How much homework in 10th grade?

Parents Forum
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<p>I tried to write a few reply to seician’s son’s schedule. The short of it is in my opinion it is unnecessary hard. He is taking 7 major courses, 2 math and 2 science courses. The danger is he’ll be spread too thin and his GPA would suffer, and he may get burned out sophmore year. By taking those AP courses, he will need to take AP exams at year end, while other kids maybe focusing on SAT IIs for chemistry or math (I, IIC). Most kids take AP US History (by doing that they could also take SAT II history without much studying). For D1 we tried to optically appear she’s taking hardest courses possible without letting her GPA suffered, and she also tried to line up her AP exams with SATIIs to minimize prep time.</p>

<p>It is not surprising seician’s son has over 6 hours of homework a night (they are all honors and APs). The question is how long he’ll be able to sustain it. D1 is in college now, she doesn’t spend 6 hours a day on her schoolwork.</p>

<p>You are not required to report AP scores, but if you take an AP course and do not show the score it looks suspicious. Unless you get A and 5 on the exam, it is just another unnecessary data set for adcoms to interpret.</p>

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<p>Better to learn one’s limits in high school than in college. I’m thankful that D learned in 10th grade that it was no disgrace to talk to the teacher if you didn’t understand something…in college, she was not at all bashful about attending office hours.</p>

<p>The saving grace of Seiclan’s S’s schedule from my pov is that the S doesn’t appear to have any extracurriculars. Of course, that’s also a downside. AP World is notorious for being a time gobbler and I share Oldfort’s unease with, in particular, the two science AP’s at the same time with the remaining heavy schedule. </p>

<p>Still, if he can handle it, he can handle it, but I’d be very wary of burnout. </p>

<p>Seiclan, with such a load, has your S looked ahead to figure out what courses he’ll take junior and senior years? Iow, will there be challenging courses left for him to take?</p>

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<p>I am very concerned about my son burning out but I was assured/counseled to let him do this since if I don’t he will forever hold it against me (for not allowing him to see if he could). If his GPA suffers greatly, he has only himself to blame and perhaps will ease up next year. If he is successful, Junior year he will prob take AP Biology or AP Chem, AP Calculus AB, honors English (or AP but his is learning that English is NOT his thing), AP US History, Honors marine science 1, AP Spanish, AP Human Geography OR AP Psychology OR AP Environmental Science.
Senior year would be AP Calculus BC, Honors English 4, Astronomy honors (very popular elective here), AP Physics, honors marine science 2, AP Gov/AP Economic (both 1/2 year courses), AP psych or environ or human depending on which of these he hasn’t already taken. As you can see, there is plenty left to take. </p>

<p>DS has cut his EC’s this year to accomodate his hw schedule. He now only does community service every Saturday afternoon and will join about 3 before/afterschool clubs this year (Mu Alpha Theta, Math Team, Spanish Honor society and prob. NHS). He put in 168 hours of community service this past summer so he is already just about at the “silver cord level” at his school. </p>

<p>In his school, the GC told him that in order for her to check the "student took the most rigorous classes box) he needs to take 5-7 AP’s during both Junior and Senior years…REALLY. This high school is super competitive amongst the top 40 kids (out of at least 850 in the grade). Vals and Sals beat each other out for top spots by taking extra online classes and not telling their classmates. GPA’s go out to the the third decimal point…you get the picture!!! I have repeated told him to just do his best and BE HAPPY…don’t be one of those intense kids. He says that he is happy right now with what he is doing. Time will tell but I will tell you that
right now it is Saturday afternoon of a long weekend. He slept 12 hours last night. DS is very happily playing guitar hero on his Xbox and humming along to himself. He seems ok to me…</p>

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<p>What’s the percentage students go to top 20s? Or where do those top 40 students usually go to school? Our HS only offer 18 APs, D1 took 6 AP courses total, but took 9 AP exams. It is pretty typical of top students at her school. They send over 35% kids to top 20s. Of course that includes athletes and legacies. The high school is even thinking about decreasing number of APs offered to encourage students to take more electives.</p>

