This year our HS moved to 5 blocks each semester, lengthening the school day so the kids have an opportunity to take 10 full classes over the course of the year.
How many real classes are selective colleges expecting them to take in this scenario? My kids had been taking the equivalent of around 6-7 real classes a year, not counting weight lifting and other similar fluff, under an 8 block system. I’m not sure what to advise them to do on this schedule.
D21 schedule is:
10 AP World Hist
10 AP Human Geo (the only 2 AP’s allowed for sophomores)
10 H English
10 H Precalc
10 H Biology
10 Spanish 3
10 Animal Science
5 Mandatory fluff class that covers guidance counselor issues (career/college/bullying/suicide/etc.)
15 Weight lifting
10 Study hall
Does that seem reasonable? She could take more, but it seems like a lot already. I just want to make sure she won’t be penalized for not doing more. I will check with GC office to make sure still checks the most rigorous box, but I’m sure it will. I’m more concerned that colleges will look at it and wonder why she didn’t take another academic class instead of the study halls or weight lifting.
Also, as a junior and senior they have the opportunity to take 1 or 2 blocks off and take a class at the local Directional U. Does that seem smart? Her older brother is doing that this year, but he is in a different situation than she is. He needs the college credits more than he needs the boost with the admissions office.
My daughter had 7 academic classes plus lunch every day. So, 10 seems like a lot to me, but it matters what others are doing at her school and what the GC will check off in terms of rigor.
Man, that’s crazy. Our school has six classes per year. No zero hour, no optional after-school period. But also no mandatory health or PE class.
My kid’s sophomore schedule:
Honors English 10
Honors Algebra 2
Honors Orchestra
APUSH
Honors Chemistry
AP Physics 1 ( intended to be Honors French 3, but that conflicted with Orchestra)
10 AP World Hist
10 AP Human Geo (the only 2 AP’s allowed for sophomores) probably will be better to just take AP world history
10 H English
10 H Precalc
10 H Biology
10 Spanish 3
10 Animal Science (Necessary?)
5 Mandatory fluff class that covers guidance counselor issues (career/college/bullying/suicide/etc.)
15 Weight lifting (Is this a gym class?
10 Study hall
Weightlifting is a gym class, they have to take 15 hours of gym class, although she hit that already as a freshman.
If AP Human Geo was replaced, it would be with something like a business class or something similar. There isn’t really any other high academic class she can take.
Animal Science is not technically required, but she is required to take an Agriculture class for one of her main EC’s. It is either this or Plant Science. She will probably only take 5 Ag credits junior and senior years.
This schedule is new this year and is solely because of budget cuts. They are making all of the teachers teach one additional class this year. That let the district leave unfilled several positions that opened up due to retirement and teachers moving on to different jobs.
It also allows students to meet most requirements for graduation by end of sophomore year. Theoretically a kid could graduate at semester of their junior year. They already have quite a few graduate at semester of their senior year. No one will say it out loud, but I think the hope is that the number of students graduating early will increase, freeing up resources. Honestly most kids are going to be out of classes they care to take by the end of junior year. And the block schedule makes it easy to pick up those last few requirements (along with a couple PE classes or early release for work) in the fall of their senior year.
It gives the kids almost an 8 hour day, without EC’s or homework. And is putting pressure on some of these top kids to take 8-10 real classes a year.
Pretty much everyone thinks this is a bad idea, but the school board thinks that keeping our tax rate low is their primary job. So this is what we have.
Depends on what courses. Taking a college course while in high school makes sense if the student is advanced beyond what the high school offers (e.g. in math or foreign language) or wants to sample how the format of college courses differs from high school courses (e.g. choosing college introductory psychology versus high school AP psychology) or sees a college course more interesting than any high school course that would otherwise be available (e.g. philosophy, anthropology, calculus-based statistics).
If the student later applied to medical or law school, college courses taken while in high school and their grades will count for GPA calculations (meaning that preloading college GPA with A/A+ grades is desirable, while B+ or lower grades are undesirable).
Seems like plenty even though it sounds like it’s spread out weirdly.
For comparison, in 9th and 10th grade at our high school the kids do 5 academic subjects plus PE and usually a visual or performing arts (VAPA) class. Or do the VAPA class one year and another elective like biotech or yearbook or maybe an extra academic class the other year. In 11th and 12th PE is no longer required. The more academic kids add another academic class, the less ambitious ones usually just take 6 periods instead of 7 at that point.
our school has 4 blocks - so 8 classes per semester. I feel like some of the classes are watered down and not as complete as they would be with a 7-class-every-day semester. Your school board is reaching; and just trying to figure things monetarily. I get that, but . . . is this in the best interest of the kids? 10 classes would be way too much, i think; just because i think 8 is too much!
