<p>We just came back from orientation. My very bright and very ADHD daughter tested out of freshman English, pre-calc and Spanish I and II. There is a very good possibility that she got a 5 on her AP literature exam which will put her in the third level of English.</p>
<p>While we are very proud of her and love all the credit she has earned, her academic track record with her AP classes has not been good. Low A in AP Literature, low B in AP Spanish, barely B in AP Calc A/B, unearned barely B in AP Calc B/C, C in AP Art History, C in AP Physics and C in AP Bio. She is stubborn about her schoolwork and thinks that because she is bright that she "can do it herself". She resists support (tutoring, counseling, advice from Mom and Dad) and then has a melt down the last few weeks of the term when she realizes that she won't achieve the grades she expected.</p>
<p>I hoped that during her first semester that she would essentially re-take some of the AP classes that she struggled in so she could concentrate on adjusting to school. She has a scholarship and must maintain a 3.0 to keep it. We have signed her up with the disability resources center at school and are still working on the process to get her in the system. I talked to her about signing up for counseling as soon as school started and she looked at me like I grew two heads.</p>
<p>I hope that other parents of bright but scattered kids might have some advice. Thanks.</p>
<p>My S will retake calc at his school despite taking 2 years of calc and just finishing AP calc BC. Two reasons: freshman year is all about getting used to college, and there are so many other things to distract why not make the transition easier by taking what should be a fairly easy class for him? Second I want him to take their calc and learn what they think he needs to know in clac. OTOH, he will use his AP credit to pass out of the history requirement, even though he loves history. It is not needed for his major (Finance) and he won’t be taking any other courses that follow on that 1st year core history class. </p>
<p>Keep pushing your D to get the help she needs right from the get go. Better to start off with help than realize 2 months in she is in a hole and now needs to help getting out. My S was recently diaganosed with EFD and I am trying to line up something for him near or at his school. To be honest, he will probably be OK without anything, but I would rather drop the help than scramble trying to find help in Oct or Nov. if he is doing poorly.</p>
<p>^Some kids don’t need to repeat courses. My son took BC Calc and went on to the next logical level without any issues. But I do understand that OP has a different issue, especially since she’s required to keep a 3.0. (I really dislike this requirement as it discourages exploration and pushing oneself a bit. If my younger son had had such a requirement he would have been forced to drop Arabic.) College is structured very differently from high school - it may work better for her learning style and it may not - hard to know for sure ahead of time, but resisting support is a bad sign.</p>
<p>In your shoes, I’d make it very clear what you can afford and how important maintaining that 3.0 is to your ability to pay for the school.</p>
<p>Depending on her major, she might retake AP classes as they might want her to. My s’s retook calc and physics because their majors were/are in engineering. FWIW, my younger s resists any help too, but has mellowed a bit in college.</p>
<p>S1 took AP Calc. AB junior year of h.s. so his univ. placed him in Calc.2 for first sem. freshman year. I advised that he might want to drop back to Calc.1 as sort of a refresher course and make his first sem. a little easier. He did that only to end up with a foreign instructor he could barely understand who was teaching calc. in a way totally foreign to his AP Calc. in h.s. He was failing the class. He was on scholarship and needed to keep a 3.2 to keep the scholarship. </p>
<p>He was advised to drop the class which he did. He signed up for Calc.2 for Spring sem. Got a better teacher, attended office hours every week and got thru it with a B.</p>
<p>So in his case the retaking of calc1 for a refresher and hopefully easy A backfired on him.
