Hollylove

I go to a fairly competative, academically-based high school. (We like to think we're amazing at everything. Haha.) On top of that, I'm in AVID (which is basically a college prep program). I'm a junior, so things are really kicking into gear.

Now my question...what were your schedules/grades like, academically, for those of you who are seniors/already in college? (Or parents, about your kids if you feel like sharing.)

My AVID teacher and counselor are significantly stressing me out over NEXT year's schedule. My teacher was going on today about how UC's are so particular about who they accept that you really do need to have four years of math, science, and English...English I will have, and I'll have three each of math and science, but am trying to decide whether or not I want to brave a fourth year of math (I HATE math). I'm trying to reassure myself by saying that most schools I want to apply to are audition-based and the only UC I want to apply to is Irvine, but at the same time I'm freaking out...

My junior year schedule -

Chemistry
AP US History
English 3 Honors
AVID 11
Drama 3 Advanced
Function/Trig/Stat
Spanish 2

And what I'm looking at and trying to downsize for senior year -

Environmental Science AP
Economics/Government (required for graduation)
English 4 AP (Lit)
AVID 12
Drama 4 Advanced
Statistics
Spanish 3 Honors

A "full schedule" at my school is six classes. Seven classes is with a 0 period, which I really can't physically stand (but have to take this year). By senior year, most people have five classes - which is what I'd like to do, I figure after three years I deserve a break, haha. But every time I mention not taking a fourth year of math, people jump down my throat about it! It's really between that and a third year of Spanish - which I actually like and am good at.

gem

You'll probably get a variety of opinions but given the level of math you have achieved so far, I would go with a third year of Spanish for your senior year.
Enjoy this busy year ahead of you

srw

In our area my S wasn't required to take the fourth year of math or science, but he did anyway, just to be on the safe side. Some colleges are so hard to get into he thought it would look better on his transcripts. Also many colleges do require the additional math, science and foreign language. Do you know what schools you are going to try for? That might make a big difference. Many (most) colleges put the info on their website. You might look around at a few and see what their HS requirements are. I'm sure many on this site who are far more knowlegeable will weigh in with mor info.

musicmom1215

My D had 4 years of math (algebra I in 8th grade so no math senior year), 3 years of science, and 3 years of Spanish. At OCU, the 3 years of the same language gave her the foreign language credit so she does not have to take foreign language at college. Her math and history were dual credit with the local community college, so she does not have to take any more of them in college. If you can somehow get college credit for the advanced courses in high school, it helps a lot. Saves money and allows for more courses related to your major or other electives in college. All that said, and knowing my personal feelings about math , I'd say don't take a 4th year of it.

Hollylove

Does Algebra I in 8th grade actually count with colleges? I took it then too, but have always heard that doesn't really matter.

soozievt

So much of this question has to do with what sorts of colleges you are aiming for. The more selective colleges truly care about the strength of your curriculum including not only how many years of the core academic subjects you took, but the level of the courses and how their rigor, in terms of what was available to you at your high school. If you are applying to much less selective universities, this will matter less. Since you asked about our own experiences, both my kids took every academic subject every year of high school and took the most challenging level offered of every class and then some (they accelerated in some subjects and so exhauasted, for example, all the math and foreign language classes by junior year (taking AP Calculus and French V in junior year). My daughter who stayed on for senior year, then took a long distance AP Calculus BC (second year of Calculus) through Johns Hopkins and did an independent study with one other accelerated French student 2 on 1 with the French teacher as French VI. My D who went onto a BFA, chose to graduate after eleventh grade but in that year she had AP Calculus and she had French V, the highest our school goes in those subjects. She also took some high school level courses in middle school (including Algebra I, Geometry, French I and French II, a long distance college course in Writing, and two HS English classes in Shakespeare and Creative Writing). The high school classes taken in middle school appear on her HS transcript and counted as HS credits. However, had she not graduated early, like her sister did not and who had done similarly, she still would have taken every core academic subject and the hardest levels of each as a Senior to show as strong of an academic record as she could for college. I don't know the schools you are aiming for and so I am speaking very generically here about taking academic core subjects each year and taking the most rigorous level of each that you can handle and still succeed in. Colleges DO examine what you took and how demanding of a schedule that is within the context of your particular school. Some colleges have much easier admissions standards academically than others. The more selective the school, the higher standard of admissions and the more competition for slots amongst others who may have that strong curriculum, high grades, and high rank to present in their package.