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<p>The school says they offer 27 AP classes. I am not sure about what percentage go to the top 20 colleges…a statistics that will most definitely be misleading in today’s economy. We live in South Florida where we have 11 public universities that offer instate tuition at about 4K a year, bright futures merit (full tuition)scholarships to anyone with an SAT over 1270 (M/CR) and a GPA over 3.5 (weighted), and additionally many have the Florida Prepaid tuition program. We have prepaid tuition plus one year of dorm for all of our kids. We paid about 6K for 4 years tuition and 1 year of dorm about 15 years ago!!! These fact have definitely skewed the college choices for our top kids. My neighbors daughter gradutated number 5 in her class and is now in the honors college at UF. She applied and got into wonderful top 20 schools but ultimately realized that she could not afford to go. Many realize too late the truth about merit scholarships. </p>

<p>Although it would make financial sense for my son to stay instate, we are willing (and thankfully able) to send him where ever he would like to go. I will say that if it is not a better school (academically) than UF, there is no point to his leaving the state or going private. I have stressed to my son that the goal of all his hs work should be his own enrichment and not to get into HYPSM. He has agreed with me…verbally. My DH and I are from the greater NY area originally and both attended top schools. I am hoping that DS understands that they chances of his getting into our alma maters are slim. As we have learned here on CC, HYPSM admissions are a crapshoot for everyone.</p>

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<p>Is the kid HAPPY? It is one thing if the kid loves, loves, loves the classes and wants to do fantastic, detailed projects. It is quite another if every night is a miserable slog. </p>

<p>If it is a miserable slog, then please, please find a path to lighten the kid’s life. </p>

<p>Some kids are like daffodils – they bloom early and cheerfully. But others are summer roses and need more time in the sunlight to blossom. </p>

<p>I loved the book “Seabiscuit.” Seabiscuit was a talented racehorse – who fortunately fell into the hands of an experienced trainer. That trainer had seen many, many talented young horses overtrained and exhausted too early. He worked Seabiscuit, sure, but he also made sure Seabiscuit had goof off time and hang around the pasture with a pet goat time. Those opportunities to recharge helped Seabiscuit move from talented to great.</p>

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<p>Well it is now Monday of Labor Day weekend and DS has been resting and playing all weekend. He says that this will be a light homework week since his school has some preliminary standardized testing during two days. I find myself concerned that he is going to the other extreme (too little vs. too much studying). We will see.</p>

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<p>I’m a junior this year, but last year when I was a sophomore, I had about 2-3 hours of homework a night, plus the projects. But I didnt have a learning disability and for the most part find high school very very easy, considering I have taken college classes. I had no open periods. 8 periods a day. Same this year with AP, honors, and college classes.</p>

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<p>brandiadd2011,
It depends on classes that you are taking both at HS and college. However, generally speaking, if you have very easy time now, you will most likely have tough times when you go to college. But again, it depends on major and load at college. Engineers, pre-meds and few other majors are having much tougher time at college (even very top students) than some other majors and good number of them switching major soon after starting.</p>

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<p>However much homework it is, it’s probably not enough. My 7th grade honor student daughter once informed me that Abe Lincoln was shot in a movie theater in Gettysburg. She’s the same one who, a few years before, during Black History Month, asked me if white people ever invented anything.</p>

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<p>No. The amount is ABSURD (imo).</p>

<p>The ideal rule is 10 minutes per grade = 100 minutes. I think we all know that the teachers, regardless of what they say, mostly do NOT coordinate this (how can they in high school anyway?). Of course everyone knows their are heavier nights, and A/P classes add more. </p>

<p>Something to consider:
My daughter is now a senior. She DOES spend hours and hours in the office. But, as OP said, there is the Internet on that computer! So everything is done SLOWER than it has to be. I’ve repeatedly taken it away and find she has very little homework! But, since she is now getting it done, I pick other battles, the computer is where she wants to spend her evenings. She is VERY involved in ECs (actually…one of her CLASSES takes as much as 20 hours outside of class in a competition week!..and there are many other things in which she’s involved too). And she’s very social, so I don’t worry about her hanging out online (though I personally HATE to see them tied to that screen and DO “take it away” when I see it getting excessive…their lives just melt away…they have no sense of time or time management…it’s the 50s radio and 60s TV and 70s video games - now it’s the computer).</p>

