My kid took the highest rigor and had enough time to aide for 4 semesters. It turned out fine.
The only situation where TAing is seen as bad is if it’s done at the expense of rigor (ie., you only have 2-3 core courses and TA is your 4th mandatory period).
This isn’t you. Rigor + being selected for a position that shows the teacher trusts you is a positive.
Agree that being a TA is a positive.
It depends on what the TA responsibilities are. The OP said they needed more time because of ECs to do homework. If the TA period is just a glorified study hall, I don’t see how that’s application enhancing.
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It will look very good on your application. It implies that you were the best student in AP Calc, and hence were chosen to help the teacher teach it to the next year’s class. Do it.
It implies no such thing. The better students may well have decided to fill the period with a rigorous class vs “wanted to have a freer period to work on hw and college apps.”
If the OP gets a teacher rec that states they were “the best student in AP Calc,” the AO’s will take note. But they’re not going to be shaking trees to find assumptions.
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Sorry for not providing more context—at my school, being a TA is like having a study hall. It’s not particularly hard to become a TA because all I need to do is ask my teacher and get approved. Occasionally I’ll get tasks like making answer keys and cutting paper, but it’s very little work. I guess what I could be asking is how colleges would view having a study hall? I’ve never had study halls or periods where I was a teachers assistant until this semester, and next semester I will be taking a full course load.
It depends on what kids usually do. At our school you can take a full load but it’s often difficult due to scheduling options so the vast majority of the kids end up with a free period. This particularly affects the strongest kids because many of the higher classes only have one section so no wiggle room. No one is encouraged to take a class that makes no sense for them just to fill the space.
Really, don’t worry about it. It’s either neutral or positive. You have 5 AP classes, that’s already more than expected and quite a lot.
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(Sorry, I meant to reply to OP!)
If you include a description in the activity section, you would simply include the various things you did to help the teacher, e.g., “Assist teacher with grading, setting up labs, assisting students,” etc. Your description will not indicate how much downtime you may have during the class period, since you are responsible for being present during that time. Colleges are not going to know if it was mostly like a study hall. Furthermore, you don’t need to include a description in the activity section if you don’t want to.
Your transcript, if it indicates anything about this class period, will simply say something like “Teacher Aide,” without explanation. If your high school uses Infinite Campus or similar, you can probably already see what this looks like on your transcript.
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In the several competitive high schools in our district, it is common for the top students (about 20 among the graduating class of around 700 on each campus) to have this course load in senior year:
AP physics C (Mech + E&M)
AP econ + gov (semester courses)
AP English
AP Cal BC (or AP stats if they did BC in junior year)
APES
elective (sports, band, orchestra, dance, etc.)
These students almost all have an “off” period at the end of the day. Many of these students are accepted to Ivies/T20s every year, my own children included. I consider it inhumane if they don’t have that free period.
Our district allows seniors with good academic standing to request the last or last two periods off, which many seniors do. The top students use this time to do coursework, study group, tutoring younger students (sometimes in nearby middle schools), perform student organization duties, practice (sports or arts), work off-campus jobs, etc.
D23 currently at University of Florida did this
Also, she graduated with an AICE, Cambridge Diploma, as well as numerous AP classes and DE
In that case, no. My kids were asked to TA but at their school it is a real job with responsibilities to help teach and tutor. They did not do it because their schedules were too full with rigorous classes. If for you, it is a study hall, it would look better than a free period. But honestly, it is not going to make a huge difference.
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