StickerShock

Hollylove, check with your GC about that 8th grade Algebra. I know in our town (which has pretty poor math programs,) there are a few different ways to be introduced to Algebra in middle school. One way is to jump into h.s. Algebra & complete the freshman course as a 7th grader, followed by h.s. Geometry in 8th. Usually these kids will go on to four additional years of math in h.s., but the h.s. transcript DOES show the two h.s. courses taken in middle school.

Another way is to take freshman Algebra at a slower pace, stretched out over 7th & 8th grades. One year of h.s. algebra would then show up on the transcript. The third option is an honors 8th grade math course that begins some coverage of Algebra in the middle of the school year. A full year of h.s. Algebra is not covered, and there is no h.s. math credit given for those students.

Find out what level your Algebra course was & make sure the h.s. transcript will show it. My D is in a Catholic school, and they DO include her public middle school excelerated math courses on her transcript. It's not included in her GPA, but it will fill the h.s. math requirement.

NotMamaRose

As soozievt pointed out, Johns Hopkins University has a program called Center for Talented Youth (CTY) that allows qualified kids (they have to take a test to qualify) to take distance learning courses. This may be an option for some kids who want to add a rigorous course that their high schools do not provide.

Tarhunt

First, the UCs. Their requirements just to qualify for admission are very specific. Do not fail to meet those qualifications if you want to go to a UC.

Second, I have two children currently in the business; one in theater and one doing on-camera work. The theater one is pretty successful. She just left a B'Way musical to do a leading role in a LORT B+ theater. The on-camera one just got his first meaty film role.

They took two very different paths.

The theater one's senior schedule looked something like this:

AP Chem
AP Physics
AP US History
AP Econ (independent study)
AP Language Arts (forget which one)
AP Spanish
AP Calc
Beginning Chinese taken at the local university

She did NOT go to a BFA program and I'm not sure we would have paid for it if she had. If one is going to work consistently in theater, it's best to have both the skills and the intellectual traning and capacity to diversify successfully into different roles and styles, and to be able to follow the arc of both the show and the characters' places in the scripts.

She got a BA in literature and theater from a LAC, with enough credits for another major in vocal performance, then went to a graduate MFA program in acting.

The on-camera son has a learning disability. It was a struggle for him just to graduate from high school. He would probably not do well in theater, but he has a real knack for on-camera work, and went to LA with a six-figure bank account he earned doing commercials and industrials growing up. His high school curriculum was the minimum of what it takes to get a diploma, and I cannot even begin to tell you the admiration I have for him for the hours and hours of work he put in just to pass. When he auditions, he stays up all night memorizing the sides. I've never seen such a hard worker.

He did not go to college. He takes classes in LA and auditions constantly.

I told you all this because I believe that the type of work you're going after should drive the type of education you seek. On-camera work only rarely requires a high degree of intellectual accomplishment. A great deal of theater work does. But not all. If ALL you want to do is MT, then fine. Your employment opportunities will be quite limited (there are just very few jobs available), but MT scripts do not generally require a great deal of complexity, creativity, and subtlety from characters. So, a broad education is rarely necessary. If you want to do MT and on-camera work, that's possible, but you will need a great deal of on-camera training to drop the broad acting habits you'll learn in MT training. But that's very doable.

If you want to make your life in the theater, only, and do a number of different roles, and feel that you're doing something artistically worthwhile and continuing to grow as an artist, then you'll want to challenge yourself in the classroom whether it be in high school or in college.

keepingcalm

I appreciate hearing what different students schedules have looked like in their senior years as D is still on and off about graduating early. She is currently by years in school a sophmore but by credits (and oddly on all her class lists) a junior. She is NOT an academic wiz by any means but she is a hard working and deligent kid who wants to do well. Her dilema is, if she graduates early she will have an overloaded schedule junior year, as I am making her take 4 years of math and foriegn language. But on the flip if she stays for her senior year she will almost no requirements, and have maxed out many of the schools programs. I will not recommend her for AP calculus since the teacher is terrible and she struggles in math and would be unlikely to do well enough on the test for college credit.
How did you kids do all those classes and audition? That time issue is what I really worry about if she was to graduate early.

MichaelNKat

Another thing to consider is that taking the most rigorous high school curriculum that you can successfully handle provides the need and opportunity to develop very strong time management skills, self discipline and study habits. These are qualities that are essential to successfully navigating the demands of college including MT programs.