His univ. is a big state u known for engineering. I think calc.1 is often a big weeder course.</p>
<p>I agree with Mathmom. Make it very clear to your D what the stipulations are for your financial investment in college and how maybe just taking one or at most 2 advanced courses is enough. The problem with taking advanced English and other comp type courses in college, is, as I found out with my 5 in English, is that the advanced courses assume that the students in those classes, not only are up there in terms of knowledge of English basics, but of the expectations of the college itself. Those beginning classes go over a lot more than just the building blocks of general knowledge in the field but how the college itself, the profs and classes use them. I got my head handed to me as most kids in the class had gone through the foundation courses at the college and I had not.</p>
<p>Math and foreign language may not be as much of an issue. My son went right into LInear Algebra after 5ing his AP BC calc course in high school where he got a solid B as a grade. Got A’s in every single college math course. Though he got college credit for all of his APs, that did not mean he necessarily skipped up to the next level in those types of courses and used some of his APs as filler college credits.</p>
<p>It totally depends on her major. If, for example, she’s a buisness major who just needs to check off the calc box and won’t have to take the “next” course, yes, take the credit.</p>
<p>I would take the freshman English credit under almost all circumstances, unless you think her writing is really poor. A lot of good writers don’t really need Freshman Comp.</p>
<p>Spanish- I’d probably take the credits if she only has to take I and II. If she has to take III and IV, unless she’s pretty fluent I’d go to II and skip I. My son tested into French II (after not having French since 10th grade.) He started French II and said OMG and dropped it almost immediately and went to French I.</p>
<p>Please don’t make her re-take anything. If she tested well, that means she learned what she needed to learn. Re-taking the same classes will just make her bored and resentful, and her grades will get worse, not better. I speak from my own experience and my son’s, and I think this is a common phenomenon with ADHD kids. (Perhaps some other parents can confirm that.)</p>
<p>I have always been told that it is best not to accept the AP credit if it is in the student’s major or a required class for med school acceptance. I know that many kids that go to Purdue struggle if they don’t retake the calculus there, as the sequences don’t match up well with the AP classes. Of course at that school calc is a weed-out class for the engineering students.</p>
<p>Wow, we are all over the place on this. If she can easily drop back, and she will if she finds the coursework above her ability then let her use her AP credit. The scholarship GPA thing though would push me to encourage her to repeat the lower level classes. How about you two can sit down together and look at the course description, maybe see what you can find out about the classes online and then compromise. Let her use the AP credit for the easiest and repeat the hardest. </p>
<p>As for counseling, my son is resisting the schools counseling but will go to an outside therapist. Of course… private therapy costs me money, school counseling would be free. I think my kid is afraid of being labeled. So I will pay for private therapy til I see his mid semester grades and know he is doing OK. Will continue past that point if he feels he needs it also.</p>
<p>Some students do well moving ahead in math; some do not do so well.</p>
<p>A freshman who knows calculus inside and out, typically getting a 5 on BC test while thinking it was easy after acing the BC class in high school, would likely benefit most from moving ahead (repeating would be a boring waste of time and tuition). If repeating, doing so in an honors level course would be more worthwhile (some super-elite STEM-schools’ normal freshman calculus course is equivalent to an honors course everywhere else).</p>
<p>But a freshman who struggled with calculus in high school, perhaps barely getting a 3 on the AP test, would likely be better served by starting over.</p>
<p>Some schools make sample freshman calculus final exam questions available to help students choose the most appropriate math placement. For example:</p>
<p>As a side note, the apparently common trend in high school of forcing students two years ahead in math to take calculus over two years (one year for AB, then a second year to add the BC stuff not in AB) is a disservice to those students. Students two years ahead in math (reaching calculus by junior year) are the top students in math, so they should be well able to handle calculus at normal university level pace (BC in one year). Indeed, spreading calculus over two years may cause students to be surprised at the pace of university level math courses when they finally enter university.</p>
<p>I never understood the mentality of re-taking courses one has AP credit for, assuming one has a score of a 5. I am an engineering student in a very rigorous engineering program, and I took all the AP credit I could get. I have not had any trouble with starting in the middle of the calculus sequence here. As long as one’s high school course is sufficiently rigorous, I think starting over is a waste of time and $ - the student will likely be bored, and one could be taking other classes of interest/getting ahead/etc. Just my opinion. </p>
