My Daughter is starting at 9th grade. She wants to pursue a career in IT, computer sciences programming etc. She had all A’s in 8th grade and has finished Algebra 2 in 8th grade. What courses should she take in 9th grade to help achieve her goal and possibly get into an IVY league college. Money is fortunately not an issue and her education is my only priority so I can get any help she needs but I have no knowledge about this particular career path. Please help.
Thanks
Without knowing the HS and its requirements and what electives are available to freshman, nobody here can effectively help you. For the most part, 9th graders have little to no choice in subjects. The school probably gives guidance on course selection - ask them.
9th grade is, IMO, too early to start choosing courses with an eye to college, other than taking the dost demanding courseload she can handle.
For any top school she needs the most rigorous courses offered in math and science plus 4 years of foreign language (and then obviously all the requirements in your state for graduation). 6-8 AP courses. CS electives where she can fit them in.
That all said, she’s just starting high school so focus on her interests, not worrying about college acceptances.
Thank you both for responding. She will be starting in what is supposed to be a very competitive school. Also I have heard that someone who is at top 5 % rank in this school could easily be at top 1% at any other high school. Does that affect her chances at getting into an IVY league.
I would appreciate any advice.
No.
You are getting ahead of yourself. Your D has not received one single grade yet, so we cannot presume GPA. But be aware that 1% vs 5% will make no difference. These colleges each and every year reject valedictorians with 1600 SATs and accept some with lower stats. There is no magic formula for admissions.
Also, I did not mean for your to post her HS. The site is called College Confidential for a reason, so I edited.
Now, looking at the graduation requirements for the HS, I see that she needs to take 7 credits as a freshman, 4 of which need to be English, math (precalc would be the next level), social science (AP Human Geography), and science (Bio Honors). The 5th should be a foreign language. The 6th should be something that starts to fulfill the graduation requirements in Fine Arts/Health.Phys Ed/Communications. The 7th can be another grad requirement or AP CS Principles, which the school allows freshman to take.
Ordinarily though, my opinion is a more rigorous high school will better prepare students for the college experience. My daughter worked her tail off to stay in the top 10% of her college prep high school. But, unless you were #1 or 2, the school only reported percentile rankings, not individual class rank.
As an aside, If your daughter is already interested in IT, I’m not sure why you are focusing on the Ivies. Cornell and Princeton have solid programs but MIT, CMU, Stanford (reaches for everyone). UT, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Purdue, RPI, etc… should be on the radar when the time comes.
It sounds like she’s on a super advanced track as far as math goes. Depending on what the school requires, it sounds like she should take pre-Calc as a freshman and AP Calc BC as a sophomore. Hopefully she’s not at one of those schools that requires both AP Calc AB AND AP Calc BC. Beyond AP Calc BC, I would start looking at other places (CC or universities) after 10th grade to take the more advanced classes - Multivariate Calculus, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math.
She should also learn a programming language or two (or 3) while in HS. Python, Java (and/or C#) and C++ are the languages of choice now. AP Computer Science A uses Java but that’s primarily a beginner-level type of class. If the school offers these languages as electives, great, but most likely she’ll need to find these on her own at a community college or university or online program.
Depending on what limitations the school has, yes try and take around 8 AP classes for her 4 years. More if she can handle it, a bit less if she can’t handle it. That’s assuming that the HS she is attending has a full suite of AP classes available. Many HS also limit the number you can take in 9th and 10th grade. Some parents I know use the 1,2,3,4 model for AP classes - the number of AP classes a student should take for each grade in HS. The load needs to be balanced out though. Taking 3 AP science classes in the same year for example is insane.
Besides the 4 core groups she should also take at least the 3rd level or a foreign language. Maybe even the 4th level. I use level instead of years because she may be familiar with a foreign language already.
They used to say that music and computer programming were correlated. Back in the day, companies would hire music majors on the cheap and train them to be programmers. Anyhow, if she already plays an instrument, getting into Symphonic Band/Orchestra and/or Marching Band is a good thing too.
Outside the classroom make sure she starts getting involved in ECs and volunteering that will be beneficial for her and where she has opportunities for leadership or to make a significant difference to the community.
It’s really good to start planning early rather than late and I commend you for being proactive now.
I looked at Texas academy of Math and science as well and it looks interesting. She is familiar with Java (two brief summer courses) and has completed one year of French in 8th grade.
