<p>Student is exhausting school's math and foreign language class offerings this year. From my reading I thought colleges would want to see student continue with 2nd year calc-"BC-equiv" (at local college or on- line) and also with foreign language (at local college or AP on-line) for 4 years of each during hs even though he has accelerated through the "4th " year of offerings a year early. High school GC is recommending never before offered AP European History, in addition to Amer Gov which is required. Not sure why. With above, schedule will be 2 online APs plus 2 in school APs plus Physics CAPP plus a independent study required class(because there's no room) and 2 more classes, No study hall,and a slew of time-consuming leadership ECs. </p>
<p>Since I expressed my concern that time-wise this is going to be even more challenging than this year of 4 APs (the school gives so much homework, the kid is up at least 12mn and often 2AM just to get the work done-intellectually it is not a problem--it is fitting in 2-3 hours of homework per class, per day, everyday.) It has impacted the family daily and limits activities because kids can't even leave home for the weekend for fear they can't get all of the work done. Student is plowing through with light at the end of the tunnel for junior year but with this schedule looming for next year plus all of the college apps, etc., it is really discouraging. </p>
<p>Anyway, I asked for suggestions of which (long-term) ECs to drop without affecting college apps and school suggests dropping language because student has already had "4th" year of it.
Question: wouldn't it be better to drop the history than the language? Student will already have taken Western Civ., Amer. History, AP Hum. Geo. and will be taking Am. Gov? Alternately student was told to drop the calc, since he has had AB. I would think that Math and Language would be more important that adding a history AP. Is it really necessary to take every AP offered in your school???? Any help is appreciated.</p>
<p>Most colleges want to see 4 years of core classes (history and Government are both social science core classes). Your school sends a profile over of which classes are offered so that does help some. I would suggest keeping math and science in the schedule but you don’t need 4 AP’s to do that. There have been a lot of news articles about the “sweet spot” for AP classes and college admissions and 5 total AP classes seem to be what colleges want. More isn’t going to hurt you, but it isn’t going to “help” either. Yes it will be much better to drop the history vs the language. Colleges do like to see languages and with 5 years of a language in high school, most likely will be able to test out of any college language class requirement, if there is one, freeing up time in the college schedule.</p>
<p>I also wish that some high schools would figure out that more homework does not mean you have a better school :D.</p>
<p>No it is not necessary to offer every AP offered by the school. There are advantages to taking another year of a language - the main one being to get good enough at it to place out of a school’s language requirement and/or to place into a higher level in college and have the ability to actually do research in the language. My younger son whose last B in Latin was a gift, took Latin 4 as a junior and no language as a senior. With an excellent rank, and very good scores he got into schools like U of Chicago, Vassar and Tufts. He had 6 APs: AP Euro, AP World, APUSH, AP Bio, AP Physics C and AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>My advice would be to continue with math and then for your kid to decide whether he likes history or language more. The one other factor if favor of history is whether taking a language would cause your GC not to check off “most rigorous” for his curriculum.</p>
<p>Ironically my language averse younger son, is majoring in IR at a college where the department insists on 8 semesters of language study or achieving fluency. He’s studying one of the most difficult languages out there - Arabic!</p>
<p>Thanks SteveMA and mathmom! I am worried that the GC might not check “most rigorous” if the kid doesn’t take the AP History. As it is the school has gone from maybe offering 2 APs to about 7 while he has attended. If he takes the 2 additional APs on-line he will be graduating with the most APs of any alumni of that school-9 ( even if he doesn’t take the AP history). Since kid is accelerated in several subject areas, the classmates haven’t had the opportunities to rack up the APs. But this is not at all about the other kids in the class. They don’t have ranking and he is not competing against them at all. Only against himself. Which is a huge plus in this situation. So to me it seems he should still get ‘most rigorous’ but I am not in charge. I do love the GCs to bits but some of this stuff is hard to understand. Sort of regretting that we promoted in some subjects in 9th but he really wanted to and they were the best placements for him. In hindsight though, the other road might have been easier…</p>