<p>Also, the idea that the class is an “easy A” can sometimes lead to slacking - my roommate had a 5 on AP Calc AB, but started in Calc I. Ended up slacking off big time and got a C…so if you do repeat classes, make sure to stay on top of them!</p>
<p>At our high school the problem has been many of the strongest math students choosing the AB + BC route rather than going straight to BC. It is thought to make an easy life for them, but imo it is unfortunate that the math department allows, or feels compelled to allow, this practice.</p>
<p>I agree with California Dancer: students who have demonstrated a high level of understanding by doing well in a rigorous AP course and AP exam are doing themselves a significant disservice by repeating the course in college.</p>
<p>My S, who just finished his first year at UVA, tested out of English, calculus, chemistry, history, government, computer science, etc. via 5s on his AP exams. He accelerated across the board and eventually did OK, but did find the college classes far more demanding than their hs equivalents. He had to make major adjustments in his study habits in the middle of his first semester in order to bring his grades into the A/B range by December. He doesn’t have ADHD, and he’s a resilient intellectual risk-taker. My D, who is more of a perfectionist about grades and worries much more about possible failure, would have found this roller-coaster emotionally exhausting.</p>
<p>My nephews, in engineering programs at Georgia Tech and RIT, took the safer course and elected to repeat calculus. They did not find that the classes were entirely a review, since at their schools the engineering calculus sequence was much more rigorous and applied than their AP classes had been.</p>
<p>As a college professor, I’ve seen the students I advise shocked, year after year, by the changed academic expectations in the first semester of their freshman year. It can be a healthy “reality check,” but kids who accelerate do have to be able to change their behavior quickly in order to avoid disaster. </p>
<p>If I were advising your D, I would suggest that she possibly accelerate in her strongest subject but not in all of them. If she got an A in AP Literature and a 5 on the exam, she can probably handle a sophomore lit. class. She should look for one with a lot of writing assignments early in the semester so that she won’t be taken by surprise when the semester is already half over–a lot of upper-level English classes have only a few papers and it can be hard to know how you’re doing until close to the end of the term. If she tested out of “pre-calc,” as you say, she will be taking calculus again anyhow, which I would strongly recommend if she’s going to be doing anything science or engineering-related.</p>
<p>I probably didn’t make myself clear. I don’t want her to retake classes but I was dismayed that she tested out of so many freshman level classes. At any rate, the school will not allow her to take any of the classes that she tested out of. </p>
<p>I am concerned about her jumping over 1 or 2 classes of English and 2 classes of Spanish. She speaks Spanish with landscaping and housekeeping people at work but hasn’t had a class since junior year. As mentioned above, I am worried that she will be in upper level classes with students who have already successfully made the college adjustment. Plus, she has her ADHD issues. I am not as concerned about the calc as she has already had it and hopefully it will be a bit easier this time.</p>
<p>So, should we let her make her class choices, knowing that she has a habit of biting off more than she can chew and may lose her scholarship? We can afford the school without the scholarship but she will have to work more hours in the summer, limit her ability to take study abroad, get a nicer car, etc.</p>
<p>Or, should we insist that she take it easy first semester?</p>
<p>Jingle - Thanks for your advice. We cross posted and I was glad to see that you honed in on the issue and reinforced my gut feelings.</p>
<p>Deeper question: Why did she do relatively poorly in her classes in high school? If she was the kid who regularly didn’t turn in homework and then got 100s on tests, some math classes (the ones where you don’t have to turn in homework sets) may actually be a great fit for her. But, if she’s taking a class where homework sets count for 40% of the grade (and that would not be at all unusual in a college calculus class) she is likely to have the same kind of problems she had in high school, but with greater consequences. On the other hand, if she was compliant on homework in hs, but did poorly on quizzes and a lot better on unit tests – then that poses other problems. And, if the high school grades reflected problems with conformance (showing up late or skipping class, failing to work on group projects perceived by the student as meaningless) then college may be – at least in some subjects – a welcome relief. But until you have both thought through what fed into that high school result, it is hard to know what the college experience might be like – and potentially greatly problematic if some thought isn’t given to those things, unless she’s attending a school where virtually 100% of the weight is on the final.</p>
