<p>At our HS, I will say that it is incredibly hard not to get an A in those kinds of classes, and they are enjoyable. I don’t think they apply a 100-pt scale, though, so I don’t know if the As all count as 100s. And then there are always those teachers with a chip on their shoulder who don’t want their classes to be thought of as a “gut,” and make the kids sweat whether they’ll get an A or not … and I’m talking about cooking classes, etc.</p>
<p>Couldn’t pay me to go back to HS …</p>
<p>That’s the thing…it’s not just an A…in “our world” if your GPA is over 5.0 and you get anything less than a 100 in an unweighted class, it lowers your average. You’d think that the “top of the class” kids wouldn’t take senior release, but they do…If their 6 classes are all APs, I don’t think having senior release would hurt them at all in college admissions (they’ll probably graduate with 12-14 APs).</p>
<p>Most kids that do early release are taking classes at the community college. The others are not working towards the advanced diploma. Otherwise there is no way to get all of your credits in in addition to classes they want to be competitive at top schools. When it comes time for the GC to mark if a student has had the most rigorous schedule there is no way a student can get that if they don’t take a full load their last year. Some are even taking classes online in addition to their 7 classes during their Jr & Sr years. I think that’s nuts and drew the line at that. Our kids don’t have APs available until their Jr year so they do feel they have to really catch up to kids who have had them all four years. We tell them they are ‘judged’ based on what they have available but they still feel it’s important. </p>
<p>I had mentioned that the kids are talking about schools. To be fair, and put this in context, many of S2s friends parents are my friends as well. The parents talk. So in conversation I might mention to my son ‘I heard ‘so and so’ is interested in University XYZ.’. Then I’ll get a conversation out of him. If I simply asked ‘Where are your friends thinking about.’, I would probably get the blank look and ‘I dunno…’. So it is a bit different when you go into the conversation with some information.</p>
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<p>That’s something about our district that makes me nuts. “Dual enrollment” classes at community college are non-weighted. They aren’t even weighted like a pre-AP - they are considered “regular” classes. So, a student has to choose between a lower GPA but actual college credit, and a higher GPA with the AP class and possible but not certain college credit. It’s nuts.</p>
<p>We do not have a senior release, but I’m not sure how I would feel about that anyway. I think the fun classes are great amidst the hard classes of Calculus and AP Gov and English, Physics… Why not take photography or creative writing? I could care less about the chance of lowering the GPA a tenth of a point now. More important that son survives senior year with his sanity. I remember a couple of classes from my HS years where they were the absolute highlight of the day because they were fun. My son has signed up for piano lessons and photography. Waiting for the schedule to see if he gets them. Life is to short to have everything be serious.</p>
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<p>I can’t tell you how excited D is about the idea of coming home early from school every day and taking a nap!!!</p>
<p>Community college classes are not weighted here either, however I do think it is considered in the application process. Our pre-AP classes are not weighted for the most part. Only a few foreign language and one or two math classes. The students have to take them to get to the AP levels. This leads to odd rankings that don’t level out until Jr/Sr year. Students take college prep, however no advanced classes and can have a higher GPA than students who might get a B+ in an advanced class. This levels out once they reach the AP weighted classes. It does cause some frustration with students bragging about their 4.0 when they are taking less academic classes. It’s good to learn early to ‘smile and nod’. :)</p>
<p>Ordinaryd1 would love early release, and I would love for her to have it. But, if there’s an opening in her schedule, she would have to take PE (state law, required every semester unless there’s no room for it).</p>
<p>At Ds school they call it “minimum day” and its optional. I was told that Adcoms frown on minimum day so I would not let D do it. Instead she does what they call “mentorship” for the last class of the day. Basically she “works” in the attendance office. It also didn’t make much sense to do minimum day and leave school only to return to school for after school practices every day.</p>
<p>Did any of you fellow baby boomers go to a high school where they wanted you out of the buiding often and as soon as possible because of overcrowding? </p>
<p>My HS had 7 periods a day. All 9th and 10th graders got 1st period off. All 11th graders got 7th period off, and seniors got 6th and 7th off…out of school at 1:30 pm! Of course, ECs like band and orchestra cut into that. We also had an open campus, because there’s no way the cafeteria could hold everyone. My husband actually had split shifts - you went to school either in the morning or afternoon.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of that missypie, but didn’t happen to me. My husband was actually the first graduating class of his HS because they build a new building. I think his older brother and sister had to deal with the overcrowding though. I’ve never had a school within walking distance of anything (same with my kids) so campuses are always closed. Oh, wait, I did walk home for lunch in HS. I forgot about that! </p>
<p>Our kids also have PE for all four years, ordinarylives. Thank goodness they grade more on participating and doing your best and not athletic ability! Actually there are tons of required classes, so much so, in fact, that kids really have just one open class freshman and sophomore year where they could choose something. Somehow it all works out.</p>