There is often a misperception that because a MT program is not a traditional "academic" one, that it is somehow less demanding. Nothing could be further from reality. My daughter is a freshman at UArts. She has 23+ hours a week of classes just from the mandated curriculum. Add to that time needed to practice, rehearse scenes, do required readings, write papers and have some down time to go to the gym and socialize and her days literally start at 7:30 am and end at 12:30 am. She is constantly reading plays and other literature, writing analysis and other papers. The time demands are huge and the work has real academic substance to it. If she had not challenged herself throughout high school with the most demanding curriculum she could handle, she would not now have the skills and discipline necessary to cope with the demands she now faces.

MichaelNKat

Keepingcalm, my last post cross posted with yours so let me offer some thoughts which hopefully are responsive.

Balancing the demands of school, outside activities and audition prep/auditioning is tough. We found that the key was to map out a time line starting with my daughter's junior year so as to spread the work out over time. We put together her list of schools during the first half of the junior year and then visited as many schools as we could during the spring of the junior year, taking advantage of Saturday tours and info sessions wherever offered. Towards the end of her junior year, she lined up teacher recommendations and once applications came out in July before her senior year, she started working on her essays. In August, she completed her applications, late August got the rec forms into the hands of her teachers and by the end of August finished all of her essays. Her apps (all regular admission) were assembled and sent to all schools by the second week in September. That put her in a position to spend the entire fall finalizing selection of audition pieces and and preparing for auditions without the burden of needing to attend to applications. In September my daughter prioritized her sequence of auditions and in the first week of October, we scheduled all of them, again choosing Saturday dates so as to minimize time missed from high school. We started the auditions in December and spaced them out through the end of February. In addition, instead of taking a "shotgun" approach of applying to 10 or 12 schools, my daughter applied to a small but diverse list of 6 carefully selected to match her profile as a student, meet her needs and preferences and provide some reasonable opportunities for admission. (Some people would recommend that 8 schools is a more reasonable number. The point though is not to create overburdens by mass applications and auditions.)

In a nutshell, organization, timelines and spreading the work out over a reasonable period is essential to handling all the burdens of the process and regular everyday life. Many parents, as did we, also assist their kids by handling all the administrative/clerical aspects of the process so as to free up their kids time to handle all the work of substance required by applications and auditioning. It's not easy; kids who apply to MT usually have overload in their lives to begin with. But if you plan in advance and map out how things will be handled, it can be managed successfully.

onstage

My D's story is very much the same as MNK's, except that she started auditioning in October, and had 1-2 auditions each month until April. The early auditions were crucial, and made things go much more smoothly later in the year. She is now a sophomore at Syracuse, and believe me, if she hadn't learned to budget her time in high school, I don't think she'd ever make it through the program. Her classes run from 8:30 am to 5 or 6 pm, with evening rehearsals 7 - 11 pm. Some days she has no lunch and/or dinner break. In spite of the crazy schedule she manages to get assignments done, and done well. In fact, this week was especially stressful, because one teacher required some library research. I'm not sure where D found the time to do it, but her roommate (who is in the same classes but does NOT have evening rehearsals right now) didn't finish the assignment, and had to cut class to get it done.

I guess my point is -- time management is a most important skill for these kids to acquire. If they can learn it in their high school years, all the better.

freedom_fri911

I'm supposed to be a junior this year, but I decided to graduate a year early, so I'm essentially taking all of my required Junior/Senior classes in 1 year.

My Sophomore year I took:
Adv. Bio
Adv. English 10
AP Human Geography
German 4
AP German
Algebra 2
Theater 3/4
Health/PE I

Summer school:
Intro to Psych (dual enrollment)
Health/PE II

Junior/Senior Year:
Adv. American Studies (all year)
Adv. World Literature
Problem/Statistics
Oceanography
Chemistry
AP Gov.
Multimedia (some type of tech credit)

Sort of an easy schedule... I guess...

soozievt

I echo all of what Michael and onstage have written.

Keepingcalm, graduating early, in my D's case is not what made her have to do any more or fit in anything more. She went to school all the same as if she were a junior who could have stayed for senior year. Her academics were whatever they were going to be regardless of graduating early. However, she took the most demanding curriculum offered in all five academic core subjects, as well as took classes like Chorus, Jazz Band, Jazz Theory, and Music Technology.

