“Wait UCB/UCLA are not T20? I thought they were.”
I meant to say T20 private colleges. But regardless, it’s also clear what’s needed to get into UCB/UCLA from our school and that’s a bunch of strong ECs and a ~4.0UW GPA. Even the NMFs who didn’t have good enough ECs were rejected. So those are unlikely to be an option.
“I am not at all sure that you should consider UK colleges-they require far more independence and initiative that their American counterparts, and there is not the same support structure for students”
Well we are British originally so intimately familiar with that system and we have lots of family there. Having said that I don’t see my S18 at UCLA using any more support than I had in college, other than (optional) access to an advisor for course selection, which isn’t really necessary for the much more prescriptive British degrees. I guess a struggling student might be allowed to flounder for longer in the British system (perhaps until they failed the end of year exams), but I wouldn’t want him to go away to either place for college if he wasn’t living up to his potential and hadn’t grown up a lot by senior year.
“Is your choice Regular English or AP english? or Do you have honors english? That is what typical “smart” kids would take as sophomores.”
Just like in math, there are two main tracks: Honors (referred to as AS but unweighted) English 1 & 2 leading to AP Lang and AP Lit in junior and senior year respectively, or regular English 1, 2, 3 and 4. You can drop from the Honors track but students rarely go the other way.
Thanks for all the input. I’m particularly interested in how wide the range of opinions is. Perhaps this is similar to the controversy over tiger parenting?