San Antonio, Austin, recently a couple of new locations in Baton Rouge, LA, 1 charter school in DC, and 3 private schools in the SF Bay Area, Virginia (near DC), and in either Brooklyn or Queens, NY (I can’t remember which).
The school has the same requirements for all students, so for example, this year, all 10th graders take AP English Language and 11th grade english is AP English Lit. As prep for that, they all take both English Language & English Lit in 9th grade.
For history courses, all 9th graders take AP US Government & Politics. She took the AP exam for that, but got a 2. All of the AP teachers are required to administer a practice AP exam at some point before the actual exam…it’s done on a Saturday morning. The teacher sits down with the kid one on one and advises him/her whether taking the AP exam is a good idea. One challenge DD24 had last year is that a lot of her classes had a huge amount of reading…her Anatomy & Physiology elective had tons of reading. So did the history class and both of the english classes. This year? Not as much reading, so less HW overall.
For history in 10th grade, it’s AP European History. 11th grade, everybody takes AP US History. Then in 12th grade, all of the seniors take capstone classes from Aug-early Feb…5 classes total with 2-3 in math/science (of their choosing) and 2-3 in humanities (english, history, foreign language). Plus, there’s a daily class w/the senior’s counselor, who has a class daily with the seniors with the sole purpose of helping them apply to college. The counselor also apparently requires the students to apply to at least one big national scholarship contest. It’s pretty great, honestly, because this is, by far, so much better counseling than DH or I got when we were in high school.
wow,
It is really hard! Are the counselors available for a conversation without your kid? They should know about success in AP classes. On the other hand if he is not interested in highly competitive colleges if there is even a need to take AP classes if they will further discourage him from being interested in school?
I’m a big fan of taking Calc BC in HS because it is a gatekeeper to so many majors or classes once in college. BC is often a lot easier than college Calc. A kid might think they want to be a comp lit major, but realize in college they like something completely different.
For example at our state flagship most of the art/music majors end up wanting to take a lot of CS/programing classes because that’s where the cutting edge stuff is now, and Calc is a prereq.
My D is almost done with finals and it’s been an OK, but not great semester. She is lacking in some areas and the teachers are just plowing through and it’s on the kids to fill in. My wife and I have decided to just try and help her make the best of it and let the grades be what they are. Really frustrating and she’s having her confidence tested, but we hope the adversity will make her stronger. The impact of COVID is going to be lasting.
My kid is definitely NOT one of those naturally brilliant students. She has to work at it. Her school DOES definitely have some kids who just naturally absorb everything on their own and get stellar grades & standardized test scores.
BUT the school’s philosophy is that any student can succeed there if they’re willing to do the hard work. And that philosophy matches how DH & I feel about things, so it’s a good fit.
The school is not big on sports, so after 8th grade, about 30-50% of students leave because they want a regular high school experience with football games, and all that. Students who play a sport and want a chance to compete in state competitions also choose to not go to this school for high school.
What’s been really awesome, though, is the total dedication of my kids’ teachers. There’s been times in years past where DD24 or DD26 has really struggled in a particular class…all of the teachers have to have ‘student hours’ for an hour after school each week. Same concept as office hours for professors in college. And the culture at the school is one of “the smart kids go ask for help,” so going for extra help does not have a negative stigma to it at all. It’s encouraged and celebrated.
Between early Feb & early May of senior year, all of the seniors do an independent project outside of school…an internship, for example, on whatever the heck they want. So once early Feb occurs, the seniors are no longer going physically to the school building every day. And on the seniors’ last day on campus, they do a big march through the halls wearing their caps & gowns and all of the other students line the hallways clapping & cheering & celebrating (the school is grades 4-12). It’s pretty darn fantastic.
Will my kid end up with a national merit scholarship? I doubt it.
Will she go to an Ivy League school or some place like Georgetown? Probably not.
But that’s ok. This country has MANY excellent colleges and universities which would be a good fit for her.
In the meantime, 1 of the school counselors said that it’s normal for kids to not know what they want to major in. And that it’s normal and OK for students right now to not be college application-obsessed. I appreciate the counselor’s advice because it’s helped me to try to keep my college-obsessed DH’s head screwed on straight. He can be really turbo about it sometimes.
I very much relate to what you said. Last year (9th grade) was not great for DD24. She got 3 C’s, the rest mostly B’s, and I think she ended up with one A. During the 1st trimester, she even had a D in 1 of her classes. It was rough.
Have any of you guys heard of this podcast called “Get Schooled by Reeves & Ford”? I started listening to it a few months ago. It’s an interesting podcast and they cover a different college application topic every week. A recent podcast episode, for example, talked about all the reasons why people shouldn’t poo-poo the community college route. A different episode from awhile ago talked about how to handle situations in which the student totally eats it (i.e., performs poorly in grades) at some point in high school. Then they had yet a different episode that talked about the whole financial aid process, & how to negotiate for more aid from private liberal arts colleges.
On a different note, our school counselor recommended to look at the “Colleges That Change Lives” website (https://ctcl.org/).
Another thing that the counselor recommended was before you go taking your kid on college tours, you should figure out how much per year that you can afford to pay…and then use the EFC calculators on some colleges’ websites in order to figure out what your expected family contribution would be at THAT particular school.