<p>Amazingly, the state of Texas recently went from requiring 1.5 PE credits, plus Health, to 1.0 and no Health. Our District still requires Health, but I think that is mostly for balance purposes…everyone is still required to take a one semester Speech class, and if students aren’t required to take another one semester class, it would throw things out of wack.</p>
<p>Anyway, in the face of all the studies of obesity, poor nutition, etc. Texas decides to require less PE and no Health.</p>
<p>I vaguely remember someone whe went to a school with split shifts due to overcrowding. I used to leave at 11am sr year to go to my waitressing job. </p>
<p>At my S’s school homeroom is after 1st period so those boys who don’t have class first period don’t have to show up til homeroom. And once they are done with classes for the day the boys can leave school. But, I don’t think any boy has more than one free period a day, most have none.</p>
<p>The elementary school I went to on Long Island started as a 7 classroom school (K-6) with an all purpose room that was the gym/lunchroom/auditorium and used on Election Day for voting booths. By the time I started 7th grade, it was two stories high and had dozens of classrooms, and separate gym, lunchroom and auditorium. During the various construction phases, we had split shifts several times. I vaguely remember some other accommodations were made in middle and high school.</p>
<p>My son is on block scheduling (4 periods a day alternating days) so he has two free blocks at the end of every other day to do an internship. We’ll see how that goes this year. I was a little surprised to see that his internship is actually on his schedule. I don’t know how they’ll give him a grade for it. I wasn’t expecting him to get credit for it. He doesn’t need the credit. He’s taking his government and econ through the “credit recovery” online program in order to free up time for his internship. I wasn’t too crazy about that idea originally since he originally was going to take AP govt and econ, but I figure that since those topics aren’t of particular interest to him and the transcript doesn’t identify the credit as different than the regular class room credit, it doesn’t matter. The computer science internship is more important.</p>
<p>What do you think? My dh had planned to take son to visit some tech schools in NY and MA over fall break but after he planned it all out he found that due to the distances involved and flight availability, it would take at least three days and cost about $1K to fly up and visit the three schools with son. We wouldn’t mind if son was showing some serious interest in these (or any) schools but he really isn’t acting inspired. We couldn’t afford to send him to any of these schools unless he got significant merit aid, anyway. So far, son is in the top 30 in his class of 700 and has an ACT composite of 32 and is scheduled to retake. He’d probably get into these schools, but getting merit aid is not guaranteed. The only school he has shown even slight interest in is our state school, Purdue University. Problem is, you have to apply to a particular school in the University and computer science is offered in three different schools. We can’t distinguish the important differences between the programs in the different schools so we don’t know which school he should apply to. Son is really dragging his feet to work on state university applications and the common application. Without any signs of real interest, we think that it might be better to wait until spring to take him to visit schools out of state, if at all. Do you think we would regret not taking him to see these other schools this fall (WPI. RIT, Rensselaer)?</p>
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<p>How about flying into another airport? For instance if you were planning on flying into Boston, perhaps Providence or Manchester, maybe Worcester (not sure if anyone still flies into Worcester anymore but worth a check). Also, check out flights the day before or day after you originally wanted, maybe they are cheaper. Or how about driving. S & H recently drove from MA to OH, PA, VA and DC in one week. It was a lot of driving for one week, but they went into it with a positive atitude and took turns driving. We had also looked into flights and it was just too expensive.</p>
<p>I know the trip turned S’s list on its head. He was not interested in one school til he visited and now it is his #1 choice. </p>
<p>Some schools like demonstrated interest, you might want to visit only those schools who indicate it is important to them. Last, you can only do what you can do. If the logistics are impossible, too expensive, wait til the spring.</p>
<p>You can also demonstrate interest by signing up on the website for information. My S did that and received the Renssalaer “candidate’s choice” application online. It’s a tricky question - I wouldn’t spend the money visiting if he’s not showing interest, on the other hand, visiting might get him interested. If admissions people from those schools visit your high school, that would be another opportunity to show interest. With those stats, I believe some merit aid at RIT is guaranteed.</p>
<p>Those schools are all within just a few hours of each other. We’ve visited two of the three and almost visited the third last week. If the cost is mostly because of an airport, mamom is right in saying that you might want to look into flying into a different one. Southwest now flies into Boston, can you take them from where you are? The one we haven’t visited is RPI but RIT and WPI are quite different from each and the contrast might be real helpful for your son to see what he likes and doesn’t like in a college. That said if he really doesn’t want to see them, why not just have him apply and visit if/when he’s accepted?</p>
<p>My friend’s son, who is a true computer genius, just finished his first year at Purdue and is completely thrilled with it, and they love the price, too. I would say if he’s happy with Purdue then why not just let him go there? I’m sure they can answer his questions about how to apply.</p>