But what can you do? Some ideas: do you have Dual Enrollment for some of the classes that are AP? Perhaps you can take DE credit rather than the AP test/credit (and chance not having a high enough score). I’m making my S20 take a mandatory study hall to help with his 5 AP classes. Can your D21 take one each day? Also, this is a good time to try out new classes like someone mentioned above.
They probably wont know or see the educational ramifications of this for a few years. That would be interesting to see.
@VickiSoCal no they do not do well. Most people don’t care, because most of the students take it for dual credit and skip the test anyway. More than 90% of the college bound students end up in a school that is very liberal with allowing dual credit. The AP classes are also not necessarily geared towards the test either. S’s APUSH teacher asked if anyone was taking the test about a month before the test. No one was. Which was good, because she told them that she had only covered about 1/2 of what was on the test.
The problem with dual credit is that lots of the more selective schools don’t take it. S1 took classes and went to a directional U, not problem. S2 knew he had a great chance to end up at an Ivy (recruited athlete) so he took no dual credit because he knew it wouldn’t count.
Since the consensus seems to be that this is enough, I will probably have her stick with 5-6 rigorous academic classes, 1-2 fluff (agriculture, business, etc), and the rest PE/study hall classes.
AP World
Honors English
Honors Spanish 4
Honors Chemistry
Honors Calculus
Weightlifting/Honors Poetry (half a year each)
So seven courses, but only six per semester. His school requires students to take high school level Chemistry before they can take AP. It is common for students who are 2 years ahead in math to take Honors Calc before AP Calc although the very top math students sometimes go straight to AP Calc.
My youngest took in 10th grade
Honors Orchestra
Regular Orchestra
PE (met every other day)
Physics (regular)
Math B (euiv of Algebra 2)
English 2 Honors
AP World
Latin 3
So 5 Academic courses, 2 arts course and PE. Junior year was similar with 2 AP level courses.
Oldest took in 10th grade
Pre-Calc
AP Chemistry
Honors English
Latin 3
Global History part 2
PE
So 5 slightly more advanced courses, no arts and PE. Junior year was similar with 3 AP level courses.
Many high schools in California only allow kids to take 6 classes per year. It is very limiting, especially with the schools around us having “academies” on various topics where the students take one class per year in a subject like engineering, art, CS, health careers, etc.
There may be some state requirement that a full class needs to average some number of minutes per week. Our school schedule comes to 263 minutes per week per class. Also, the way the UC’s capped GPA is calculated, students are actually penalized for taking additional classes beyond the requirements. (Though there is an uncapped GPA that some UCs look at.)
In addition to the core 5 classes, the PE requirement is 2 years plus a semester of health. If you aren’t in an academy, you also need a semester of “freshman seminar,” which is sort of a career planning class. And, the UC system requires a year of one of art/music/theater.
So, something has to give. Electives are mainly for less academic kids. The school doesn’t even offer a 9th grade option for history/social studies, because that is the year most students take health/freshman seminar.
The more academic kids may supplement their HS classes by adding an evening, online, or summer class at the local community college. To make everything fit, my older son took World History in 10th at the CC and math in 11th and 12th. My younger son is postponing his 2nd year of PE until he has finished 3 years of foreign language.
This has been a more interesting and enlightening thread than I expected. I was afraid that my kids were falling behind in the number of classes they take, it looks like maybe the opposite is true.
Although there are just some classes that we don’t have. There is no AP Physics, and Calc AB is the highest math class. I thought about having them do more math at the college, but the college typically offers the 2nd semester of calc right in the middle of the day, which is theoretically possible but tough to pull off with the high school schedule.
There are quite a few electives that they can take in different areas. I probably should push a bit less hard for tough academic classes when they are signing up for classes next year. I’m a white dad in rural America, but I am a bit of a “tiger mom”. I guess this is an area I could lighten up in a bit.
My junior son has this schedule which I think is just awful and scary.
AP Physics
AP Chem
AP Statistics
Dual Credit college English and History
Pre-AP Pre-Cal
Football
Junior year in Texas is simply filled to the brim and he barely sleeps. One of the classes had 40 pages to read in one night. He is smart but I wish he would have added in a fluffy class. Even football is hard since he gets the poo knocked out of him in 100 degree heat. (but then again maybe he likes to knock other kids around too…)