Perspective on value of honors classes

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
21

I completely agree with @SculptorDad

My DS scored phenomenally high on SSAT but wasn’t placed in honors classes third form. He is now, but that was after a year of the school assessing him. He had an easier time adjusting to the overall changes of BS life (even though your kid is a day student, there will still be adjustments) and excelled in his classes. I think the schools want to err on the side of caution and set the kids up for a successful start versus a struggle. I don’t know of a school out there that doesn’t have a grace period for class adjustment, up or down.

Not having honors math or science her first year will not scar her college application, but having a difficult time or too much pressure while adjusting to a new school setting could scar her. I would trust the school.

22

I find it interesting how important this felt in July, and how much less critical it feels now. I agree - the school knows what they’re doing. But I’m still glad D reached out to find out if she had other options. They let her retake the math placement test, and I told her that she should accept the outcome, whatever it is. They know the standard, and they can tell who is prepared for it.

The physics class is apparently quite flexible, with the standard and honors levels co-taught by a team of teachers. All students will have the option to do the honors work, and at mid-terms they’ll reassess the whole class.

Somehow, having her actual schedule in hand, and seeing how few free hours there really are, is making the honors track seem like a lot to bite off. If she should decide science or engineering is her goal, she’ll have to make some tough compromises, and if she feels honors classes will need to be part of that, perhaps even more tough compromises. I think they call that “growing up”.

23

The other thing is, not only does the school know the tracks of local schools and their own curriculum: They also know details about the incoming students. They may have 10-15 outstanding math or science kids so they know the level is going to be really high in the highest level class. They may even have a handful of math competition winners. My younger kiddo recognized kids from the local math team finals at a camp that was not even STEM based.

24

@OnToTheNext , curious how everything has played out roughly a month in.

25

Thanks @gardenstategal - I was actually debating whether to update now or after the final grades are in. Maybe I’ll do both!

The department head allowed her to retake the placement test at the start of the year. She took her time and felt good about it afterwards. It wasn’t difficult, but there were nuances that she probably skimmed over the first time just becuase it wasn’t difficult!

They placed her in Honors Geometry after all, and reshuffled her whole schedule. After we had bought all her books, of course. And we haven’t funded her account like a boarder’s, so it was super fun to deal with returns and new books the day before classes started (she managed the process, we were on the phone with the credit card).

Academically, it was so absolutely the right choice! She LOVES the class. She describes it as debate and writing with geometry as the subject matter. She doesn’t always get things “right”, but she’s learning so much from her classmates and how they think. It’s really helping her craft her responses and arguments very intentionally. Her teacher seems to have a gift for guiding these kids - I’ve never heard of a teaching method like hers, but it’s clearly effective. I don’t think it’s an “easy” class - TheNextKid says she’s thinking for the first time. The teacher advised class grades recently. You can imagine how proud we are to learn she’s currently got an A… I was expecting some version of B. There can’t be too many A’s - I’ve seen the grade distribution for the school and A’s are scarce. OTOH, I have every expectation that the end of year grade will not be so impressive. :slight_smile: But it’s nice while it lasts.

For comparison, she has classmates from her former LPS who were in the same Algebra I class last year (they go to other BS’s, all academically rigorous). She is the only one who is in Geometry this year, and the only one at an honors level. So I do believe her current school “knew something” about the standards of the LPS. And I’m very pleased they were willing to reassess and give her another chance.

So, what is my takeaway? Not really sure. While I wanted to just trust the school, I also really wanted TheNextKid to explore her limits. Each situation is so different. But I would recommend to other parents in a similar situation, it’s worth it to start the dialogue before the first day of school. To begin on one schedule and shift to another even a few days in is REALLY hard. Even if the actual schedule doesn’t change. It’s a lot more about how they manage their entire day, when they have time to do schoolwork, and the decisions they’ll make in other areas. For example, being enrolled in a standard level class may leave time to join a team sport instead of a PE class, or time to add in another club or two that will ultimately benefit the student even more than an honors track class. But then again, the honors class may be more fulfilling and open doors you can’t see yet, despite the workload and possibly lower grade.

So I have no advice for those in the same boat. As we can all see from the comments in this thread, there are a lot of different opinions and they all are the right approach for those kids.

26

Thanks for the update, @OnToTheNext ! I think the takeaway is to have the dialogue and to have it early enough to be actionable. You know your kid better and they know thr school. Sounds like you all got this one right!