<p>Hi. Whooo! What a stress filled few days. D17 a rising senior has many summer assignments and has also registered for 2 online courses that are needed for our districts graduation requirements. She is doing the online courses (communications and health) to free up room for AP Chemistry or AP Statistics (which ever way you want to look at her schedule). I made the critical error (haha) of asking her on Saturday afternoon if the book for AP/GT English IV was complete. She went nuts and told me to stop pressuring her to read the book, do the assignments, etc, and that I needed to trust her to get it done. I know she is driven by deadlines and she works more effectively under pressure, but with an 8 period day, and 6 of those periods being AP classes (AP Lit, AP Physics C, AP Calc BC, AP Stat, AP Gov, AP Chem, the other band and instument (and the time suck it takes before and after school) plus the two online courses that have to be completed by December 31, 2010 and college applications, it was my suggestion that she drop either AP Chemistry or AP Stats and use that period to take Health 1st semester and communications 2nd semester. You would have thought I asked her cut off her foot and then run a marathon. Now that would mean we are out almost $450.00 for the online courses but I believe her mental health is worth much more than that. She thinks I am nuts and says she has everything handled, etc. Of course she has been on an academic binge that last two days and I guess that is good, but summer has 6 days left and 40 hours of that will be spent on band. Should I just sit back and let her handle what she thinks she can handle or should I push that she drop the online courses?</p>
<p>^^^her course load the last two years has been very similar and she has handled it with flying colors (98-100 unweighted averages per class) BUT we have not added the college application and online courses to the mix.</p>
<p>This sounds like your prior concern about whether your daughter should accept or decline getting that super-duper recommendation from the English teacher about her amazing character. In both cases, your daughter sounds incredible but I could not understand why you were concerned. </p>
<p>You obviously have a fantastic daughter and should be proud. But please tell us these are not genuine worries. Or if they are the biggest ones you face in life, you are truly blessed!</p>
<p>Welcome to senior year! Not only do they put undue pressure on themselves with classes and college applications but there is the added emotional stress of leaving all your friends, your community, your school, etc. Oh yes, and the fact that you don’t know anything nor do you understand anything!</p>
<p>You have no choice, she’ll survive, most do.</p>
<p>We limited our kids to 3 AP’s max per year. It’s important to find the right balance between academics, EC’s, and social development. Remind her that colleges will focus on her transcript through junior year. Her senior year grades and classes are to prove that the student hasn’t succumbed to senioritis. </p>
<p>Senior Year=senior banquets, prom, college applications, supplemental applications, college visits, etc. With her current senior schedule, will she have the time to enjoy her last year as a high school student? She may be able to handle it all, but at what cost?</p>
<p>You know your daughter best.</p>
<p>“But please tell us these are not genuine worries”</p>
<p>Of course they are genuine worries. I was seeking advise here, because everyone in my family will say she will be fine. But it was me that had to pick up the pieces after she freaked out about me “putting pressure” on her to read the required material. I certainly did not feel like I was putting any pressure on her at all, just a gentle reminder that the summer was closing fast and the first of week is always hell. In the context of what could I do to ease up some of her time. She behaved out of character and it concerned me. Is it my biggest worry? Of course not. My big worries are much larger than this, but for this board, and this community, this is the worry I am focused on at the moment in this child’s life. Big worries to me are being concerned about the mental fitness of an aging parent, my young son’s ability to control his temper and the stress of keeping our family business afloat knowing that dozens of families depend on me to do just that. Just so you know my life does have perspective.</p>
<p>IMO–her senior year schedule is too much. Rather than suggest to her that her schedule seems too difficult (she may interpret this as you saying she’s not capable), suggest she lighten the load of AP’s because of future college visits, applications, and EC’s.</p>
<p>I personally don’t know why a kid taking AP Calc BC would bother with AP Stats. Is this something that is going to appear as a huge positive to admissions personnel? On the upside, it looks to me like AP Stats is the type of course a lot of kids just self study, so in all likelihood she won’t be spending a huge amount of effort on that course.</p>
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<p>I apologize, I should have stated it better. What I wanted to say- and so hope this comes out as I intend and not another tactless blunder- is I get a sense from just a few posts that you can find worry in even the best situations (I can be like that too). Like as if its one’s job to scope it out and redirect to fix it. Your daughter sounds truly amazing and I can’t help but sense you have a laser-like ability to find some stress in things not quite perfect. </p>
