<p>This is my third child. Oldest one is a senior at college, second is a freshman. Both are at private colleges. Both took AP classes. </p>
<p>I have learned a little bit from each child. My oldest took a moderately hard path and ended up with a 3.7 gpa in HS. After her first year of college she said she wished she had taken more rigorous courseload and a couple of more AP's. She quickly found out that passing out of a couple of more classes (via AP's) would have freed up her schedule.</p>
<p>So, with our next child, who had done very well his first two years of HS, we had him take a very rigorous schedule for his junior year. For various reasons that turned out to be a bad decision. Instead of rising to the challenge, he half heartedly studied and his A's and B's turned into C's. Senior year was better but by then his gpa was low enough that we started questioning how he would fare at a challenging college.</p>
<p>Like I've said, there aren't too many choices for ninth grade and child #3 is both a hard worker and very bright and fairly compliant. He likes to read, seems to like math (this year, this teacher) and has some nice friends. I started this thread mostly because I've been on this board for awhile and read about the many class choices in other school districts and was just wondering how similar the requirements are for graduation. In this NCLB era, I'm suprised that there aren't national requirements for High School graduation - yet.</p>
<p>My daughter just completed her junior schedule: H pre-calc, H physics, AP Lang, AP US History, (two electives: AP Chem & AP Art History). Because she attends a new High School, where she'll be the first graduating class (none above her), we don't have a huge amount of electives to choose from. The administration's putting more emphasis on providing teachers for lots of AP classes and less on providing things like Speech, Civil War history, Law Studies ... or a myriad of other honors options my son had to choose from at his High School. Unless she wanted to take P.E., voc-ed, or another fine arts elective there was nothing to choose from. So, she now has 4 AP classes. I tried to talk her down, so to speak, but she's, frankly, bored in most of her honors classes and feels she can handle the load. I hope so. My son took a similar load his junior year and didn't apply himself quite as well as he should, allowing his grades to slip. He's an AP scholar with distinction, but his GPA doesn't reflect his true abilities, and I think it's going to hurt him with his first choice school. Thankfully, he had stellar SAT's/ACT's. She's a different kid, though ... someone who will do all the work, and then some, because she doesn't want her grades to drop, even if she thinks the work is busy work. My son, on the other hand, would go "so, I get an A on the math test without doing the homework, why should I waste my time?" and boy, has that come back to bite him in the butt. Mom and Dad aren't as stupid as he thought. <g></g></p>
<p>kathiep, you are right, I was pretty lucky to have my schedule work out, in more ways than just one. Because many of my classes this year have a very small number of sections (AP German, Calc III, and Wind Ensemble have only one each, plus AP Physics only has two), my options for scheduling were very limited and it was only through luck that I was able to enroll in all of my desired classes. Had I not made Wind Ensemble this year, Band and Calc would have been at the same time, and I honestly don't know which of those I would choose. </p>
<p>Our school is not particularly conducive to GPA/class rank conscious students taking electives, because it is tipped heavily towards the AP program. With the sole exception of science (which isn't an elective, but anyway), we do not offer an honors course where an AP course exists. For example, in 11th and 12th grade, you are either in regular english, or AP English. There is no midway, honors level. There are honors classes, but they are weighted the same as AP classes. This is true for electives as well--if it's not AP, it's not weighted. We do offer 20 AP's, though (Major exceptions would be Art History, Latin, and any language other than Sp/Fr/GR). Interesting to see how different schools can be...</p>
<p>My kids HS does not have AP German, Calc III or a Wind Ensemble. Actually the only AP for a language is Spanish. AP Physics is taught period one, which is the same as band. We have the same thing with honors and regular classes or AP and regular - no midway path at all. In 12th grade (the only year that students can take AP english) one must have had a B in honors english 11 or an A in regular English. I'm assuming that size of the school probably plays a big role in what can be offered. Our HS has about 1,000 students.</p>
<p>Size definitely matters. My high school is 3600 students and growing all the time (my school district has another high school, built only a few years ago, that is already overcrowded with 4000 students, and in the upcoming years we are building a third high school. Our district is huge). I am certainly not complaining about my school's scheduling--we are very lucky to be offered so many AP and other special courses, and we are able to maintain an excellent, National Grammy Awardwinning school music program. Plus I realize that I am lucky to be able to take a course like AP German, which only has 8 students--many schools would not offer a course for only 8 kids. In your previous post, you pointed out something that I had not realized: that we are lucky to be able to take so many courses through our local CC. Again, this is somewhat based on the largeness of my school district, and probably also our location in the obviously well-populated Chicago metropolitan area. </p>
<p>My only real complaint with the school's scheduling is the aforementioned AP/regular English issue. More so than in any of my other classes, two levels is really not enough for English. There are so many kids in my AP class who are certainly too advanced for regular english, but also aren't really on the AP level (I am sure that sounds incredibly harsh and arrogant, but...it's true. I don't think anything less of these kids as people, or anything, but they are not as advanced as their counterparts in AP History or AP math.)</p>
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Plus I realize that I am lucky to be able to take a course like AP German, which only has 8 students--many schools would not offer a course for only 8 kids.
