@SculptorDad What about the kids who aren’t actually smart? Not fair to exclude them, is it? They don’t deserve a chance at the Ivies?
@saillakeerie , sorry for not being clear. I agree with you. I was only trying to show reduction to absurdity logic.
@tutumom2001, if they can achieve what they want to achieve by working extra hard, it’s their and the colleges’ choice. Doesn’t matter if a 3rd person thinks they are elite college material or not.
Summer academic programs are another example of kids from wealthier families having more opportunities than some of their peers, and I don’t just mean sleepover programs. Not saying it’s right or wrong; it’s just the way it is.
Our school district allows students to “knock out” things like Health, PE, etc. over the summer. Sometimes kids do this to get a free period each day during the school year, which might help them to keep up with their schoolwork. Some of the band, orchestra and chorus kids do it for scheduling flexibility. Some kids truly want to make space for another class that interests them.
Then there are the “gamers”: the students who take another AP class during that “extra” time slot to help their GPA and class rank. How would I know that’s their reason? Because this is a rampant topic on the ball fields, which is the main place I interact with other parents. I try to avoid these kinds of conversations, but I overhear an awful lot.
The charge is a couple of hundred dollars for the summer classes, which run for something like 6-8 weeks, 3 hours/day. Then there is transportation. For the rising 9th or 10th grader who doesn’t live in or near a subdivision, and whose parents commute to work, how do you get to and from class? What if it’s your job to babysit younger siblings? Maybe you have an older sibling who drives, but they have to get to and from work, just like your parents.
So the kids who do this generally have a SAHP and/or a sibling with an extra vehicle. Even in our relatively well-off district, that makes the option inaccessible to a lot of students (my two included). It wasn’t a big deal for our family, but I wish it wasn’t becoming the norm.
Colleges always want a few bookworms, if a kid really wants to do this far be it for me to say they should spend their summers with a nose in the books. Point is, colleges look for diversity and believe me they aren’t giving bonus points to a kid who takes a class they are already taking in the fall over a kid who works at the ice cream stand…far worse would be to have a kid who gives up something they want to do during the summer thinking they need to have their nose in a book for a class they are going to take anyway in the fall…
@momofthreeboys Local students work summer jobs in NJ also. But NJ is an at-will state, and local seasonal workers can quit as they please. The seasonal businesses on the boardwalk are taking advantage of the J-1 visa program to reduce the uncertainty of teenagers quitting mid-summer.
@tutumom2001
This is irrelevant to what’s going on in these hyper-competitive places. The course-previewing students are NOT taking the classes at their own schools. They take the classes at private programs. These programs are at any of three possible venues:
- Private schools, locally or boarding
- Universities that offer summer HS classes, locally or boarding
- Private academies, like Chinese weekend schools or Japanese weekend schools in the region, where students attend on Saturdays and Sundays during the school year, and all summer.
There is no requirement that they report that they took the class already over the summer. And if there were such a requirement, they wouldn’t report it anyway. How would the school know?
@LuckyCharms913 , I agree that the system is unfair. All I am suggesting is it can’t be fixed by artificially preventing them from playing game without fixing the underlying system that rewards the game players.
@momofthreeboys , Maybe tippy top colleges. What about 2nd tier ones? Don’t they care less and less on anything but grade and test score as the ranking goes down?
Not all kids are doing that with Ivys as realistic target. A state flagship or some lessor know but still decent colleges with computer science major would be a more common target, and those colleges do give bonus to the kids working on academics giving up what they really love to do. If something is wrong, then it’s the system and not the hard working kids.
In our district, about half the class in any given honors/accelerated math or science class has previewed the entire course over the summer. In many classes, the teacher asks on the first day for of show of hands of who took the course already.
Summer schools or extra prep is not the issue. Potential deception is. All is fine if we have a full disclosure. What’s not OK is some appear to be smart but actually not simply being inefficiently over-prepared.
As an ORM I worry that my kids may be viewed as the summer-schooling, weekend-studying type. We are not. We value other things too. So, I push for full disclosure and encourage people do whatever they please as long as they disclose.
However, given schools are now aggressively digitizing what kids do everyday, I think full disclosure will arrive sooner rather than later.
Learning subject matter ahead was done by a good portion of the students who were in my kids’ classes. I previously mentioned in one of my son’s calculus classes only he and one other student hadn’t learned the subject matter ahead of time. However, differing from what other parents here are mentioning, our students didn’t take classes for credit at other schools. They took tutoring classes – numerous companies around here who are familiar with the subject matter taught and books used at the particular schools in the area – where a small group of students would be taught together. Some of the kids formed their own group to be taught together. The goal was to master a subject proficiently ahead of time in order to achieve a high grade when they took the class at their school. Many of the students continued with tutoring throughout the year, going over current classwork.
