honors/advanced classes in middle school to prepare for high school

bferamics30
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:39:31 +0000

This topic isn’t for me specifically (I’m way past this age) but it’s something I’ve been debating with others for awhile.

My question has 2 parts. First, in general, is it necessary to have taken advanced/honors/IB classes in middle school to get placed into advanced/honors/IB/AP classes in high school?

And the 2nd part - even if you still manage to be placed into advanced classes in high school despite only taking a regular course load in middle school, is it almost impossible to succeed because you are much less well prepared?

Personally, in my case, I only took a regular courseload in middle school but my high school still allowed me to enter into the IB program a year late (after I had straight A’s freshman year and got recommendations from 3 of my teachers). Obviously it’s different from school to school, but so many people I talk to seem to think it’s impossible to get into advanced classes in high school unless you took them in middle school.

As for the second question - obviously it’s a benefit to have taken advanced classes in middle school, but is it a necessity to succeed considering that some middle schools might not offer any such classes?

The reason I even bring this topic up is that it seems that in this day and age, in order to ensure that a child has a good future, everything has to be so methodically planned out even from kindergarten. It’s kind of depressing, really.