<p>So far she doesn’t have a preference. I’d never be here asking if she did, she’s made her own schedule forever. This time she’s asking me for advice.</p>
<p>She doesn’t need to take AP Lit, especially if she has AP Lang under her belt. Both my kids did very well without them. I’m with the crowd that think with her demanding schedule the perfect course might be something a little more offbeat and fun. (But if she’s the sort that think Intro to Engineering is the funnest choice that’s okay too, that would have been my oldest’s choice! His extra course senior year was an Astrophysics course that counted as an honors but was supereasy.)</p>
<p>If she is interested in Engineering I strongly suggest that Engineering course. It may help her decide, and if she wants Engineering, it will help her write all those “Why Engineering” essays.</p>
<p>I think if it were me, I would probably suggest she take the late arrival. With 3 AP courses plus her sport, I assume she will be up late nights doing homework, in addition to college apps, essays, etc. From a parent’s perspective, I think she would be more likely to get proper rest/enough sleep this way and avoid possible burnout. As you mentioned, considering the number of AP courses that she has already taken, her course load over the four years sounds sufficiently challenging for college app purposes. </p>
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<p>South Dakota publics (among the cheapest of OOS publics in the US) also have a year of art requirement for frosh admissions.</p>
<p>If art is not an issue (either she has taken it, or will not to any school that requires it), and she is considering majoring in engineering, that introduction to engineering would be a good course for her to take to help her decide whether to apply to engineering divisions or majors at the schools where one applies to a division or major.</p>
<p>I agree with Always Learn about choosing the late arrival. I found my daughters’ senior year to be A LOT busier than I had anticipated. Also, I believe engineering technology is an actual field, and it is not the same as engineering. If your daughter is considering engineering, she can research various programs on her own without being constrained by a class that doesn’t sound particularly informative or challenging for her. FWIW, both my daughters are in engineering programs at highly selective schools, and both had to take introductory engineering classes right off the bat that gave them an overview of engineering at their particular schools.</p>
<p>I’ve barely seen Spygirl this year and I’m not even joking. Senior year has been busier than junior year and that just didn’t seem possible. Spygirl has similar classes and stats as your daughter. She chose to assistant teach for her free period and it’s been a great decision. </p>
<p>I don’t want her to have burn out before she even gets to college.</p>
<p>Thanks again all. She has a few days to decide so we’ll talk about it over the weekend. Any thoughts still, of course, welcome. </p>
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I hear students complain about bad teachers all the time: “I got a B because my teacher sucked.” “I hated subject X because my teacher made it so boring.” “The class was a waste of time. We just watched movies and listened to stories about the teacher’s cats.”</p>
<p>In this day and age, that sort of assessment of the situation shows an incredible lack of imagination and initiative. Students can self-study with traditional prep books and/or online resources. In fact, that’s exactly what strong science/math students do. Quality independent study is an important skill for students to pick up.</p>
<p>A student should never let the teacher get in the way of learning. Self-starters can turn a bad high school class into a great learning experience overall. If the teacher isn’t assigning much homework, this frees up the student to explore sub-topics that he/she finds interesting. The student could start up a study group with like-minded peers. Often times, struggling with material (but not too much) can lead to a deeper understanding of the concepts.</p>
<p>This is not meant to be an indictment of the OP’s daughter. I’m just pointing out that the student has more options than she realizes.</p>
<p>In the end, as long as she earns great grades and takes the most difficult curriculum offered at her high school, it probably won’t matter whether she takes AP Stats, APES, Intro to Engineering, or mentoring/study hall.</p>
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<p>But if you know you’re going to do that from the beginning, why take the class? You can self study without wasting an hour sitting there everyday. In my AP Bio classes, there were weeks at a time where we would literally just sit and talk all class period. I can see how that could be frustrating, especially for motivated students. I think teachers do have a strong influence on students’ experiences, and there are many subjects that I hated partly because I’ve never had a good teacher in them, despite good grades and test scores.</p>
<p>I think your point is more a "make the best of a bad situation, but I don’t think any student should purposely take a teacher with a really bad reputation if they have other options.</p>
<p>I checked in with D about this today and she is strongly leaning toward AP Stats or AP Enviro, rather than the electives (beyond the Econ/Psych to fulfill her social studies requirement). If she does that it will be 4 AP courses and she thinks she wants that. We still have a few days.</p>
<p>I will say she turned her nose up at the Eng course and that makes me think hard about choosing it as a college major…</p>
<p>And she registered. AP Physics C, AP Clac, AP Enviro and regular English/Social studies. She is considering switching out Physics for Bio now, though. Her reluctance to take engineering now has made her rethink the whole idea of being an ENG major in college. So…Bio may be a better match than Physics…</p>