For example, Ardent Academy in Irvine offers these summer classes:
B120 - Jump Start Honors Biology (Grades 9 - 10)
B130 - Jump Start AP Biology (Grades 10 - 12)
And these 30 week classes during the school year
B210 - Honors Biology and Biology Olympiad 1
B220 - AP Biology and Biology Olympiad 2
And the same sequence for chemistry and physics.
And a bunch of math competition prep classes.
All Im saying is (at the Jersey shore) -its next to impossible to get your local teen aged 13-18 a summer job bc they are all taken up by J1 visa workers.
As an amusement park owner we know says 1. We hire 500 J1 workers bc it costs us less $$ in payroll (tax savings… 8%x500workers =savings!) 2. They are available from May until Sept 3. They work longer/more hours and don’t need time off to go on family picnics and parties w friends 4. they are more reliable-bc they live in the boarding house we rent to them .,
American HS students don’t get out of school until around June 23ish…
So if you can’t get your kid a job, I see NO REASON NOT to at least keep them busy with summer enrichment classes. IMO its more dangerous (drugs teen pregnancy) to let them just be idle …I don’t get all the outrage. ??
With a summer job at a restaurant, delivering pizzas, ice cream parlor, etc. its very likely kids will be limited to 20-30 hours a week (no one will want to pay overtime/benefits). Still leaves time for other things. Time with friends, sports or academic endeavors.
25 hours work would mean 5 hours work + 1 hour commute every weekday. I don’t see how kids have time with friends, sports or academic endeavors.
Is Summer Vacation time for relax or time for self-development. Or either relaxing or self-development is fine as long as it is not academics so other kids who don’t do academics during the Summer won’t get disadvantaged in the new school year?
PrimeMeridian’s point about athletics is an interesting one. When a student goes to an expensive summer sports camp and comes back a better athlete, few would criticize the student for somehow cheating the system. In fact, most observers would laud the student for his “dedication” in the sport. This same analogy would apply for music, computer coding, etc. But when the student does summer academic camp to either forward place or to preview, it all of a sudden seems sleazy. (And yes, I do think it is kind of sleazy). This apparent incongruity is very interesting.
What happens when these “preview” kids go to college? Do the parents hire a private instructor to teach them the course ahead of time?
I don’t know how to explain this any more clearly. If a high school doesn’t allow students to pre-take or re-take courses for the purpose of getting a better grade, then going behind their back to another school to do this without their knowledge is unethical. Can’t see why you can’t understand that. There is a difference between self-development and taking the exact same course.
Just one of the problems I see is that teachers tend to use the exams provided by the textbook publishers, and so you may end up with a situation where the pre-takers have already seen the exam. Part of the appeal of this entire sleazy process I guess.
"For example, Ardent Academy in Irvine offers these summer classes:
B120 - Jump Start Honors Biology (Grades 9 - 10)
B130 - Jump Start AP Biology (Grades 10 - 12)
And these 30 week classes during the school year
B210 - Honors Biology and Biology Olympiad 1
B220 - AP Biology and Biology Olympiad 2
And the same sequence for chemistry and physics.
And a bunch of math competition prep classes"
The only classes which have been mentioned in this pretaking context are STEM classes. That’s clearly because in the case of STEM it give a large advantage to students re-taking the class because the curriculum is pretty standard and the facts and problem types to be mastered pretty clear cut. This would be considerably less so in an English class, and surprise! the listing from Ardent doesn’t have any English class. So just stop pretending this is about learning and skills development. It’s about gaining an unfair advantage.
There are plenty of books and activities out there, if your kid has an interest in something there are many ways to explore it other than repeating the exact same coursework twice.
“What happens when these “preview” kids go to college? Do the parents hire a private instructor to teach them the course ahead of time?” And this is why yes, a college has a legitimate interest in knowing whether the ridiculous extreme of pretaking the entire course was necessary to achieve that A. If a student is that far behind the curve in their ability to master material as it is presented, the first time it is presented, then they are going to struggle in college.
@PrimeMeridian I heard that sometimes kids sit in on large lecture classes at college before they actually take them.
So someone with a kid at the public high school who seeks a paid consultant, because the overworked guidance counselors at the high school barely knows the kid, would have to disclose, but the kid at a private high school with talented counselors will not?
Lots of sour grapes in this thread. You’re mad at kids for doing academics over the summer versus what the average American kid does, which is sit on their iPhone in front of the tv for 15 hours a day all summer?