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Indeed you are. They never would have allowed this at my D's public HS. The AP chem teacher had to jump through hoops to have an AP Chem class one year with an enrollment of about 20 students. They never would have allowed a class of less than that and many years don't have an AP Physics class due to not enough (at least 20-30) kids signing up to take it. Fortunately both of my Ds managed to take it on the years they did offer it. </p>
<p>Regarding AP English - the same was true at my D's school. There's a huge contingent of ESL and first gen (hispanic) students at that school so the 'normal' English is an very low level and therefore 'honors' English is what I'd consider should be the basic level anywhere else. This meant that a number of students went ahead and went into AP English to have some challenge but it may have brought that down a notch also.</p>
<p>Yes, for all of it's downfalls that I could complain about, my school seems pretty committed to providing us with the classes that we need, on every level, which is of course the most important aspect of a school! If there is a next level of a course that you are qualified for, they really try to get you in that class. For example, my Calc III class (22 kids) has 2 juniors, and they are working on figuring out what those kids will take next year. Now, this class is a correspondance course with U of I, and we paid a fee for it (I think it was $300, or something), and I am sure that those kids will have to pay for whatever course they end up in next year, but still. The school is interested in helping them. </p>
<p>When I really think about it, my school offers an amazing number of courses--181 in all, including the music program and excluding PE (we still have to support a large dept. b/c PE is required in IL). I think that the large size of the school and the fact that, though not totally open, enrollment in advanced courses is largely interest based (which does leave to a few missteps--a girl in my AP Physics C course was only in Precalc. She dropped at the semester because...come on) leads to the ability to carry all these courses.</p>
<p>In our HS there are prerequistes for taking AP classes. For AP English students have to have had at least a B in honors English 11 or an A in regular English 11. Many students now get around that by avoiding honors english 11 because that teacher is a very hard grader and the class is very challenging - more so then the AP English class. </p>
<p>Even the honors classes have prerequistes. To take honors english in 9th grade you cannot have less then a B every quarter in 8th grade. I understand the reasoning behind that but without that middle track many kids are left in a classroom with the teacher teaching to kids that might not want to be there or perhaps not challenging some enough, or maybe the kids that need to go slower struggling. The non-leveled teaching seems to leave a lot of kids out imo. I think it's basically a heck of alot easier to schedule if you only have two levels.</p>
<p>I misspoke a bit when I said that there were not any requirements for AP/honors courses. Students who get C's in the prerequisite class, or B's in the regular-leveled prereq, almost never attempt to gain entrance into the next level, thus leaving little need for heavy handed requirements. But the actual recommendations themselves are left up to individual teachers, so those who have a rec-happy teacher (point at the class on the sheet and I'll circle and initial) and do okay in the class won't face too many problems. So, I would say that in reality the prereq's are pretty much like your kids' school's. They are just rarely challenged, and not that difficult to complete. In a lot of cases (again, English is my pet example), an A is hard to get, but a B of some persuasion is pretty attainable. Again, the kids are competant, just not full on AP level. </p>
<p>Of course, there are always exceptions. I was in our school district's gifted program for elementary and middle school students from the 2nd grade on. In MS, it was about 20 kids, and we took all of our classes together and had the same teachers every year. Well, come 8th grade, and our teachers were supposed to make HS recs based on standardized test scores and grades. My science teacher was...not a nice person, ever. She refused to recommend me for Honors Bio because I <em>only</em> had a B or B+ average (in the gifted course). My test scores were 99th percentile. She refused to recommend one of my good friends who is incredibly gifted in science--the kind of kid who read about physics for his own personal enjoyment while still in MS and who is now a prospective Physics major--because he was SICK on the day of the test and <em>only</em> scored in the 90th(!) percentile. Kids in the regular classes were waltzing into the class. We got in eventually, but...talk about power trip. </p>
<p>Not all prereq's are bad--to get into my Calc III class, you had to have a B+ class average, a 4 or 5 on the AP test, and a 27 ACT. Tough, but pretty necessary.</p>
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my Calc III class (22 kids) has 2 juniors, and they are working on figuring out what those kids will take next year.
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My D flat ran out of math courses offered since she'd already taken AP Calc and AP Stats by the time she was a junior so she didn't take any math her senior year. It's good your school is at least considering what to offer the kids in their senior year.</p>
<p>Not that running out of math was a problem with my kids - both did whatever they could to avoid calculus- but our school has an arrangement with area colleges including Lehigh and students can take a couple of classes at a local college if they have an IEP. That's pretty much just the gifted kids. We have 5 4-year colleges within 20 minutes and Lehigh is about 10 min. including parking. Ha! I found something good to say about our school!</p>