<p>@twogirls, </p>
<p>That’s what we concluded. Calc BC if D wanted to study math, physics, engineering. Calc AB otherwise. But your D appears to be very strong in math, so maybe BC, regardless of major, would suit her best. What are her friends taking? This seems to matter in high school.</p>
<p>Her friends will probably take BC and I am almost certain that she will as well. Taking AB this year is not an option as it is a full year course ( is it a half year in ither schools?). </p>
<p>Getting ready for storm #2 (
</p>
<p>D is finalizing her schedule for next year as well. 4 full year AP courses, 1 full year non-AP course (regular Physics) and then a 1/2 year AP course and a 1/2 year of Art. It’s going to be ugly methinks. </p>
<p>We are also getting ready for another storm here. If the kids are off school (and I suspect they will be) that will make 8 days this year. I don’t remember a winter like this since the kids have started school.</p>
<p>OH! And D told me last night that her counselor suggested she think about going to law school. ODG.</p>
<p>@Maxwellequations and @mihcal - In my girl’s case, taking BC instead of AB was the best choice. She is very strong in math, and her 10th grade teacher recommended daughter skip ahead to BC. AP Stats is not a strong math course. Daughter will most likely look at something through MIT’s open courseware for her senior year. It won’t go on her transcript, but her math requirements for graduation will be satisfied after this year with BC. I keep holding out hope her school may decide to offer a Calc III or Multi-variable Calc, but it’s not looking good at this point.</p>
<p>D decided to take AB instead of BC. I’m okay with that. She’s not into Science/Math. She’s also taking IB English, IB Cultural Anthropology, Arabic, AP Stats, and Ceramics. I forgot the other class. </p>
<p>HOORAY! Hooray, hooray! Just got an email from the district director of secondary ed; they are going to offer a post-AP Calc BC math next year! Being the squeaky wheel worked!</p>
<p>Woot woot Helimom74! Glad you had success fighting the system! :)</p>
<p>The AB/BC question also depends on the quality of teaching in your kid’s school. BC Calc has always drawn the best teachers at D’s school and the road to BC is a lot more satisfying than the road to AB which is deadly boring for even the kids who aren’t math oriented. I hear that once those kids hit Calculus they are struggling because they just haven’t been prepared for the class. At older Ds’ school by contrast, BC Calc was part of a 2 year sequence and it was reserved for a small, exceptionally talented group of kids. All levels of math at that school were plenty challenging as far as I could tell. Personally I think there must be a happy medium but what do I know…</p>
<p>Helimom, I hope your school helps out with the next math class in the sequence but if they don’t, the online option sounds like the best way to go. Perhaps you can supply an outside transcript or at least make sure that the counselor talks in her recommendation letter about the fact that your D exhausted the math curriculum at her high school and pursued the outside math class in order to continue her study of math. </p>
<p>Congrats Helimom!! So glad it worked out for your D. (Ignore my previous post, ha.)</p>
<p>@HeliMom74, That is GREAT news! She will be in good shape. </p>
<p>My D is taking AB. Her school doesn’t offer BC. We were still thinking about taking Calc II with a CC with the money she earned from a math competition. It may not happen. she decided pretty much to take econ courses, both micro and macro. She is a humanity kid so calc II is kind of a luxury. </p>
<p>Looks like her senior year will be (keep our fingers crossed for this plan to work!!! )
AP English Lit, AP stats, AP world history, H French V, H Journalism, Health(required), Plus micro and macro econ from a CC (online), each econ takes one semester. </p>
<p>Reading all the kids’ senior-year schedules makes me ever so glad I am not taking ANY of those classes. I applaud these kiddos for challenging themselves, and for also knowing when “enough is enough”. It’s tough for kids and parents to know when that line has been crossed or is coming up.
