Junior Year Courses

Parents Forum
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Ds has decided to go to public high school after being homeschooled since K. He’ll be entering 11th grade. We’re meeting with the high school counselor Monday.

I haven’t done this with any of my kids before, and I’m wondering if this course load looks too aggressive.

I believe these AP’s are on the lighter side in terms of rigor. There’s no option for honors precal or physics. The options are regular or AP. Comp Sci 1 is the lower version compared to the AP version. And the engineering course is non honors.

Dual Credit English Lit

AP Precalculus

AP Physics 1

AP Human Geography

Computer Science I (honors)

Principles of Applied Engineering

Football

He struggled in Spanish 1 and will do Computer Science I and II for his language credits.

Freshman Year Courses: Academic Writing (regular), Honors Geometry, Honors Biology, Spanish 1, Speech and Debate, Fine Arts, Basketball

Sophomore Year Courses: DE English 1301, DE English 1302, DE Hist 1301, DE Hist 1302, Honors Algebra 2, Honors Chemistry, Football

Math and science were taken at a college prep co-op. Dual enrollment courses were taken in person at the local community college.

He got all A’s except for Spanish, where he barely made a B.

He scored 1330 (640 RW, 690 M). on the March SAT. He’ll do test prep this summer. Avg SAT score of the high school is 1200.

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Also, would he need to take the AP tests since these courses don’t offer any useful college credit. Right now, he plans to major in industrial engineering.

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Many colleges do not consider computer science as a foreign language for frosh admission purposes. Among those colleges, the ones that want to see level 2 or higher in foreign language would then be inaccessible for frosh admission.

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Ok, thx! That’s something I need to look into at the colleges he is considering.

Looks like this is acceptable at public Texas universities, but I still have to check the OOS schools.

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For an industrial engineering major:

  • AP precalculus would not gain any advanced placement, since that major starts with calculus.
  • AP physics 1 or 2 would not gain any advanced placement, since that major requires calculus-based physics (but calculus-based physics common recommends some kind of high school physics as a prerequisite, in addition to calculus).
  • AP human geography may count as a social science course for general education, but it is best not to assume it does.

Note that industrial engineering is statistics and math intensive. For senior year, taking a college or AP statistics course to verify interest may be something to consider, even though the credit may not be useful (the major will require calculus-based statistics).

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One thing to consider is how the public school will assign a class rank for him, including how it will calculate GPA-for-rank-purposes using courses completed before 11th grade (some have reported some Texas high schools refusing to weight honors courses taken at other schools, for example). As you know, class rank is the biggest factor for Texas public university admission.

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Yes, I am nervous about this. I just submitted some documentation (way more than I have ever given any universities) about his freshman and sophomore year courses, and I’m waiting to hear from the counselor to see if they’ll accept his math and science honors designations.

Thankfully, he has 4 dual credit courses that will be weighted.

I was told all of his previous course grades will be considered in his gpa, and he’ll receive a rank after his first semester at the school.

The school uses a 6 point gpa, so I need more context as to what is considered average, good, excellent on that scale.

Hopefully, the counselor will be willing to tell me the gpa cutoff for the top 10% the past few years. I don’t know if ds has a chance to make top 10% coming in so late, but he understands that and knows it could limit his college choices.

I’d also like to know what constitutes max rigor (demanding, very demanding, most demanding, etc.)

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I teach programming in a large Texas public school. This course load looks appropriate. I agree that it’s on the lighter side of rigor. It looks about the same as the mode of my students, which is about top 25% of the campus. My current juniors are taking AP or dual English and precal. about 1/3 take another AP class. The top performers are taking 4 or 5 AP courses.

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This is helpful. Thank you!

About how much time do your students spend on programming homework outside of class?

Another concern I have is homework.

Football starts at 6:30 AM, and the school day ends at 4:15. Ds is used to having much more unstructured time. A few classes most mornings, a few hours break to complete schoolwork, then 2 hours of football practice and maybe some homework after dinner. So having an entire day of classes, followed by homework, will be an adjustment.

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Is he ready for the APs you are placing him in? Coming from home, not sure how they will evaluate that.

I agree - CS is not a necessary class but foreign language is. You limit your options by ignoring foreign language if he’s not had two years.

Alternatively, he might consider another language at the new school and get two years in.

Also, are there any state required classes - make sure those get scheduled (in the next two years) as well.

Good luck.

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My older kids went straight from homeschool co-op courses to DE courses like Biology for Science Majors and Calculus. If AP courses are similar, I think he is ready.

I gave the counselor work samples from current math and science classes to consider.

I will definitely revisit the issue of foreign language to make sure he understands how it could affect college admissions.

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AP precalculus seems like normal progression after doing well in honors algebra 2 and geometry. (Likely that many high schools just renamed honors precalculus to AP precalculus once The College Board offered an AP syllabus and exam, even though precalculus is not really “advanced” by college standards.)

AP physics 1 seems like what a typical high achieving student will take for science after doing well in honors biology and chemistry. (The College Board says that AP physics 1 can be an entry level physics course for students with sufficient math prerequisites.)

AP human geography is not generally considered that difficult a course (it is commonly offered as an honors 9th grade social studies course in many high schools). It looks like the student has already done well in college US history courses (HIST 1301 and 1302 are commonly transferable college level US history courses in Texas community colleges).

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Can he take AP world history or European History? It seems like he has a strong background in history and English.

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As long as he has done well in the predecessor courses, I would see his English, Math, and Physics courses as appropriate next-step courses for a junior.

I agree the lack of an actual non-native language progression could be pretty limiting in terms of which colleges would see that as meeting their requirements/recommendations.

I also wonder about Human Geography versus something like World History or European History, but I don’t think that is necessarily as much as an issue as the lack of non-native languages.

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My students, those who are capable of staying on task for 15 minutes, has no need for “homework”. The assignments can be completed during class time, and are being done so by about 1/3 of the students. As far as I know, the high performers (top 10% of their graduating class) among my students don’t need time out of school for any school work. They have extra time in class to do extra work for bonus points or to prepare for competitions. My UIL programming team students are also in my APCSA class, and spend about 20% of the class time polishing for competition.

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Make sure that all of his colleges of interest will allow CS in lieu of a foreign language.

You mentioned wanting him to be top 10%. What is your reason for that?

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They are from Texas - so that’s likely the reason. It’s a guarantee into A&M - although not a specific major.

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Top 10% guarantees admission to some Texas public schools. UT Austin only guarantees admission for top 5% (I think), but I think having a higher rank helps there, also. I’m not sure how rank affects admissions/scholarships at OOS schools.

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It won’t at OOS. Some other states have a guarantee for their residents but these don’t typically guarantee a major, similar to Texas.

Scholarships are typically based on gpa and sometimes gpa/test score.

But some schools are cheaper full pay than others with a scholarship. So when time comes, you determine a budget and pick schools based on the budget.