I appreciate everyone of you for taking time to answer my query. I did not have all the opportunities and had to struggle a lot to get to where I am today. I had no guidance and was very ill prepared for the real world. I want to help my child achieve her full potential. She is bright and polite but not very focused. She wants to get away with doing bare minimum and that’s why I am trying to understand this process early on to guide her.
Forum like these are a life saver. Thank you!
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My son attends a highly competitive private prep school. He will take the most rigorous classes for 9th grade available in his school: Human Geo AP (they also offer World History AP that is probably more difficult), CS Principles AP, Geometry H (he took Alg 2 H in 8th grade), Chemistry H, English H, Spanish IV H, Band. He has been studying CS in another institute for 4 years (and plan to continue through HS), he already masters in Scheme, Java, and is working on Phyton.
@momofsenior1 is right, there are many interesting options besides the Ivies for CS and AI: CMU, UIUC, UT Austin, Purdue, GT, Michigan, and of course MIT and Stanford.
Hi Carino, I did not know kids can enroll in other institutes to study CS. Can you give me an example and I will search if anything is available in my area. Thanks
Hi!
www.imacs.org (Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science; they are only located in Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina).
Actually, my son started in first grade with the logic of mathematics program.
The program content is:
. Primary Enrichment
. Elementary Enrichment
. Full Enrichment
. Math Enrichment
. Computer Programming & Virtual Robotics (usually starting in fifth or sixth grade)
. University Level Computer Science1
. University Level Computer Science 2
. University Level Logic of Mathematics
The university levels are very difficult, and usually, a very low percentage of kids continue through them. My son just turned 14 and there are only a few kids his age doing his level (UCS2).
CS University Level 1 is only Scheme. In University Level 2, kids learn Haskell, Python, and more about Scheme.
You can also take free online courses to learn Java and other languages.
^ In UCS2 they also learn ordering/sorting algorithms, function abstraction, and artificial intelligence.
She should likely be taking 5 core courses
Precalculus Honors
AP Human Geography
English 9 Honors
Biology honors (if she’s not taken bio in 8th grade) or chemistry honors (if she has)
French 2 (H?)
Then typically freshmen take physical education+health as well as an elective of their choice (or art/music since some schools require it).
Don’t overload her schedule. Make sure she has 9 hours of sleep each night (it hurts the brain if kids don’t and it causes problems down the line.)
She should look into what clubs are offered at her school: FIRST Robotics, hackathon, anything related to multimedia, coding, building apps, etc.
As for languages, Python is a good one to start with - check out Hourofcode.org (free lessons) and if she likes it there are summer camps called girlswhocode.
The ivy league really isn’t where it’s at, except Cornell (IT is in Cals) and NETS at Penn.
I’d recommend she look into CMU, Stanford, HarveyMudd, Northwestern (Cs+x), Wellesley, Smith;
Additionally, beside the traditional HYP that you’ve mentioned, have her explore Scripps, Wesleyan, Grinnell, UWash-Seattle, WWU, UPugetSound, Santa Clara, Hamilton, Vassar, RPI, UWaterloo CS co-op in Canada.
Costs are always an issue - run NPC’s on all of the above.
Be careful about “dream schools”. Emphasize match and safety schools - all kids have dream schools, they don’t need adult help for those. What they need help with is figuring out what their two safeties and 5 matches/targets will be, keeping in mind they must like them, feel good about them, and be sure they’re a good fit.
If she is intelligent but not highly motivated then a competitive school is a great place to be. She’ll be positively influenced by her peers.
If its an academically competitive school than they are likely to offer a couple of post Cal BC classes available for advance students.
When it comes to highest ranking schools, there are no guarantees even for perfect applicants. As you are in Texas and have only one Ivy peer school there, start showing demonstrated interest by visiting, corresponding and taking summer classes there.
Texas throws in the class rank competition if she is interested in the state universities there.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2055289-faq-high-school-college-prep-base-curriculum.html can give an idea of the well rounded base college prep curriculum.
Any student taking precal as freshman and making straight A’s doesn’t need to worry about getting into state schools of Texas, specially if parent is capable of financing her college choices. However, having a rigrous course load covering all required subjects is a great idea for a competitive student, regardless of which schools she is interested in.
She should take the highest level (e.g., honors) classes that she can (and do well in), Ivy or not.
Get through at least Calculus AB.
Take Bio, Chem, Physics and an AP version of one of those.
She should also take any Computer science classes that the HS offers. If they don’t offer any, then perhaps taking some via Dual Enrollment with the local Community College.