My junior year, I plan to be in 4 APs & 1 Honors. Senior year- 3 APs plus foreign language. Both of these years I wanted a TA period. Reasons being- a) it will help me manage the heavy workload of my classes better b) some people think of art or journalism as their ‘fun elective class’ and that’s how I view TA. c) I may want to be a teacher so I’d enjoy this perspective/experience. At my school, if you’re a TA you basically help grade the papers, make deliveries around campus, help out students in the class with their work if they need it, and whatever else the teacher needs help with. But I’m worried that having 2 years of this class will be highly detrimental to my college applications for UC schools, because I’m very concerned it will be seen as a ‘lazy class.’ However, I can’t handle more APs or rigorous courses in place of TA, so if I were to take a different elective, it would be something like art which still wouldn’t be a highly valued class. Plus, I am planning to take a high number of AP classes already. If my grades are solid in those, on top of strong SAT scores and some extra curriculars, would it really be that bad?
IMO, I don’t think it is. I personally don’t view TA-ing as the same level of “easy” as an art or PE class, since it involves helping the teacher and other students. At my school, there aren’t official TA positions but I have acted as TA for some of my teachers unofficially, and I can say it has helped me with my own work in the courses. So overall, no- I don’t see it as a bad idea.
Do you have a research period anyway? As a parent I would not agree to 2 yrs TA. It is discouraged in the academic pathway here, unless is it just a single semester fill which would otherwise be a fluff elective class. 2 actual whole academic years is a complete waste. Are you optimized for your UC gpa? What are your actual classes? Your competition is not wasting 2 yrs on TA, they are working on 2 more APs.
And you are competing for admission at the top UCs against kids that can.
@mikemac I understand that of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take 6 APs and let my grades suffer in all of them. My high school is a very rigorous one, every single one of our regular classes are equivalent to an average high school’s honors courses, so I need to let my mental health come first at some point. I’ve been told countless times that GPA is not the sole factor in admission, nor are the classes
@Sybylla My school does not have research periods - I’m not even familiar with what one is. My actual courses planned for junior year are AP English Lang, APES, Pre-Calc Honors, APUSH, AP Psych, TA. Senior year: AP English Lit, Spanish 5-6, AP Gov and Politics, AP Stats, Yearbook, and TA. My UC GPA will already be capped at 4.5 after accounting for my 2 honors courses sophomore year, except for UCLA which does not cap GPA. Theoretically, I could take an academic AP elective instead of TA, like AP Human Geo for example. But from what I’ve been told from relatives in college as well as my GC, it’s not smart to take APs just because they’re labeled AP when you have no interest in them or they don’t apply to the major you’re interested in. As for the a-g requirements: I’ll have 1 more than I need for history, science, & foreign language. I’ll have 2 more than I need for math, and all of the others will be fulfilled.
You only have 6 periods? What is your major, there are no real sciences in your jr and senior year? TA and yearbook as senior year classes? ? Which schools are you looking at? Maybe you are right if you are not looking at competitive entry. Certainly I have met parents who don't comprehend rigour and discourage APs but their kids aren't looking at competitive schools. I
My school only has periods 0-6. 0 period is only for students who need to retake a class they previously failed, or the students in certain music electives. My school requires an elective in the career prep category,
no academic elective falls into that. I’ve opted to take yearbook because it looks excellent on college apps - it shows leadership skills as well as a high level of involvement in the school community. I’d like to go to UCLA but not counting on it; UCSD is where I plan to go if accepted. I don’t know where you’re getting that I have parents discouraging APs - I never said that. But my guidance counselor as well as college admissions officers (from UCLA) that I’ve spoken to all discourage taking an AP just because it’s an AP. My planned major is either Psychology, Education, or English. So why would I need to take rigorous science classes… & APES isn’t considered “not a real science” at my school, as you put it. It’s actually an extremely challenging course at my school.
The UCB admissions counselor who spoke to my kid’s group said that if your kid shows up at UCB and has never had a job, never had duties to something other than himself, never been responsible or accountable to other people, then sending them to UCB in such a state is not a good idea. The counselor asked that we, the parent, have that kid learn to do something other than sit in the classroom and do classwork, have that kid get a job.
TA positions can be spun as school-time jobs, and it is your duty to spin it as such. Additionally, there should be something concrete, something real that you are responsible for doing and a teacher who can speak to that. That teacher would then also be a great resource for you when you are seeking recommendations which attest to your leadership, work ethic, and responsibility.