<p>Or maybe I misinterpreted what really happened. All teens can and should step out of charcater on occasion, maybe even ‘lose it’. But how big was the going nuts and what pieces did you have to pick up afterwards? Maybe this was much bigger than I’m picturing (using my imagination with what it looks like when my own teens ‘going nuts’ in response to one of my helpful questions!). </p>
<p>Going out on a limb, if you tend toward general anxiety, maybe that is what your daughter picks up from you and is reacting to (so it is not stress of workload but your implicit hovering worry). If you find things like a extra amazing rec. letters, a 2100 SAT score or too many APs a worry, I can only guess your reaction if she didnt have these letters, or had ‘only’ an 1800 or ‘only’ a 89% average. I’m sure you don’t say such things to your D, but they learn their whole lives from us, and pick up the cues. </p>
<p>I would have agreed with others that it is a big workload and why not drop something. But then you mention her similar workload and fantastic GPA from last year with it so I changed my mind on that. If she now adds in college apps, worse case she juggles differently and her GPA goes down somewhat. That shouldn’t matter; but if it freaks her out to risk getting ‘only’ say 96% though, I would be concerned. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to be critical but truly mean to offer some food for thought. If I’m offending, just ignore me and remember I don’t personally know you or your daughter, so I’m making some generalizations based on very very little info!</p>
<p>Instead of focusing on changing her academic schedule, share a quiet moment together. Ask her if there is anything that she is looking forward to doing during senior year. It may be anything from getting fit, making some new friends, visiting an out of state college, learning to cook, visiting a favorite relative. She will handle the academics. Sometimes our kids look to us for helping them to achieve balance in their lives. One of my D’s favorite things about her last year in high school was cutting her beautiful waist length curls and donating them to charity for wig making for kids with cancer. Then she started to care more about style and discarded her worn out oversized sweatshirts. She also learned to cook chicken stir fry which has provided many healthy meals in college. She felt more confident about leaving home with her new look. By the way, her grades were fine and she managed the academics beautifully.
The week of AP testing in May was challenging!</p>
<p>I do understand the OP so well. I grew up in a time and place where high school was about learning and about having great fun. I always told my children that a ‘C’ is a perfectly good grade - and that I would reward A’s and B’s and C’s with a gift.
Both my children strive for A’s all the way and more if they can get it. Even though the tim for rewards for grades are long gone (we would be bankrupt if we would have continued the rewards.)
But I always thought, and still think, they put too much stress on themselves. And I have seen some of their friends horribly burn out. The OP’s child schedule sounds really very very heavy. Perhaps it would make sense to ask her academic counselor and her band director to contact each other and see what they make of this class/band load.</p>
<p>The manageability of the schedule depends a lot on what AP’s are like at your daughter’s school, and also on the intensity of band. The pairing of AP Physics C with AP Chemistry seems like a lot to me. Has your daughter already taken a high-school physics course? What about the math? Is she jumping directly to Calc BC, or has she already had Calc AB? It makes quite a difference for Physics C. Physics C is calculus based. It is a real challenge to learn both the physics and the calculus for the first time, at the same time.</p>
<p>AP Chemistry has a lot of knowledge-acquisition requirements. A strong memory is a great help for it, although there are also analytical or calculation-based components. AP Lit need not be a great deal more time-consuming than a regular literature class, but it could be immensely more time-consuming, depending on the instructor. AP Gov is the easiest on the list, in my opinion–but again, the level of difficulty and the amount of time required can depend quite a lot on the teacher. As far as AP Stat goes, I’m largely inclined to agree with bovertine, that one wouldn’t normally pair it with AP Calc BC. On the other hand, stat does have very useful applications. I think your daughter will have no difficulty at all with it during the first semester (assuming that the teacher does not assign unnecessary work). However, during the second semester, there are some relatively sophisticated issues that will turn up on the free-response questions. The workload that was manageable in the first semester could be unmanageable for part of the second. </p>
<p>Band is another wild-card in the schedule. Some schools have very serious band directors who are insanely–oops, I meant “intensely”–demanding. Others are more laid back. Can’t tell completely, but 40 hours of band in the next 6 days looks like a warning signal to me.</p>
<p>Bottom line: I wouldn’t advise anyone to take this schedule, even without the added on line courses.</p>
<p>Drop the online courses? But those are the ones she needs for graduation. Drop the chemistry and stats and take the required courses at school.</p>
<p>Are the online courses through your school district? If so, I am surprised that her school is letting her register for more than eight classes.</p>
