I agree with all of that. No easy answers to persuade some to back off of these behaviors either.
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Wasnât it at your high school that teachers had made a push for compensation for LORs (by the district, of course, not the student 
)? Am I remembering that correctly? (I might not be!).
Yes, these were the main advantages for D. She took classes in subjects of interest not offered at her high school - philosophy, anthropology, sociology, etc. She enjoyed the philosophy classes so much she is now planning to minor in it. And because sheâs now at a UC all the credits transferred easily and predictably.
The rigor was good in her CC classes. I mentioned above that I had been disappointed that she had never had to write a paper over 2 pages for high school. This is true. However, one of the CC anthro classes she took had a 10-12 page paper as one of the requirements. i was very glad that she got this experience, especially as a high school student still at home so that I could help guide the process as she had no idea how to even approach such a paper. So I think that was a very valuable experience she got through CC which she was not able to get through high school. (She does have sophomore standing as a freshman, but this has no practical advantage for her as she is not planning to try to graduate early, although for some that could be a valuable advantage.)
Can only speak for my D: she took summer classes, and senior year took only 5 core classes at high school, then took CC classes in the afternoon to round out her senior year schedule.
She deinitely did not. She was an EC queen lol However, she was also - in my opinion - very overscheduled. I even tried to get her to cut back, but she was really into her ECs so for her it was fun, even if it made her very busy. (I personally prefer some down time so this kind of schedule would NOT work for me.). Now that sheâs in college, not much has changed - she is still in multiple clubs, leading a student research group, participating in her sport, interning in a lab, just got accepted to work as a peer advisor, etc. Sheâs just the kind of person who likes to be constantly busy and on the go. (I always joke that D has never met a committee she didnât want to serve on - and she currently serves on several.) So, no, she has never sacrificed ECs and still doesnât even taking 17 credits this semester.
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I find APs super useful as a tool with my homeschooled kidsâa low-cost way to show colleges that they can hang with their public-schooled peers. But I definitely feel a little dirty every time I hand money over to the College Board. I also think the quality of the courses varies wildly. I actually really like the AP lit exam and feel like they do as well as they can with it given the time constraints. And my experience has been that I can pretty much just teach whatever I want, make sure theyâre familiar with the test format, send them off and they do well. But I went through AP lang last year with DS24 for the first time and felt like I had to spend a lot of time teaching him to write 3 sort of terrible essays. Which I did, and he learned what they wanted and got a 5, and it was fineâwe used it as a chance to read a lot of great non-fiction that we wouldnât have otherwiseâbut I was not at all a fan of the test, and that surprised me a bit given my experiences with lit.
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My understanding is that teachers who teach 11th graders in certain subjects (and maybe some other teachers) get a certain number of work hours carved out for LORs, provided by substitute teachers / assistants. But that is just what my son told me, and I really donât know the details.
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Catching strays, as ever.
One sometimes missed aspect of this is the CC LOR. At our school (tippy top BS where the average caseload is probably about 25-30 kids), the counselor has several meetings to get to know each kid, and of course sees their entire transcript which includes paragraphs of specific teacher feedback for each course taken. Theyâll pull âmoney quotesâ from all this written feedback directly into their own LOR.
And thatâs of course on top of the teacher LORs, which, as has been mentioned, are written by teachers very well trained in how to say whatâs necessary.
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Based on the comments I have read through the years on this site, I always thought that CCs in CA were much stronger than in CT. My local CC doesnât even offer MV Calc, whereas my childrenâs HS did.
There are several math classes offered at the local CC, but all for math that should have been covered in HS.
Teachers who teach classes that the strongest 11th grade students take are likely to have the heaviest LoR request load.
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I can confirm. We did not read the counselor rec, but she had a full questionnaire from the parents and the student, and access to all written assessments of our student from all grading periods. (Note, at boarding schools, teachers write paragraphs to explain how the student performed.) We know she had conversations with our studentâs academic advisor. She also had regular one-on-one sessions with our student and calls with us, the parents. Starting in 10th grade, she reviewed our studentâs course selections. Her caseload of seniors was a couple of dozen.
