Fair comments. I meant “lower” by his own personal sense of what is a more “prestigious” school or more fitting to the hard work he put in and his academic level. He’s not only a hard-working kid but also the kid his friends view as the “smart friend” so he has in mind he has to go to a school that matches that expectation of himself. It’s the same trap many high achieving kids fall in and it’s hard to talk him off that. It’s a process, for sure. To give an example, my wife and I are UW-Madison grads. My UW degree got me to an Ivy law school and top law firm so I did just fine. For my son, though, when I mention UW he replies with “I feel like I didn’t need to put in all this work and take all these APs to go to Wisconsin.” Now, I know you don’t need to overpay for a highly rejective college to achieve your goals in life and I know UW was the perfect school for me. I’m simply stating what is in the mind of a high-achieving 16 year old.
As for the bundled offering, we are definitely going to ensure the guidance counselor mentions how he pursued that offering as it was of more interest, still an honors course, and passed on the more traditional high level history or english.