@Leigh22 I asked the same thing when my kids told me that friends went to SAT bootcamp 5 days a week for 8 weeks over the summer between 10 and 11th grade.
There would be open rebellion in our house if such a plan had been presented.
Clearly I didnt raise my kids to take marching orders regarding such things and other people did. I can’t say my way is better or not yet.
@msdynamite85 I think it is completely different. Self motivation is difficult, as opposed to being in a setting where someone is teaching you. Not the same at all. I agree with those who view this as another example of privilege gone awry!
A similar disadvantage sometimes occurs at our high school but in the form of tutors. The pre-calc and Calc AB teacher is anti-Tutor so no one admits they have one. When my child was told she could no longer ask questions because “everyone else had been able to understand” we decided to search for a tutor and found that no one had capacity because they were all fully booked with her classmates. The teacher of course thinks he is teaching them, but he is not. I fully supported my DS20 avoiding that teacher this year.
Do college applications ask for course work from only high schools where the student is matriculated, or all high schools attended? If the latter, an applicant who omits a high school attended would not be truthful on the application.
I don’t think the gpa as calculated by a student’s high school matters at all. The gpa which matters is the one calculated by the college during the application process. The high school my son attends does not provide class rank so even that isn’t affected by the high school’s calculation of a gpa. My son’s high school is very much against allowing outside coursework to count toward their graduation requirements. So we sent him to 4 community college classes over two years. Even though these are not counted for credit by his high school, he has every intention of including them in his gpa for college applications (and having a transcript from the CC sent in). Another example of how gpa calculated by a high school may not be important is ‘state specific gpa’ calculations for college admission. For example, South Carolina colleges count high school honors classes on a 5.0 scale and AP/IB classes on a 6.0 scale. For a high school student whose school calculated their gpa differently their grades are converted to the SC gpa scheme by the college.
“I don’t know any kids who would voluntarily do this over summer break - not one. Just seems like a waste of time - you’re only a kid once.”
I don’t know where you live, but that happens in the bay area, I’m not saying everyone does it, but probably a decent percentage at the more competitive schools. Many may be forced, but I’m sure some are there voluntarily. If they don’t repeat the class, then they report it to colleges since they need to show they took the class, but if they take it again, they’re not telling any college, as brantly points out.
“If the latter, an applicant who omits a high school attended would not be truthful on the application.”
Not truthful on the college app? shocking! That like never happens.
I think any form of pre-learning for a course is legitimate. The A in the course is to symbolize a level of mastery of content, not to assess your innate intelligence.
I advise anyone going through pre-med to take Organic Chemistry even several times over “off the books”, online, through tutoring, sitting in on classes, so when they take the course for real they can easily ace it.
Some kids at my daughter’s HS would take Bio the summer before they started HS at a local private HS and report that class. At the time, the HS was not offering Honors Bio and they didn’t want an non-honors science class on their HS transcript. The grade for that class would not be in their GPA, but taking the class would be on their transcript. Then the kid had a leg up on HS rank (the val and sal my daughter’s year both did this).
If a student needs multiple takes on essentially the same materials in order to achieve the goal of getting into a more desirable school, wouldn’t the student likely struggle in that school where s/he doesn’t have that luxury of time and her/his fellow students are more capable? As AI is on the verge of disrupting nearly every profession, including the medical profession BTW, isn’t that student among the most susceptible to that disruption later in her/his career?
I don’t think these students need the multiple takes, they are typically top students already. Since they already know the material, they may gain some extra time during the school year to do other stuff (maybe take other hard classes or an EC). They still need to do the work for the class during the school year (different school, different teachers, different homework, different material, and different tests).