Two years of being a TA, for one semester per school year, would be fine, I would think, especially in light of the way courses are structure at your school which do not have you failing to enroll in the upper level studies. You will be assessed as a candidate according to what you have done when choosing from what is available to you at your school.
Two years of being a TA might seem like were side-stepping an opportunity to take an academic class, where it is available, but could also be the culmination of your developing a classroom strategy for assisting other students (developing effective ways to implement a particular teacher’s curriculum ideas,or implementing curricular ideas for a small group of struggling students in the class that may be designed to bolster exactly the skill sets they are deficient in).
These things are possible, but would require that you have had the impetus and instinct to actually assist in teaching, as well as the freedom to do so. Yes, I have seen this at work.
@Waiting2exhale thank you - that was a very helpful response! I plan to TA for the same teacher the entire time I’m a TA; I would ask her to write my letter of recommendation (she was also my English teacher, so she would be able to speak to that being my strongest subject) so in that letter she can speak to the things I did as TA. Although still exploring career options, I am possibly interested in being a teacher, and I feel that this experience as a TA would benefit me - the teacher I plan to TA for already let me know that if I go through with it, I can conduct classroom discussions every now and then, since my English skills are strong. And although my school offers an Intro to Teaching elective, that class is being a TA (and actually teaching every now and then) at the elementary school level only, a level I am not interested in. I have a job during the summer, and plan to keep a part-time one during my junior year - but in case I cannot handle that, I’m hoping TA can be viewed as a work experience sort of class. At my school, I can be a TA for either one semester or the entire year, but we have no other 1 semester electives. Therefore, if I TA for one semester a year, the second semester that class would become a free period. So if I do TA in both 11th and 12th grade, would you suggest the full 4 semesters, or 1 semester of it each year?
I would suggest one semester one year, though if you believe you may list teaching/education as a major/minor interest in college, AND you take advantage of the teaching opportunity relationship with the aforementioned teacher who then makes herself available to you at the time of writing recommendations to speak to your growth and work ethic as an assistant, I would say that doing a full-year for the next TA period would reflect well on you.
Remember that listing teaching/education as a possible interest does not obligate you to actually study that in college, but it would make sense then that your HS classroom assistant experience has served as an early training ground for you.
I think you should be fine.
@Waiting2exhale thank you so much - your feedback has genuinely been a tremendous help!! (:
And at a UC you would be competing against students who not only could handle it, but who, by virtue of taking a full academic load, also will be better prepared for a full college workload.
Please don’t make the mistake of equating AP’s, especially Pysch and Enviro, as equivalent to real college courses at competitive schools.
Case in point: My daughter took 14 or 15 AP’s, had an unweighted 3.95+, and was very surprised by the demands of her freshman year at Duke.
Yet imagine, top schools take kids who do not have a boat load of APs all the time. Those kids, using the same skills that got them there, succeed.
It is not an ‘all-AP world or else.’
@sherpa - you say not to make the mistake of viewing ap psych or apes as full blown college level courses, but believe me - if you spent a week at my rigorous high school, you’d see that all of the APs it offers are VERY much college level. Rigor all differs depending on each high school…
@socalkid1 - Do you think that teaching a single semester college class as a full year HS AP class gives a HS student an accurate view of what college will be like?
@sherpa - all of the APs at my school are designed to be equivalent to full year college level courses. I have a cousin currently majoring in psychology, and she’s in 2 full year classes that are similar to the material the AP Psych class covers at my high school. And due to the dates of the AP exams, the AP classes at my school actually finish instruction of all material roughly 2 weeks prior to the start of exams.
Is this a private high school?
I’m with mikemac and sherpa. It’s about how the college views your course choices and prep- and the competition from other kids. Most very competitive adcoms find APES and psych less rigorous than bio, chem or physics. Same with stats vs calc (not just pre-calc.) And as a hs kid, 16 or 17, TA isn’t really seen as teaching, not like the use of the word for grad students. You would be helping. Kids in some places do it on top of a full academic load.
It’s not about loading up on AP. Just be sure you aren’t perceived as protecting your GPA via some of these classes, yearbook and TA. And have you looked at the a-g requirements for lab sci, will you meet it? See how they discuss bio chem, physics.
@sherpa - it is public, but the school district is a very strong one that values class rigor