What I want to echo, however, is that a BFA program and schedule is very very intense and demanding and FULL. I have met students who want a BFA who do not have the work ethic by virtue of their academics which says something. I feel that students who are used to demanding academics with a lot of homework and a very full training and production schedule extracurricularly are already used to that sort of life where time management is essential and motivation, drive, and work ethic are critical. Some who enter a BFA program do not realize what they are getting into. It is NOT like regular college with four classes and for a few hours per day whatsoever.

I can only speak for what I observe in my own child's case and I honestly do not know when she sleeps. Besides all that is required, she takes on many other things. Some thrive on this. It involves the utmost of time management to do it all and to do it well. I think she went off to college prepared to be able to not only survive that situation but to flourish in it. It is such a perfect match for her to be doing what she is doing but it is very demanding. She's not complaining. Rather, she craves it. Every call includes mention of how fantastic it all is to be doing what she is doing. She loves it. But it is not for all people.

I also did not know how in the world she would fit in applications and audition prep and attend the auditions during her admissions year (for her it was eleventh grade). She had explored the schools in tenth and did her SAT testing in tenth. But she was alway all summer and did not do applications then as others are relating. Her year was very very full with not only school and applications and 8 on campus auditions (she only applied to 8 schools total), but she was also in a musical 50 miles from home that rehearsed at night and on weekends, took six dance classes 25 miles per home and was also in a dance repertory company that rehearsed weekly, took voice and acting lessons for audition prep each 50 miles from home, did the school musical, wrote/produced/directed/choregraphed/performed in a musical cabaret revue at her high school, took piano lessons and guitar lessons, and was in Jazz Band and Chorus and all the regional and state music festivals by audition, state scholarships by audition, NFAA, and what not. She obviously had a demanding academic curriculum and even had to teach herself AP Calculus as the course conflicted with her History/English class for juniors because normally at our HS, only seniors take AP Calculus and so she had to do it as an independent study one period per day and take all the tests, etc. while not actually attending the class itself. I don't know how she did it but she did. I think when someone is into what they are doing so much, it is not like "work" to them.

Now, IN college....her schedule seems rather insane to me but she thrives on it and chooses to take many things on beyond that which is required which is already a lot. She goes to classes most days from 9-6. I believe she is in NINE classes including private voice which involves travel time but is required and for credit. She ALSO has chosen to take a TENTH class by audit (and is attending every class and writing all the homework which involves writing her own original musicals) because she wanted to take it and cannot fit more in for credit. Then, she has a professional paying job with a huge responsibility attached to it musically directing a new work by a Tony nominated composer/playwright, and that involves rehearsals four times a week, which she runs. There are also the upcoming performances. She also is musical director for a coed a capella group at her school which involves two rehearsals per week and she also writes several of their musical arrangements and also just did two sessions of new casting, plus is working on recording a CD, etc. She also is in Scholars at her school which meets every other week. She also was just cast in a musical theater workshop in NYC by someone who saw her in a show this summer in NYC and recommended her to the composer and I believe this weekend is recording a CD that they are using to show prospective producers. She is also in a band and writes original music for it and rehearses with them and they are trying to get gigs in the city and record music as well. She also teaches piano privately and also is called to accompany, both for pay. She turned down teaching a musical theater class for children in the city for pay as she wasn't sure she could commit to it with her schedule. She has turned down several musical directing opportunities as well. She also has four auditions this week for shows through school, which all involve very different audition prep materials, and hopes to be in a production and based on experiences so far at college, shows rehearse every night until 10 or 11 and involve weekends. Then she has all the homework, some which is written and reading. Then there is the song and scene prep for classes, some scene prep can involve meeting with your scene partner outside of class. My point is that unless you are very good at time management, have a strong work ethic, and LOVE what you do and are highly motivated and driven to WANT to do all this, you would have a hard time doing a BFA program. I think a prospective student's academic record sheds light on their work ethic and ability to time manage and juggle training, productions, and academics. There are talented kids who are overrwhelmed when they realize what a BFA program truly entails.

Back to academics.....at the more selective schools, academically speaking, they will examine and care about the rigor of your curriculum and your academic achievement in order to assess if you can succeed in a rigorous BFA program, which usually also entails some liberal arts courses as well. It isn't like they care if you are good at math as much as how you achieve, your motivation, work ethic, time management, ability to handle college classes, and so forth.