<p>Our (public) HS doesn’t rank, but they do recognize the top 2% with a gold cowl at graduation. My D1 chose not to play the GPA game. Instead she took 4 years of orchestra and opted for ECs that conflicted with some extra-point-ful APs. That kept her out of the running for top honors. My pix from graduation show her friends gold-collared and her in plain red.</p>
<p>But … that didn’t keep those soon-to-be-gilded friends from asking her for help with HW. It didn’t keep her off the teachers’ “wall of fame”, nor make her ineligible for the all-expenses-paid academic team junket to Washington DC. Despite my nervous apprehensions, it didn’t derail her college aspirations. And now that she has trounced first semester at her perfect-fit college, I don’t think anyone even cares anymore.</p>
<p>“The GPA game” is my fear. Not for D…she follows her path (and she’ll never give up orchestra either), but in general at school. I think it changes the culture and introduces unnecessary competition amongst friends and classmates. It’s one thing to talk about grades and feel you “know who the smart kids are” but another to know you are 25th and that kid is 12th, and if you’d only skipped orchestra or that independent study and taken one more AP you’d be in 11th place. Or whatever.</p>
<p>Hats off to you michal1-it is so easy to get caught up in the whole game but to step back and let them do what they want to do is in the long run the best!</p>
<p>My son didn’t give up band and it cost him as well in ranking but in the game of life he is better for doing what made him happy-and it hasn’t seemed to matter one bit now that he is in college what is rank was-he learned far more important things that are worth much more than that!</p>
<p>OHMomof2 if your daughter follows her own path I like her chances! I don’t understand why they would make this change as it will introduce unnecessary competition. In our school they give them their rank after first semester freshman year!</p>
<p>Pepper, you give me way too much credit. A year ago I was a nervous wreck about my D1’s chances and whether the lack of AP classes would keep her out of colleges! It’s easy to sound calm in hindsight, when everything has worked out so well.</p>
<p>D’s grades look good so far, still waiting on her English grades. That man takes forever to post grades - some from mid-November are still not posted. Deadline is January 10, so we’ll know soon.</p>
<p>I talked to D over the weekend to see if she had any interest in any summer programs. Uh, no. Oh well, I still might check some out for her and in any event, she will get a job for the summer and maybe that will lessen my role as Head ATM. Have a good week everyone!</p>
<p>S started back today too, Suzy. I was a little less than thrilled at the 5:00 AM wake up this morning! We are gearing up for his busiest time ever–weekend music festivals which include several out-town trips, music related retreats, all-state, concerts, solo/ensemble contest, oh and he has to do homework and go to school too! ;)</p>
<p>We have figured out his summer schedule–not too much, I don’t think, so he can focus on practicing. He is doing two bass camps right off the bat and then a local jazz festival towards the end of summer. He should be able to get a ton of rest and good practice time in. We may even throw in a trip to a college, which may sound crazy, but when you are doing the audition program thing for music you have to be on top of things, meet people and prepare early.</p>
<p>Happy days are here again too! D started back to school and it’s still fresh enough that she’s awake in the morning and isn’t protesting. She will get all her finals back today and is dreading that. She always fears the worst. </p>
<p>She’s decided not to join the crew team again this season. She’s looking into track but I don’t have high hopes that she’ll want to stick with it. It’s too bad because she’s fast and light and it’s a whole lot less burdensome than crew. Oh well, maybe she’ll surprise me. She’s been practicing violin nonstop throughout her break and I’ve gently floated the idea of a summer chamber music camp that she’s attended before as well as regional youth orchestra next year. Other than that, we have no plans for the summer. I’m really trying to put the responsibility in her lap to either get a job or find a program that will occupy her for at least part of the summer. </p>
<p>IJustDrive, the high school my older girls attended worked the same way. Very few APs, no weighting, no ranking and an assumption that everyone was working at the college level. I don’t think it was exactly true, having now had the opportunity to observe my two older Ds’ college work, and there were classes that were not at all demanding regardless of the school’s stance, but I guess that the work was more advanced than most high school work. </p>
<p>My big objection to adding weighting to APs is that, unless the teacher is tough and resolute, it dilutes the class. I’d considered moving my eldest daughter back to our local high school until I discovered that there were more kids enrolled in AP US History/AP English than not–and believe me when I say that the bulk of them were not qualified to be there. When my D was younger, she attended enrichment classes that were supposed to pursue the class material in depth and at a more advanced level. D loved the classes but the other parents complained that they were too difficult. I don’t know how it would play out at the high school level but that’s my fear. More competitive colleges pretty much require advanced classes anyway and are going to recompute the gpa regardless of how it’s shown on the transcript so I’m not sure the weighting has any real effect anyway.</p>
