@skieurope
Yes excellent point to highlight – our 3 hour “limit” was for freshman year. (I don’t know anyone who doesn’t spend 3+ hours a night in junior year, for instance.)
That said, one “good” thing about covid has been my ability to see first hand what my DD2’s workload is and how she is approaching it. None of her screen time/game time etc is being included in the 4 hours she calls homework. And, I will say that it’s probably 4 hours a day during the week, and then 4-5 hours total over the weekend, so not 7 days a week. Maybe 20-25 hours a week, which is about twice what the local public high schoolers we know report for Freshman year. We were aiming for 15+/- hours for my DD3 this upcoming cycle in selecting schools.
That said, I absolutely am willing to believe that other kids might be better prepared academically to move along more quickly than my DD2. (But I feel very confident in believing my DD2 that none of her Andover peers are knocking out their homework routinely in a couple of hours a night. She was one of the few kids who had a roommate while on campus this fall so she knows very well what at least one other freshman was experiencing.). FWIW, DD2 ended up with very good grades first trimester. (But wasn’t gunning for top of the class status at all, and so she wasn’t “over-studying.”)
I also think there are kids who might enjoy that level of homework.
Finally, I will add that because of covid weird scheduling to accommodate for remote learning time zones, there are no study hours this year. Which means it might feel more overwhelming to fit the work into one’s day, when they aren’t plugged into a structure and the momentum of a peloton. This made even more challenging being virtual, where you have to fit in a lot of work while living in a family that still does family things like dinner around a table, or family movie night, or whatever, surrounded by siblings who finished their homework easily before dinner. So those hours feel extra taxing perhaps this year.