@SculptorDad - When you say “Would it be more intellectual if they just spend the whole 3 months video gaming?” you are acting as if previewing courses and video games are the only two options for teens in the summer. My youngest is starting his senior year Monday and my kids have done many different things over the summer (including video games). Some of these activities are not intellectual but all of them are healthier than taking a class you are going retake during the school year (jobs, sports, camps).
I have no issue with summer classes to learn but I do think that previewing a class that you are going to take during the school year makes for a mind numbing experience. My kids school offers summer classes, for credit for students who want to get ahead, or who need to fix their grades from the previous year (its a private day school). However, these classes are graded and they appear on the student’s transcript.
I know lots of kids who take PE in the summer so they don’t have to deal with it during the school year. I also know lots of kids who want to accelerate their math sequence and do that by taking classes over the summer. Summer classes are not offered at the honors or AP level so most kids take the classes to get ahead in the sequence, not to increase their GPAs.
I wouldn’t mind if my kids took classes over the summer but I would encourage them to take stuff that they couldn’t take in regular HS, not the same thing they will be taking when school starts. I put them into private school because the repetition in the public schools around here is mind numbing. Why would I then encourage them to engage in mind numbing behavior?
Just to be clear-I don’t really care if other people do this with their kids. Other people can do what they like but this would not fly for our family.
As long as parents don’t socially handicap their kids anything works. The benefits of not doing solely individual schoolwork all summer or worse doing nothing…is the potential to end up with a socially stunted kid…which can be problematic in college and entering the workforce. There is a very good reason why selective colleges and universities look for well rounded kids…
I thought my oldest was playing too many computer games. Little did I know he was actually the lead programmer working with a team on a mod of Civ 4 that got awards and top reviews.
Indeed I feel I have said and heard all. Exiting this thread while wishing you all with great plans for Summer 2017. I got an email confirm yesterday that an art workshop will waive my d’s age and take her.
@momofthreeboys -I think we need to separate the general idea of taking summer classes and the idea of previewing classes that will be retaken during the school year. There is lots of room for social growth when kids take summer classes on college campuses. When my son took classes at Vanderbilt there was a lot of social time. The kids also got to see lots of stuff in and around Nashville on the weekends and after hours.
He wished he could do summer lacrosse and take summer classes but it wasn’t possible for him. Interesting classes taken on college campuses are often different from what students study during the regular school year. IMO these are very different and preferable to previewing (insert regular HS class here) and then taking it again in the fall.
@PrimeMeridian – Step 13 in The Onion piece is hilarious. I remember several years ago seeing posters in our neighborhood from a friend’s kid who was doing something like a “Relief Fund” for a natural disaster. The kid was a junior in HS. I thought it was kind of odd. Fast forward a few more years and their second kid was a junior in HS. Wouldn’t you know it, that kid also became compassionate for their fellow humans and put up posters for something some other kind of relief fund.
Anyway, while I laugh at the conspicuous timing of this compassion-awakening I do have to say that the kids actually did something (regardless of how much urging that took or that the reward was their own EC list). Maybe that’s an unstated goal of the holistic admission process – get kids to do things regardless of their true motivation.
@momofthreeboys post #165 We hope they look for well rounded kids. They certainly look for students who will succeed and thrive and bring their schools fame and money. There is is much anxiety among parents and students who see CC posts by kids with 12 APs and 36 ACTs and dozens of ECs, and therefore look toward anything to give the applicants a boost. It’s a relief to us for D17 and D19 to be looking at schools outside the ‘top 30’ that don’t expect 18 year-olds to have lived their lives before even going to college. I am not a bit jealous, no, not one bit…
@eiholi “Kids in my midwestern town have it easy, with little out of school extra studying. Somehow the top handful students still manage to have good grades, perfect or near perfect test scores, and end up getting into the top 1-20 schools.”
Getting in isn’t even half the battle. Not everyone is on the same level at orientation. Aggressive “coastal” kids hit the ground running and know how to play all the angles. Students not used to pressure cooker hyper-aggressive environments are often intimidated.
D1 took one summer course at a CC after freshmen year in college, just to get sophomore schedule easier. D2 took 2 summer course after 9th grades simply for required non-core subject so she can be much more flexible in junior and senior schedule (as many students could not get the 7th hour classes). I know some students took summer courses so that he/she can accelerate their Math track for instance.
Julian16, are you not well-traveled? Because SES and urban/rural distinctions are what drives familiarity. The affluent upper middle class kid from Boston or NYC doesn’t have an appreciably different set of life experiences from the affluent upper middle class kid from Chicago or Minneapolis or Kansas City or Denver or Seattle, except maybe he uses the word wicked a bit more.
Smart and ambitious people in 2016 are clustered on the coasts and in and around Chicago. That isn’t a debate. But it was @eiholi who brought up the coasts—not me. I assume in response to the article’s focus on CA, NY, NJ, CT, and NH where it’s a safe assumption this is most prevalent; again, because this is where the wealthy ambitious and smart people cluster. Go ahead and try to find these programs in Louisiana Mississippi and Michigan. You won’t.
My jaw dropped while I watched this series. This documentary should be cross listed in the horror genre. HBO should make a college admissions rat race version of this series.
@PrimeMeridian We’re talking academics, not athletics. Why is there this false notion that all hyper-aggressive academic kids aren’t happy? To many kids being smart, getting A’s, hopping classes over the summer, and being around smart peers is joyous. For some reason that’s absurd to folks in this thread. No way, kids should be kids working brainless jobs and spending hours curating the perfect snapchat story all summer!
My younger daughter did math competitions for a brief time. We stopped because she said it sucked the joy out of math. I distinctly remember texting my husband from outside one when she was in sixth grade saying something like
Omg it’s like being in a crazy youth sports parent group where they are all talking about what Big ten school their kid is going to play football at. Except it’s all Cal Tech and MIT.
I got an email confirm yesterday that an art workshop will waive my d’s age and take her.