ifoundalaska

No APs until junior year
Grammar class required for freshmen with no honors options.
Barely any screening for honors classes. I know a girl who failed Honors English II, and then went on to take Honors Bio (reading based, just like english II) and failed that too.
Few APs offered

halcyonheather

1. Only four AP classes and three of them can't be taken until senior year.
2. You need two years of chemistry before AP Chem because the teacher covers the material really slowly. Which I guess is better than learning it too fast and forgetting, but still.
3. The only foreign languages are Spanish and French.
4. Required classes: Manage Transitions, Career Search, Financial Literacy.
5. Our highest math class is called calculus, but in the course description it says "we finish the pre-calc book." Not sure how that's calculus.

JosiahAd

Gym for another year :/.

Flamewire

Old school: 8 periods. One of them is lunch. One of them is Gym, required for 4 years. This gives you six classes to take. English is required for 4 years, of course; same with math. If you take a language, that takes up three or four years. If you take band/orchestra/choir, that eats up another class slot. Many of my friends at that school have quit band/orch because they need room in their schedule for something else.

They're uptight about changing courses, so you have to plan very carefully for course selection in January. Changing courses is almost impossible there, and most people who want to change a class aren't allowed to do so.

You have to be recommended for AP classes. I wanted to skip first-year chemistry and enroll in AP Chem; my honors bio teacher recommended me for AP chem, but the department chair is an uptight you-know-what and said that first-year is mandatory and essential to succeed ... I moved out of state that year/last summer (for unrelated reasons), enrolled in AP Chem, and got a 5 this May.

New school: So much more relaxed. Counselors are more helpful, it's smaller, there's way more options for what you can do, the department chairs are actually competent. You can email your counselor anytime between course selection time (March or so) and the start of school, and chances are your class will be changed without any hassle. I switched two classes this past summer and my counselor was completely fine with it.

JosiahAd

Lol seriously. I wish I can switch classes that easily. Changing classes poses as a difficult situation in my school.

pdateh35

U mean monta vista in cupertino?

Literature

What I hate about my course selection is that I can't take Biology and Chemistry in the same year! I have to take both of them in separate years!

ShadowMist

1) You can't take AP classes until junior year, and even then, there's only like three that they let you take. :I The rest are reserved for seniors.
2) Our school only has 6-7 AP classes that you can even take.
3) The guidance counselors suck.
4) A lot of the kids in Honors/AP classes don't belong in there.
5) Gym is required every freaking year.

AllergicToBs

Lol, two year-old thread.

1.) No honors for either Spanish I or Spanish II.
2.) AP Computer Science isn't offered; this really annoys me because I have a high interest in CS. The only computer classes offered here are basically how to operate Microsoft Word or Photoshop/Illustrator.

FollowTheReaper

1. Same as above; no honors foreign language classes, just levels 1-3 and then AP... so all kids are lumped into one class. My Spanish 1 and 2 classes were horrible, hopefully only kids who care are taking Spanish 3.

2. We only offer Spanish and French, which I think is weird because I know of many smaller schools that offer more variety in this department. I really wish my school offered Chinese.

3. We only have six periods and, being in a sport, I only have five. Considering I need English, History, Math, Science, and Foreign Language for at least three years each, I have no room for electives. I really wanted to take AP Psychology last year and this year but I won't have room until senior year, and even then, I'll probably be sacrificing a science class for it. I was also interested in taking Photography, Astronomy, Statistics.. you get the idea.

AlexHarper

1. We only offer spanish 1 and 2 and latin 1 and 2

2. so easy to get into an honors or AP class

pandamic

1. Skipping a math year ONLY happens in 6th grade and you have to pass a test. I passed the test, but I was dumb and wanted to stay with friends. I wasn't old enough to realize that I would hate myself later for not skipping pre-algebra xD

2. Too many people are allowed in AP classes, when they clearly can't do the work

3. A ton of cool/important classes are during 4th period, since it is 15 minutes longer. So I can't take all these classes I want to take.

Bassoonapus

My district starts advanced math in third grade, and after that nobody else can get in. So that sucked for me, since I moved to this district in 5th grade; especially since I was ranked 13th in the nation on FirstinMath.
13th
in
the
nation
But no, I had to take the lower level math class.

And for advanced english, they choose kids in 3rd as well, but luckily they also let kids join after seventh. That's stupid though; is it too hard to let kids in every year?

sshsdancer97

No Honors language classes
No APs offered until Junior year (but I just asked my counselor and she let me)


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Elleya

don'tevengetmestartedlol.

1. 4 years of gym classes, which is cool and all but if you're more academically-inclined like I am, by junior/senior year you're crying because you can't take psych or law or any other major class because of stupid gym class, in which they don't really do anything (apparently in first aid all they do is watch episodes of royal pains, that's useful).

But hey, JROTC is my free pass from gym, which is kind of funny because i'm the least athletic person in my grade yet by the time I graduate i'll have 12.5 more gym credits than just about everyone else (herp derp that's always fun to explain to people).

2. Instead of airing single grievances, i'll just give you numbers. In middle school we had no choices except for foreign language (French or Spanish, except if you had chosen in 3rd grade they basically kept you in that language, my little brother is switching from French to Spanish and he's going to be WAYYY behind). Going into freshman year, 80% of your schedule was already picked for you...the 5 majors (FL/Math/History/Eng/Science) and gym were locked in there. Until junior year, 70% of your schedule is already picked for you. Only until senior year do you really get any choices. So freshman year you really had no choice besides 'fun' classes like study hall and cooking class, sophomore year the same thing (because you had to have 1 art, 1 music, 1 cooking class which are all full-year, PLUS a year of health), then if you were lucky junior year you had one elective class.

TL;DR: no choices allowed.