<p>Doesn’t know. Way too many interests. Science/math teachers peg him as a “science guy” other teachers as an “English/humanities guy”. Wish he had a clue. It would make things easier, wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>Had you thought about the possibility to take math for one semester online or at a local college and foreign language one semester? BC-level Calculus is really only a one semester course at college if he’s had AB-level Calculus.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that applying to colleges and scholarships can end up being the equivalent of a course or EC of its own. (Of course, it depends on how many he applies to and how much you can recycle essays.)</p>
<p>I’m so glad that my daughter’s schools didn’t load on the homework. It made so much difference to our family that her homework load was more manageable.</p>
<p>Foreign language and math are more commonly considered by level completed, rather than number of years in high school. Of course, if the student is interested in going further in the subject than what the high school offers, taking additional courses at a local college is worth looking into.</p>
<p>Mrspepper–your school may not have a “public” ranking but they do rank and they do send that off to the colleges so GPA does matter. The “rank” might be “top 1%” and not 2 out of 228 but there is still a rank. I wouldn’t risk his GPA at this point in the application process. First semester senior year grades are VERY important–maybe even more so then what his transcript looks like now.</p>
<p>Does he have any idea of which schools he wants to apply to? If so, look at the most rigorous school’s criteria for admissions and use that as a guide.</p>
<p>Hi Steve, it’s a super small school i.e. top 1% is less than one whole person :). No weighted grades. Home Ec or Geometry or Music appreciation or regular Engish counts the same as AP Bio or AP Calc or APLit. Hard to differentiate yourself on paper at this school based on GPA alone since one could easily get a higher or same GPA by taking all “regular” classes than a full complement of APs. Has been a perennial question for some parents when it comes to local/school scholarships that the kids compete for, since they wonder whether GPA is considered more heavily by these committees than the rigor of the classes.( It appears to be the case. ) Some kids (parents) definitely “game” the system, avoiding certain teachers and taking classes on-line instead. (Not making a judgment. ) So one of the only ways i can see that will demonstrate that you have taken the tougher road (without the typical rank or weighted GPA for APs/honors) is to have the GC communicate that to the colleges or hope the colleges will really look at your particular very small school that doesn’t have national recognition and understand the situation. If the GC indicates that you didn’t take ‘most rigorous’ based on not taking one AP that was just added on for your senior year,( I mean if it was offered earlier, he would have taken it sophomore year when it was more manageable .) Not having the GC mark “most rigorous” will almost negate all of the other 8 APs and more difficult options the kid made all four years. It is frustrating and I am not sure if there is anything we can do about it.</p>
<p>I caution your son not to overload too much. </p>
<p>My daughter is a senior and she is taking 4 AP classes this year out of 6 periods (and one of the periods has AP macro one semester and AP gov the other semeter and another is AP calc BC one semester and multivariable calc the second semester) and her other classes are British literature/Shakespeare, which requires a lot of reading and memorizing scenes, and advanced accounting which doesn’t have much homework (luckily). In addition, her AP macro teacher is teaching micro on the weekends and holidays (about 18-21 extra hours). She’ll end up taking 6 AP tests in May. She took 3 last year and 1 as a sophomore.</p>
<p>She works 2-3 hours after school each day, participates in a handful of school activities and rec sports, although she no longer has time to play rec soccer during the school year and she really misses it, and usually only has about 45 minutes to eat dinner and relax on school nights. She does build in some time during the weekends to hang out with her friends and boyfriend but some of the socializing revolves around studying for an upcoming test so she doesn’t really get to completely relax much.</p>
<p>We live in Washington State which requires a culminating project for graduation but my daughter completed it as a junior because she knew senior year would be too busy. She also had to complete a High School and Beyond Plan which she just finished a few weeks ago. If your state/school requires similar graduation hoops to jump through you need to take them into consideration when figuring out your son’s senior schedule because those things take up precious time.</p>