<p>OK, the on-line grading system wiped out all of the kid’s grades for first semester, even though they WEREN’T ALL IN YET! Which means that we can’t see the comments for first semester. AND they haven’t updated the “historic grades” (all are still from Q1, which don’t go on the transcript). I’m assuming that grades are due from teachers tomorrow, and that the comments will eventually be posted for parents, but this is frustrating.</p>
<p>(The new semester schedule isn’t up either, it’s still the old schedule but the grades are frozen in time at the end of the semester.)</p>
<p>I know I’m being picayune here, since I think I know D’s grades, but I’d like to see the remaining comments. (I think I’m glad that I’ve not insisted on access to D1’s college grades. I could really drive myself crazy.)</p>
<p>My fear also. The kids taking them now either love the subject, want college credit, or are applying to school that value “rigor”.</p>
<p>Add kids who want the GPA boost and the atmosphere may change. Or, these may be the same kids already taking them…IDK.</p>
<p>My son, now in college, was a B student on a good day. He took many APs and “pre-APs” (our 9th/10th grade version of honors) because he said the classes moved faster, more work got done in class (so there was little busywork homework), and the kids didn’t mess around and waste time. The additional reading, papers, material was never a deterrent to him.</p>
<p>I feel that in D’s school, honors classes are so relaxed. They really don’t give much challenge to the students. The only classes that really challenge them are the AP classes, basically because they have the pressure from the national exam. So in spite of the pressure, I’m glad that D. is taking APs. They also give us some idea as to how she compares with students in other parts of the country. We like APs, even though I do agree with other posts here about their inflated value. But without APs, I’d be very nervous for D - because of the culture of our area (nobody cares much about academics, etc.) I’d worry about the pressure facing her the first year of college.</p>
<p>This is an example of how honors classes go - at the end of the 4th week, we were talking maybe have her take honors, instead of AP chem. We found out by then, AP chem has covered pretty much everything that H.Chem covers in a whole year.</p>
<p>I’m totally for added weighting of APs; I think that kids should be rewarded for taking harder classes. In fact, D’15s school gives extra weighting to non-AP courses that are college level. This semester she is taking college Anatomy, and will have several others by her senior year. </p>
<p>So what if some kids take APs to drive up their GPAs. Shouldn’t schools encourage extra rigor?</p>
<p>On a related note: our latest dilemma is over AP Chem. D has over a 100 avg in honors Chem, and her teacher (also the AP Chem teacher) says D really needs to take it next year. D’12 says her friends found it the hardest class they ever had (which include top 1% type kids -Duke, UNC, etc) and that they didn’t even do well enough on the AP test to get college credit.</p>
<p>TV4caster : AP Chem is tough… and depends on the teacher. Does she like Chem? Planning on a science career? If so, go for it. Colleges like to see rigor in a hs transcript. Even if she doesn’t get college credit that exposure in hs won’t hurt her.</p>
<p>D2 back to school this morning… not that happily. We are on block schedule so new classes this semester- except AP World which is a year long paired seminar with 10th grade Lit. D2 approached the asst principal of scheduling at the end of semester requesting permission to take Math 3 this semester. She took Math 2 last semester. Students are not normally permitted to take 2 " core" classes per year. She realized she wanted to take AP Calc BC and AP stats and her current track wouldn’t allow this. I was very impressed with her thinking this through- I haven’t been involved except to send an email confirming our support of this request. My baby is growing up!</p>
<p>My D. is taking AP chem. She is not a science kid - very similar to Maxwell’s situation. She struggled quite a bit at the beginning. It’s still not easy now but she is getting her As. I’m not sure about the national exam. It is hard. Considering she is not doing college chem when she goes to college, I don’t even know if this is worth it. But anyway we are committed. Hope for the best.</p>
<p>OhMomof2, that’s great! D also had room to improve in the writing section and from what I understand that’s the easiest section in which to improve.</p>
<p>TV4caster, I agree with you as long as the harder classes maintain their level of rigor. It makes a huge difference when the difficult classes draw kids who are truly interested and motivated to tackle the class. I don’t think it matters whether these are traditional high achievers but I do think it’s important that the kids come in prepared to meet the challenge of the class and that the class retain the appropriate level of rigor. The AP test should be a minimum bar not a maximum. Some of these exams, like AP Chem, are really tough. Others–not so much.</p>
<p>To answer your various questions: for years now D has said that science is her favorite subject, although this year she says ALGII/Trig is #1, and Chemistry is a close #2 with Anatomy about tied for 2nd. </p>
<p>She isn’t sure what she wants to do in life, or study in college, but she is leaning toward something medical or science related (or maybe math).</p>