I’m glad this post-BC thing is something 2015 daughter is excited about. It scares me, but she is good with it.</p>
<p>Popping in to say Hi. When I am away from this forum for a few days it becomes a bit overwhelming to catch up…kind of like the paperwork on my kitchen counter! lol I hear you about the rough semester with the drop in grades. That’s where we are too. Still trying to find that balance. We’ve made some changes in classes and wonder why we didn’t do that before! There aren’t a lot of options in the IB program, but enough to make a difference.<br>
I also understand about the teachers who don’t teach. 
D has one now that doesn’t teach much, or gets info wrong, and doesn’t even understand her own tests. D says she thinks she knew more about the topic (history) before starting the class. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an option for this class. D and a couple of her friends are thinking of trying to get together with a teacher from last year to see if she can help somehow.
Yesterday D came home and was suddenly interested in looking through her stack of college mailings. she sorted them and gave them ‘points’ for how many things they sent her. lol She had the most from Vanderbilt, then Oberlin.
What she is looking for keeps changing a bit. She was very focused on only schools that offered neuroscience, but now that is less important. She wants to go to school where she can explore and take a variety of classes. She loves the brochures that Oberlin sends; loves the feel of it with something of an artsy, casual vibe. I need to find that for her closer to home (Florida/ Southeast)…I suspect she wouldn’t actually want to head to Ohio. She asked “How do people even start deciding?”…and it surprised me that I just wasn’t sure how to answer! After ALL the reading and research I have done! I don’t think she’s ready for any real research, but she was disappointed that more of the brochures didn’t have 'real ’ information in them. Most are just a few pictures and slogans, or asking her to send for more info.
I’m really not sure what to make of the ‘take a variety of classes’ idea. Does that mean a liberal arts degree? Is that what she might do for the first couple years and then find a major? I know some schools allow a lot of exploring, but I just don’t know what it means as far as getting a degree.</p>
<p>Shoboemom – I hear you about being overwhelmed. I go to sleep for the night or (heaven forbid) go out for the evening, and I wake to 20+ posts! I love that we’re so friendly!</p>
<p>Liberal Arts Education and majors: Most college degrees require 32-35 classes. Most majors require about 10 classes (some as few as 8, some as many as 12. This, of course is for kids NOT pursuing engineering.) So there are about 20 classes to take over 4 years that are outside of the major. So colleges with broad distribution requirements say you need 3 classes in 3 or 4 categories. That’s at most another 12 classes (probably fewer, since courses in the major will fill the distribution requirements in one area). That gives lots of space in a schedule to explore and grow while requiring the student to take a variety of classes.</p>
<p>So for kids who enter college not knowing what they want to study (and for kids who know, but who change their minds, which is most of them) they spend the first two years exploring the variety of options and getting requirements (and intro courses) out of the way. My the end of freshman year, they have an idea of what they want to study, and start looking at major requirements and course sequences (what has to be taken at what time). First semester sophomore year, some classes are exploration, but more are making sure they have the prerequisites for the major courses. It’s at this point that lots of kids decide that they <em>don’t</em> want to do what they thought when they started college. (D’12/16 is observing lots of former pre-meds/bio majors deciding on a finance career/econ major). They don’t formally declare a major until sometime during second semester Junior year, and at that point, there’s a path to finishing the major and a major advisor.</p>
<p>Does that help?</p>
<p>Shoboemom - my older son did an overnight visit to Oberlin back in 2007 and fell in love. He loved all of the colorful characters that he lived with and I always see versions of them pop up when I attend his improv comedy shows. He graduated a semester early (btw Oberlin has a very flexible gen ed req making it easy to pop in AP credits to fulfill them) in 2012. That’s probably what the brochures are referring to regarding taking a variety of classes. Closer to your home I would imagine that the New School in Florida might be of a similar vibe, but the combo of the music conservatory plus traditional LAC makes Oberlin pretty unique. My brain is here to be picked.</p>