<p>Good point by Cal Dancer. I know all kinds of kids who did different things with their AP credit opportunities, including a complete repeat of said courses by a pre-med. It helped him boost his GPA early on, and gave him a little breathing room, but he wasn’t able to take advantage of the breadth of classes offered at that school.</p>
<p>College learning is a big step up from high school, and college courses do not directly correspond to what is learned on APs, so that using the promotion but being inadequately prepared will lead to significant problems later on.</p>
<p>My kids went with the path mentioned above where they used the credits in courses that were either 1) outside their major and they had no interest in pursuing, or 2) for the more basic levels of their majors - math, computer science and economics. For prep courses in their majors, though, they had to do extra studying to compensate for areas that AP did not cover. This is much easier to assess in a quantitative type of major. I remember my own experience of testing out of Freshman English, and thus landing in a course with all juniors and seniors in my first semester of college. I had passed the entrance test, but couldn’t write a research paper worthy of a college class, and had to learn a lot on my own and very quickly. The ‘B’ earned in the course was a big achievement, but didn’t look great on a transcript.</p>
<p>Absolutely go over the courses with your student, even mapping out the full four years of her studies, and tailor a plan to her learning style. If she procrastinates and panics late in the semester, she should take a very light load first semester, and include some easy courses. Having the burden of a maintaining a 3.0 is going to put a lot of pressure on you both.</p>
<p>Here’s a question that I will be so intersted in having answered: My son struggled mightly in AP Stats but somehow got a 3 on the AP exam. His college of chioce didn’t give credit for 3s and he needed Stats for this (then) major. He took it and failed. Whenever he goes back to college, it will be (1) with a major that doesn’t require stats, and (2) to a state school that gives credit for a 3 in Stats. Is a school that says in writing that they give credit for a 3 on the AP stats exam really going to give credit to someone who actually took and failed the actual college class? Inquiring minds want to know!</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds a lot like me. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD but have a lot of the symptoms (hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, and all that). When I was a senior in HS, I tested out basic classes like Spanish, Bio, and English so I skipped to a lot of upper-level courses right off the bat. And I DID bite of more than I could chew in my first semester of college (I registered for 20 credits…). I never told my parents about that choice until AFTER it was too late to drop. I managed to pull good grades, but it was way more stress than it was worth. The problem is, I’m not sure that I would have listened to my parents if they’d told me it was too much. I sort of had to figure that out on my own. It was a huge wake-up call. I realized college was hard work, and no one was going to make me do the work to get a good grade, so I had to step up to that responsibility. What was good was that I had made my own choice, so I felt the responsibility to make it work. Also, I never ever overloaded again. </p>
<p>You’re daughter sounds like a very intelligent girl who might slightly underestimate workload, so my gut instinct would be to say that maybe she should at least feel like she’s making her own decision about classes. She’s at an age where kids really need to start making that move towards independence and learn how to make good decisions. Then, she can take ownership of the consequences, if they come, and learn from them. If she’s done that well on AP tests, college classes won’t be overwhelmingly difficult but will be more a matter of getting used to a new and slightly more demanding rhythm of doing the work. </p>
<p>Still, do talk about her schedule with her and encourage her to balance her schedule with some challenging and some easier classes. If she’s stronger in English, encourage her take a more advanced English course (or two) while taking a few lower-level math/science courses. Or have her take some more advanced core courses balanced out with some fun electives, like an art class. With AP credits, she’ll have more flexibility in her schedule, so it’s OK is she takes some “fluff” credits during her first semester or two just to get herself acclimated to what “doing college” is like.</p>
<p>The problem with taking what the student thinks is fluff is that it may not be (unless she has very good intelligence.) A guy I know took some “Texas” class - geography or something - thinking it was fluff. The final was being presented with a map of the state of Texas with the counties drawn in and having to fill in the names of all the counties (there are 254 and when you get out west they are pretty much identical rectangles.) Sure, the class didn’t require deep thought or great intelligence, but learning all those counties sucked up way more time than it was worth.</p>
</p>