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In our district a teacher can apply for a compensatory day for writing up to 12 LoRs. (I can apply for a 2nd day when I commit to more than 12.) I know the students stress about finding the best fit for their LoRs.
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It seems common that AP course quality is not good, or grades are inflated beyond the difference between high school and college grading standards. For example, this report from the Houston school district at https://www.houstonisd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=73138&dataid=393904&FileName=AP%20Report%202022.pdf (figure 6B on page 19) shows that the most common score for A students in AP courses was 1 (26.9%), while only 18.3% got 4 and 17.5% got 5.
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There have been threads before about students encountering LoR rationing to the point of possibly not getting enough LoRs from any of their teachers (no possibility of being picky to find the best fit or whatever). For example: Teacher told S24 to write his own letter of recommendation [and other teachers are refusing or rationing letters of recommendation]
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A couple of the teachers at our HS imposed hard caps on the number of LORs they would write, and required students to ask early and fill out some form.
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AP Quality can be spotty. Some of the tests are decent. Students regularly discuss which test is easiest to game, so they wonât waste a semester in class. They cram briefly and Challenge for the test. Scores/Money are exchanged and everyone is happy.
My dislike for The College Board is strongâand most teachers share my feelings. I find their business model insidious. Each AP test is $97. Register after November? $40. Cancel the test? $40. Send it to a college? $15. SAT fees are a similar model. IDOC Fees, Common App Fees, etc. the CEO gets paid $1.7m. sorryâend of rant.
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I thought the common app names the schools that the parents attended and also their current jobs. And I thought AOs can make some SES conclusions from that apart from the landscape.
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Yesâthis is tough. I put a lot of time and energy into writing my LoRs. And yes, I typically have to cap numbers. As someone mentioned, if you are teaching specific student groups/subjects, you can get hammered.
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Does the school have different counselors for college admissions vs all else?
Our HS assigned each student to a GC at the start of 9th grade, and the GC remained with the student through all four years. Each GC had 40 students in each grade level, so only had to write 40 GC letters. The students met with the counselor in small groups throughout the year starting in 9th grade. Students were introduced to Naviance during these group meetings, but I am not sure what function Naviance served to a 9th grade student. Parents had a one-on-one meeting with the GC second semester of Jr year, and students had a separate meeting.
The school does not have separate college counselors and I imagine their days are filled with endless non-college meetings, but the system seems to work.
The Physics C teacher was popular among my sonâs cohort, both b/c of the subject matter and his great personality.
Thank you for teaching and caring.
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Many HSs that donât have dedicated college counselors (which is most) or have very high counselor/student ratios, donât complete detailed counselor LoRs. They complete some of the generic common app form and note something like âdue to large numbers of students per counselor, we wonât be sending detailed counselor LoRs for any students.â
Hereâs the commonapp counselor form:
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I sincerely wish that were some standardization among HS profiles. The info contained in the report you linked should be included (at the school level) on the HS profile submitted to colleges. The profile should also indicate if enrollment in AP courses is open or restricted.
As AP courses have exploded in popularity, I have watched the slight decline in % scoring at 3 or above at my childrenâs HS. If you go back a decade, 300 students sat for 569 exams with 97% scoring 3 or above. Forward to today, 500 students sat for 1200 exams, with 92% scoring 3 or above, with no change in enrollment.
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Probably the biggest college admission advantage that students in elite prep schools have compared to if the same students attended regular high schools is in the dedicated college counseling staff, which
- Can know which âreachâ schools are more likely to be interested in admitting the student, so they can advise appropriately.
- Can write better and more detailed counselor school reports.
- Can advise each student which teachers will be the best LoR writers for that student, while avoiding overloading any teachers with LoR writing.
- Have arranged for teachers to be well trained in how to write good LoRs.
Of course, is that advantage worth the tuition (net of any financial aid or scholarships) for any given student whose parents can afford to pay? Probably depends on if the student would have a realistic chance at reachy private colleges that use LoRs.
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