The counselor said that she’s seen a lot of parents take their kid to the ‘pie in the sky’ school, have the kid fall in love with the school, only to realize later on that it’s not affordable at all.
I think that there’s good odds that DD24 will end up at ASU or UofA (in state for us). I think that she’d do just fine there. But a liberal arts college might work as well, and from what I’ve seen from some of their EFCs, it could approximate what we’d pay for an in state university.
DD24 hates talking about college right now. She just wants to be a high school kid. The counselor told all of us parents at the start of the school year that this is totally normal and it’s ok.
Anyway, just thought I’d share in case this helps anybody. It’s easy on College Confidential to get caught up in the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” sort of thing. And I think it’s helpful to share with each other what we’re learning / figuring out along the way since us parents are all sort of fumbling around in the dark together.
Holy cow, the two science requirements when they are younger is nuts. Kids are so resilient for poor decisions that adults make without thinking about their mental health! I hope they change it! My S21 took AP Bio and AP Physics (he had 5 that year+engr elective) and I just wouldn’t recommend it unless your kid is like teflon and isn’t a perfectionist.
Next year D24 is planning on taking AP Stat and AP Calc AB. Two teachers teach AP Stat and she adores both of them since they’ve taught her. She tends to like math so I’m just letting her go with it. My kids both have MD aspirations so it’s been my job thru high school to throw options at them to make sure they think about other careers. “Are you sure? Are you really sure? Here’s the financial breakdown of a reg career vs. an MD career and $ ROI AND happiness ROI…” Maybe she will love math so much that she’ll choose to go into applied math. Or CS. A CS intern at Amazon can make $9k/month! So far none of this has stuck, but I’m not giving up til they get to college.
It’s very exciting in CO2022 Parents Forum this week. All the colleges are releasing the early decision results. One of the kids my cousin is helping got into Cornell ED last night, so super excited. Hubby’s friend’s daughter didn’t get in. I was able to see the app and EC comparisons. There’s definitely a rigor you need to produce with these apps. They don’t even care that the kids were all under some sort of shelter-in-place restriction the last 2 years. They say the take things into consideration, but I just wonder. COVID has wrecked havoc on the kids mental health and ironically, the institutions that come up with the studies to validate are the same ones that still place impossible demands.
Welcome @ScouterMomof3. In regards to AP classes if he is interested in a particular subject and he is good at it taking honors or AP would be good.
I think working with kids at YMCA in summer is a good EC.
Also, try to survey other kids who have taken the particular AP/honor classes. As mentioned in my previous posting, DS24’s friends who are in Trig/PreCalc BC honor classes are struggling… they are what I consider as shooting for top school type of kids. And I know DS24’s classmates in chem honor class have been struggling as well.
DS24 is barely above the water to maintain A- in that class with a lot of help from me.
I have a feeling that there is a big jump in rigor from last year and kids’ weren’t prepared.
DS24 has finals next 3 days… we will see how it pans out.
It’s hard to watch. My D has her first Bs this semester and she has rescued one of those from a D+. She kind of pulled it together but is not enjoying school this year and complains a lot and stays up too late. She’s very protective of her “free time”. She’s at public school and the kids are getting some grace. At my son’s private school she would have had to work a lot harder. Still her H Chem class is no joke. Fortunately she’s on the block schedule so will switch it up in January and she had a really good math teacher this year. It’s a tough year slogging through emotionally.
I totally agree, throwing AP at kids at a young age unless they are tippy top smart just so they can do it makes no sense to me, but each school has its process. Our school has the policy of no AP except for AP world after two years of world history as a sophmore, then no more than 3 AP classes after that unless you are top top of the class. Our kids go to world class colleges and have high success. I would rather my kid get an A in a honors class than a C in an AP class he isn’t ready for.
One thing I found good about AP classes is that all teachers have to teach against common AP tests. So it’s a lot easier to find help (extra materials on the web or prep materials).
DS is taking AP Human Geo… finding extra material for his final prep is an order of magnitude easier than helping him with Chem especially when the teacher doesn’t use the book much and teaches out of her own material. Two teachers for chem honor… very different teaching and grading style. The grade depends on your luck in this case.
It’s been hard to watch my kids suffer during the pandemic. DS24 is in a high school that’s new to him and he didn’t have any friends last year when he started. He made a friend when he played HS soccer last winter but it wasn’t until this fall he made good friends. He is much happier now, but still not himself (or maybe he matured, I don’t know).
I hope the impact of the pandemic is not long-lasting… but I feel a lot of damage has been already done, unfortunately.
Going back to @sbinaz comment, yes, I think there is the right school for my DS24. and it might not be a big UC school or a highly competitive T20 school. Although having the name-brand diploma opens certain doors, I don’t think it’s everything. No one will ask you where you went to college after a few years into your career. What matters is you.
Frankly, I wish my kids don’t have my life even if they make $9k a month starting… a lot less if you take out tax and high rent in the bay area, slaving away 12-15 hours a day without weekends.
Way to go to your daughter! I know she’s creative and artsy and isn’t her techie bro, so she had to put in the work to pull up that grade! D24 said she’s accepting her B+ in AP Chem. She said once she accepted that, it was very liberating. HAHA. It’s her first B ever in her life. I told her if she found that liberating, wait til she hits college physics. LOL