Your son went to CalPoly and had an amazing experience, if I remember correctly? Really appreciate your posts as they have been such an interesting take for me. I have absolutely no guidance IRL, (in fact it’s almost been “anti-guidance” which shouldn’t really happen, but does all the time;) just been doing the best that I can on my own.
I’ve been off cc for a few months, but am dipping back in as more expertise is needed each time course selection happens.
It looks like for a variety of reasons, kid won’t have much tinkering experience from school courses beyond the intro bio, chem and physics courses previously taken on campus. Trying to brainstorm other ways the kid can tinker. Don’t think baking and sewing, although hand work with tools, counts in this instance!
The next two years are a continuation of combining college and high school courses. The high school dropped AP Physics and AP Chem this year. The dual-enrollment associate math degree (if all the credits can be fit in) is meant to compensate for this issue, demonstrate rigor in a course load, and also is in line with the student’s course interests (likes math) and college interest (mechanical engineering). (Don’t know what this would look like to admin officers, just trying to do right by the student.)
Junior year is tentatively this (not done registering):
Semester One
-Math Calculus with Analytic Geometry 3 (community college dual enrollment)
-English 101 Reading & Composition (cc de)
-Physical Geography 101 (cc de)
-AP Art History (high school)
-Food/Nutrition (hs)
-Physical Education (hs)
-Course TBD (high school didn’t have all teachers sorted out last spring for this year)
Semester Two
-Math, Discrete Math (cc de)
-English 105 (cc de)
-Physical Sciences 100 (cc de)
-AP Art History (high school)
-Food/Nutrition (hs)
-Physical Education (hs)
-Course TBD (high school didn’t have all teachers sorted out last spring for this year)
One one hand, the student has generally enough advanced courses done that, except for English and APUSH, everything is already graduation-level ready. Don’t want the kid to graduate early. Already skipped a grade when younger, so the next two years of school are fine (allows for natural teenage maturation while still trying to pursue the sport).
Here is the big issue: my kid needs four courses to be enrolled at the high school. But, due to sports training, is not on campus enough and needs “remote” courses that meet less frequently. So the high school courses selected aren’t great. Feels like the college courses are fine, standard, meat and potatoes, and the high school ones are oddly bird-like and wonky.
THIS is why AP testing will be important for the student this junior year.
Many of my kid’s cc de courses can be recognized at the UCs - if need be. The associate’s degree courses taken/to be taken almost all have been selected for this. (Interestingly enough, only the Engineering Drawing and Python Programming courses are not UC-recognized. My kid took them because A) seemed like practical knowledge to have, in their general area of interest; B) shows interest in Engineering - ie. kid can’t apply to Mech Eng at an Engineering school with only arts and language courses.)
I remember one mom of a Purdue student, I think, mention that her daughter wished she had done more of the GE requirements in high school to free up her schedule for more engineery/tecchie courses in college. Thought this was an interesting perspective; knowing my kid, might be how they feel as well. So, in terms of English, Foreign Language, Humanities (Art History courses) and Social/Behavioral (History, PolySci basic intro courses), it’s better for my kid to knock as many of these out in high school. Four years of college would be for a deeper math/tech dive, or a combined bachelor/masters, if possible.
Our guidance counsellor said that taking AP courses are one thing, but it’s the AP Test Score that counts on a transcript.
So if my kid has a weird schedule this year, any AP Physics and AP Computer Science tests taken would be to demonstrate subject mastery, since the high school course load on paper this year doesn’t represent course rigor. The AP testing in these two subjects would serve to be better prepared for the math/science course load in college - not as courses to test out of at college. (Interesting advice about AP Chem; really seems that this course content should be taken one way or another in the next two years.)