<p>My point I’m trying to get to is that during grades 6,7,8…she had her WORST homework. Like your child…4-5 hours a night! It was a horrid time for us. She got it done, she got good grades. But it was awful. </p>

<p>I learned two things:</p>

<p>My daughter CANNOT be pushed/made to hurry. She digs in her heels and simply CAN’T do it. Not because she’s stubborn, she just can’t seem to respond appropriately. She has one speed…her speed.</p>

<p>Also - we learned she had MULTIPLE and pretty severe allergies. We knew she had asthma, but we discovered a dairy allergy during this time. Removing dairy made her an entirely new person! She could not focus on ANYTHING prior to this. I know it sounds crazy…but this is a top 1% child who was in a special class where they pulled out only the top 20 ish kids. Then she was pulled out of THAT class to be 2 years advanced in math. Yet this is NOT the reason for the homework (I spoke to her teachers about it several times). It was a focus issue. She would spend 2 hours on math alone! She did have a lot of math, but not that much. </p>

<p>So…removing from the computer will help. But maybe he doesn’t CARE that it takes that long, provided he can surf and chat with friends at the same time.</p>

<p>And check for other/behavioral issues (allergies, focus ADHD…I know…I thought “ugh” too!).</p>

<p>And remind him that this year is VERY important in terms of solidifying his GPA for college admissions. He’ll be sending in applications next Fall based on his rank/GPA at the end of THIS year. </p>

<p>Good luck!!!</p>

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<p>Additional consideration, there are selective programs at colleges that will not consider anybody who had less than most regorous possible schedule at thier respective HS with very high GPA and good number of meaningful EC’s. Kids who apply there know about it. Stats alone will not cut it. There have to be superior stats / most rigorous classes / bunch of related to future profession and unrelated activities outside of academics, otherwise, kid has no chance.</p>

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<p>What I want to know is why do kids have to get up so early for school? I’ve seen school buses outside at 5:30 in the morning!</p>

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<p>Some kids have morning before classes varsity practices. This is my only guess.</p>

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<p>2 years ahead in math=normal/sub-average on CC.
Unless you mean 2 years ahead of the standard of calculus 1 in 9th/10th grade.</p>

<p>So school started for me, (10th) and I have this schedule.
AP Physics
AP Chem
AP World History
Honors English
Speech
AP Calc online.</p>

<p>I have about 3-4 hours of hw a night. I will prob shorten to 2.5 after getting used to it.</p>

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<p>Bluealien, our public school has what they call “zero hour” classes. Those classes start at 6:30 a.m. In our district the buses don’t pick those kids up and the kids are on their own for transport, but a nearby district does transport for zero hour classes. There are many places where bus rides can be 40-50 minutes easy in our area. Taking a zero hour class is purely elective (but counts for credit/GPA etc.) and it’s mostly the “true learners” that are willing to get up and go to school an hour early LOL. Son #1 and Son #2 took zero hour classes. The classes tend to be those that are outside of the essential curriculum but the teachers that are willing to teach a zero hour class are the best so it’s a win/win for the kid who wants to take them.</p>

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<p>Whatever time D has left over from the rigidly scheduled activities and obligations, she spends entirely on homework. Depending on the day’s sports schedule (whether it’s a regular practice or a later night due to a meet) homework starts after dinner (usually 6:45–8) and ends at midnight or 1 AM. Occasionally on weekdays she’ll have an EC obligation (meeting) in addition to her sport, but not very often. Some light homework might get done Friday night, most of the day Sat. is devoted to her sport and could include the evening out. If not, then she’ll do light homework. Sunday morning means church, but the rest of the day is spent on nuts and bolts schoolwork. Like other kids described here, she also seems to have just one speed, and probably could do things faster if she were more disciplined. That said, though, she is likely much, much more focused than the majority of kids at her high school.</p>

<p>I don’t think she gets enough sleep, and believe she would perform better in her sport if she slept more. But this is what she has chosen, despite pleading on my part to get her to drop an AP class or two. Her social life definitely suffers and she is not happy about that. But she isn’t unhappy enough to alter her lifestyle.</p>