<p>It is really hard to tell or push her to drop something after she has been allowed to register for it all. My advice is to ask your daughter to carefully consider what she intends to get out of taking so many AP classes. I don’t think it gives her an admissions advantage-- even with two fewer AP classes her schedule will be full with required classes and AP. Advanced standing? Has she looked at the AP policy at the schools she is considering. Many top schools are very stingy with AP credits. And at schools where she can use AP for distribution requirements she will probably need only one math and one science (not two of each). If she plans to study science in college, the college might want her to have its own intruductory course as a pre-requisite to the advanced courses.</p>
<p>Part 2 of my advice is to find out what is the latest she can drop classes and make sure your daughter knows she needs to think hard about the workload before the drop-dead date.</p>
<p>Part 3 is to let her be. It is up to her to manage her work, and your nagging won’t help. If she does get overwhelmed, ask her what you can do. (I’m thinking of study environment at home and maybe favorite meal; she will do her own work and negotiate with teachers as needed.) If she decides to drop something late in the game, let it be without drama.</p>
<p>I agree that I would not advise anyone to take this schedule-- but you know your daughter better than we do. If you think her stress level is too high, perhaps you can convince her to ease up a bit. By the way, her ability to do all this also depends on what the expectations are for senior year: will she apply to 5 schools or 12? Will she apply to outside scholarships? Is she going to visit far flung colleges for on-campus interviews? Those things can be quite time consuming and you and she probably need to be in agreement with what will be done because her time will be tight.</p>
<p>QuantMech…She has already taken APCalAB and scored a 5 on that exam so it was actually her GC that felt AP Phy C would be the better choice since she had a great handle on the math. She wants to take Stats so that she understands how to look at data in a different way. (Since medicine is her goal) She is the one that has driven that course. </p>
<p>I spoke with her last night and she feels confident that she can do this. I guess the band angle is what worries me with everything else. I know the demands that are required as we have lived it the last three years. Texas has the “eight hour rule” that says an EC can’t comprise more than 8 hours of a students “out of school time” but there are loopholes in that law. For instance, football games (at least 6 hours per week) , parades, pep events and competitions are not included in that rule. So three weekends this fall, when they go to competitions, they will be at the competition for 12 + hours plus drive time of 2-6 hours depending on the venue. Not to mention that each student is suppose to practice their instrument 1-2 hours per night.</p>
<p>Anyway…guess I will just hold on and go for the ride…and post and vent…and vent some more…lol</p>
<p>I can appreciate your concern-I was there when my DD was a senior(Instead of band, she was involved with Theater)…Now that DD is about to graduate from college, I guess I can be more philosophical…CollegeShopping~~She is driving this steam roller-get out of the way-and cheer her on. Give her options to enjoy a manicure, or a massage…my DD really appreciated “these time outs”, and she learned she did better after…Hang in there Mom!</p>
<p>Your daughter has handled a heavy schedule before but she hasn’t applied to college yet. I think she should cut back on her AP’s and take the required classes at school and use the extra time to lavish her attention on her college applications. The point of working as hard as she does is to use that academic history to move to the next level and continue a top notch education. Unless she is happy to be admitted to the state flagship, I think she should put her efforts into outstanding apps & essays.</p>
<p>You are the one who knows to leave her alone or discuss her schedule. It is very individual and depends on people involved and relationship. My concern would be if she is going to get skills that she is suppose to from all these AP classes. While some of them like AP Calc, Chem and Stats are very easy both AP and at college, AP Literature is extremely time consuming and challenging if it is taught properly. D. who has always been a very strong writer got tremendous boost for her writing skills out of AP Lit. which has helped her getting easy “A” in Honor English at college, writing all kind of papers for college classes, scholarhsips, grant applications, and later Med. School Application essays. Her AP Lit. class had huge positive impact because she worked very hard in this class. Her HS did not allow more than 3 AP classes, no on-line and no classes outside of school. So it has never been any problem. She was very busy in HS though, participating in competitive sport with 3hrs daily practices and many out or town meets, playing piano, school newspaper editor…, so it is doable.</p>
<p>My D took 6 AP’s along with lots of time-consuming ECs. It was too much, but you couldn’t tell her that. I just had to let go. She would have been disappointed with herself otherwise. Just a suggestion, don’t bug her about studying for AP or SATs. She doesn’t need the added pressure as she gives herself enough. She’ll do well enough on standardized tests for sure. Same thing for college deadlines. I’m sure she’ll handle it without nagging.</p>
<p>^6 AP classes in one year?</p>