<p>In addition, you need to think about the time that it takes to apply to colleges and for scholarships (completing apps, writing essays, gathering LORs, requesting transcripts, etc.). My daughter was extremely stressed during the fall. She’s stressed now because all of her academic ECs have competitions between March and May so she’s really on the go all the time now. </p>
<p>Mrspepper–I’d game the system for next year–to a point. Obviously you want him challenged but also you need to preserve GPA, not only for admissions but for scholarships. I would personally go for the BC Calc class and the 5th year language and take physics (regular if he has not has physics before, AP if he has) then whatever other required classes he has to take, non-AP since the school doesn’t really offer his required classes in AP it’s not going to hurt him for admissions. Think homework in the fall but also applications–schools and scholarships. IT’s BUSY. Look back on any of the parent threads from the various class years at posts from October and how stressed the kids are…easier is better in this case.</p>
<p>At many colleges a 3.8 will get them a full tuition scholarship-say $30,000 where a 3.7 will get them $15,000–it’s that close and no “can’t you just round up”.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that my daughter only took two years of a foreign language so she could squeeze in other academic classes. She also waived the second year of PE by participating in 150+ hours of sports outside of school hours and took an art class at the local community college last summer to free up one more period her senior year.</p>
<p>She’s interested in computer science and/or business so she’s taken four business classes, four math classes during high school (and took two high school math classes in middle school), computer science, and four science classes so she’ll be prepared for college. </p>
<p>The University of Washington likes to see a math class senior year but they’ll count a math-based science class for the requirement. They also state if you’ve already taken four years of math that is fine but based on past acceptances at our high school, it was noted that the students who took AP calc AB as juniors but didn’t take BC as seniors were not admitted. The UW has been ordered by the Legislature to accept more in-state students so they might not consider senior math classes in their decisions anymore.</p>
<p>My daughter’s GC was supposed to explain why she stopped after two years of foreign language but since the LORs are confidential my daughter doesn’t know that it was explained. Also, only three of her six applications required LORs so it will be interesting to see if she gets into those three private schools. She had no problem getting into two state universities with rolling admissions but the UW decision doesn’t come out until later this month, along with the other three private universities.</p>
<p>My perspective is not for getting in (which I think you are fine with as others said before with the four years schools want) - but rather for getting ahead once you are in college.</p>
<p>Take the BC calc - if he ends up needing calc in college the BC AP credits could get him credit for calc 1 and 2 (which may end up being all he needs for a non-STEM degree). Also, don’t waste time on the 5th year of history - 4 years is fine (colleges typically are not generous with history AP credits). For the language, take the 5th year if offered, again if he needs a language in college this might move him up on any placement test and either fulfill the requirement or advance him to a higher level class.</p>
Or they might not have thought it a good enough excuse. Some schools really do care about foreign languages, it’s not just lip service that they expect it. Vassar made it very clear when they came and talked to our parents night.</p>
<p>mathmom - Good post - the Harvard quote puts things in perspective nicely IMHO.</p>
<p>OP: My rec is to take the Calc BC and pass on the history, and I would also look at dropping the Lit course because of the expected time committment. My son did ok getting in to honor programs to all his schools, and accepted ED to his dream school, and he dropped AP lit Sr year, although he got a 5 in AP Lang junior year. He also got screwed over by his wimpy classmates - not enough signed up for mutivariate calc for the school to run the class - so he had to take AP stats instead. But it didn’t matter - and BTW - he did get an A in AP Spanish, but didn’t test in it. </p>
<p>Nugraddad-Did your student not have an English class in senior year? My student is take AP Lit now but they are adding Ap Lang for next year and they are expecting him to take it versus taking English at a local college ( he was ahead a year in English). It will be the same teacher as this year and if that is any indication, it will be a lot of work. But everyone thinks this is one of the teachers who should write his recommendations so he should take the class next year…
Thanks for everyone’s recs.</p>