<p>Yay Heli for getting the math straightened out =D> !! I have no clue how to narrow down this search. I hope the winter/spring visits help. All my kid says is " I will know it when I see it. I can’t narrow it down by size, etc." The only thing that I think we have down is the location. Georgia seems to be the southern most point and Ohio would be the farthest west- for now anyway. </p>
<p>Next year looks like AP Euro, AP chem, IB English, BC math, and a college Spanish class. For now, anyway!!</p>
<p>I am so overwhelmed that I feel as though I am bad at everything LOL. I come to work and have piles of stuff to do, I go home to piles of stuff to do. I don’t know how our kids do it. I give them all a lot of credit =D> </p>
<p>This might be a helpful read for those considering premed <a href=“http://www.golocalworcester.com/lifestyle/college-admissions-insider-secrets-for-pre-med-applicants1/”>http://www.golocalworcester.com/lifestyle/college-admissions-insider-secrets-for-pre-med-applicants1/</a></p>
<p>Mihcal1- Would you believe there were two girls and two boys on D’s Science Bowl team? I don’t think that was very common as I saw lots of boys at the competition. I’m truly amazed by all the kids that were there competing and answering tough questions. I don’t remember anything at all like it during my high school years in the dark ages.</p>
<p>Woot Helimom! Great news on the Calc BC. My D is also in that situation and her school has just recently said that they would offer BC next year for the first time. I think as a semester class because it only covers two areas that aren’t in AB as I understand it. Unfortunately, it will only be offered for one class period and since my daughter intends to stay in orchestra and dual enrollment with the community college the scheduling may not work out for her. She will have the option of taking Calc XXX at the community college though, so it will work out one way or another. </p>
<p>@need2learn - we are planning to visit Oberlin in two weeks, we had to cancel our Chicago trip for that long weekend.</p>
<p>D and I are meeting with her principal Thursday to talk schedule. At our HS you can’t take BC Calc until you complete AB Calc and they are both year-long classes. We’ll ask if exceptions are ever made at the meeting I guess, since I understood BC to include all of AB anyway.</p>
<p>Narrowing down the location is a start! </p>
<p>When my son was doing this I found one app in particular that was very good at CR and the best thing was it was fun! I think it helped him too as his score on CR went way up after that app. I have suggested these to my daughter but so far no interest-I think I already said that she has zero interest in studying for the SAT or finding out about the ACT and I am just going to let her figure it out. The more I would talk about it the more she would get her back up.</p>
<p>We had a talk last week about this. She has this spreadsheet which is really very good so she is checking things out. I told her a lot of where she ends up going is going to be based on the time and effort she puts into schoolwork and yes the dreaded test prep! I also told her the state U has a very fine Accounting program so if she decides that her top EC after soccer is watching TV that’s fine-I don’t want to hear about it when the time comes for her to have to decide with us which schools she can apply to. I really can’t offer to help any more than I have the choice is up to her. She is a very good student and is doing very well in school so I don’t have that issue to deal with. I can’t stand how she operates with her homework-basically leaving it until the last minute and staying up to all hours-but she gets it done as she tells me when I makes suggestions so OK then-but I really have to bite my tongue when I hear “I’m tired”. Yes you are tired-but are you making the effort to get more sleep by having better study habits? </p>
<p>I know I am not the only parent who is dealing with this. I reached a point with my son during this process where I had to decide I had helped him enough-and he to his credit did what he had to do. In fact he thanked me in a beautiful note he gave me the Mother’s Day of his senior year. We had a lot of tension here to the point that my previously fine relationship with him was really strained and I didn’t want to lose that-so I told him I was letting him go I was here as a life preserver and wouldn’t let him drown but I needed to let him swim on his own-</p>
<p>Hang in there everyone. It all worked out for him, I am confident it will work out for her, and I know it is going to work out for your children. It’s clear these kids are very fortunate to have you in their corners. </p>
<p>ds2 skipped calc ab to go directly into calc bc. He landed in a class full of seniors who had all taken calc ab as juniors. He had a tough first month of the school year and worked his butt off to get an A.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 - the Feve is a good place to eat when in Oberlin. Have fun!</p>