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Parent Cafe
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<p>(off posters- feel free, I don’t mind! keeps my thread near the top! :-)</p>

<p>ucsd<em>usd</em>dad-She has planned out her “life” ie 4 HS years, but not surprisingly when she did it during course selections this year it was totally different than a year ago. Also, the school has lots of 1 term electives which change frequently, so I told her not to get too set in her plan.</p>

<p>One of our (hers and mine, and h’s) current areas of dissatisfaction is with the course scheduling. The school has 7 periods. Next year she is signed up for (keep in mind in this small school there aren’t a lot of classes designated as honors or ap, what you see below is the highest option but judging from this years classes they are very rigorous and strong preparation for the APs ahead)
English
Latin III
H Alg II (if accepted, she applied and they fill one section, no guarantees)
Euro History
Chem with H option
Chorus
So as you can see a pretty typical HS schedule, not over the top like some you see on here. But she would also like to take in the 7th period a computer class and wrote a request to the curriculum committee. They “never” approve this and told her so. The head of the upper school suggested that she could possibly audit something, so she is going to try to go that route. I need to check to see if she has sent that request in. They want them to have a break during the day, they know the kids need it even if the kids don’t realize it. … What they are doing by limiting the kids to only 6 classes (they could take minimum of 5) is discouraging taking the electives to explore their interests. This year she half-heartedly tried to take two math classes which I did not support which was shot down early. But now that she has a year of HS under her belt she thinks she could handle it and we’d like her to have the opportunity to try. A new head is coming in next year, and she is putting these subversive thoughts into a few other smart kids heads so maybe they will band together and get the rules changed for the future.</p>

<p>As for ECs, I’m not sure of the details of the club she is in at school, I think they are making things for cleft palate kids, 3 varsity sports this year (this doesn’t mean she is a jock, there were no JV levels for these sports, but one she really is pretty good at) and her main one is Girl Scouts where she is finishing up her Silver Award and plans to earn her Gold. She has done camp counselling for GS and the YMCA in the summers and plans to teach in a program for middle school inner city kids next school year and beyond and maybe summers instead of the camp. </p>

<p>So she hasn’t cured cancer but we feel she is doing awesome and can’t be happier with her self motivation and balance so far. The tough thing when she looks at stats is that she doesn’t have any of her own yet, just a partial set of freshman grades. Not that this is any indication of the future, but she didn’t do that well on the SSAT she took in 5th grade for current school admisison. So it will be interesting to see how the PSAT comes out, but no worrying until we get the 10th grade results back before deciding what to do for all the college board stuff coming after that.</p>

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<p>as for the ECs-- this may sound trite and I didn’t quite understand it when the boys were applying, but whatever it is that she does --be passionate about it. She doesn’t have to be in every club at school or involved in every activity in the community. It appears that her passion is Girl Scouts. That is fantastic because it is obviously a program that she has been involved with for years.</p>

<p>I would suggest that if she is interested in a top tier school - whatever that may be these days- she should carry the most challenging course load that her HS offers. </p>

<p>Think about the ACT as well as the SAT. While our sons did about the same, many of their friends did much better on the ACT. Also, only the most recent ACT scores are sent to colleges, unlike the SAT which sends the complete history.</p>

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<p>The public HS my D’s attended only had 6 periods but lunch didn’t count as a period so they took 6 classes a day. I find it frustrating when schools impose limitations even though they may have their reasons. Their school had certain rules as well but we managed to go around them. This included taking a certain number of AP courses as a sophomore, taking all 6 periods of AP courses as a junior, and taking two math courses at once (AP Statistics and Honors Pre-Calc). Sometimes it just takes presenting your argument but it may have been easier in the >2000 kid public HS since they sometimes end up acquiescing just to quiet the parent down.</p>

<p>What I meant on the plan was to determine if she’d be at the high track, a medium track or some other track - perhaps emphasizing science/math or arts for example. For example, one usually can’t get into AP Spanish Language without having completed certain other Spanish courses or they can’t get into AP Physics without having taken regular physics.</p>

<p>Both of my D’s earned their Girl Scout Gold awards. IMO it’s an excellent achievement and is rewarding in a few ways besides the intrinsic reward. In order to achieve it they must complete a lot of community service hours involving leadership which looks great on a college app. The task they completed can also help earn them community service based scholarships.</p>