<p>My S is only allowed to take AP Euro at our high school next year…honors everything else. I guess technically he could take AP Biology since he did honors Biology this year but the usual track is to take Honors Chemistry sophomore year.
I am amazed by how many APs some of the kids are taking as posted on this forum.</p>
<p>Our HS track is Soph Chem after Frosh Honors Bio (for students who are rec’d to take Soph Chem). However, Soph Chem is not “Honors” and is supposed to be a killer class. DS15 is taking it, but there are parents with older kids who have advised against this. Even the counselor told DS that it was a very hard class, should be an Honors class, and told him to think hard about taking Soph Chem since there’s no real benefit for non-science-focused kids. We decided to stay on the Soph Chem path, mostly because DS’s friends would be in the class and it would probably be easier to navigate, have study partners, etc with kids he knows. We shall see…</p>
<p>My S took Honors Algebra in 7th grade. He was capable, but the main reason we wanted him to do it was to avoid a teacher that he would have otherwise had for both 7th and 8th. He is also taking AP Physics B and AP World History. The physics is because there are no honors science classes in our school and the world history is what almost all the college-bound sophomores take. Two years ago we wouldn’t let our D do the AP World History on top of the Calc AB and Physics B and that was a disaster with the regular World History teacher she ended up having. We don’t have any honors social studies/history classes either. I hope our S isn’t taking on too much, but he has a lot less time committed to EC’s than D did.</p>
<p>My D will be taking AP Euro and AP Bio,rest are honors.Here they can take chemistry honors if the take algebra II in freshman year and do AP bio directly in sophmore year.</p>
<p>A sad thing is our school will not have counselors next school year due to budget cut.We don’t how they are going to manage.</p>
<p>I went to D’s school last week as she was getting the President’s award for academic excellence.I was shocked to see the way they gave away the awards.Only a couple of parents were there.I don’t know if that’s the way in HS.The students were asked to stand in line according to their counselors like they were going to get food in the cafateria.The principal just read the letter,not even an appreciation from her and the kids just flocked the table to collect the certificates and left.
D has received this award twice before one in elementary and then in middle school .we had a totally different experience then.Is it the norm everywhere?Am i reacting too much? i don’t know.</p>
<p>And about D gettting second rank in her first semester( even though she had a 4.0 gpa the highest you can ge)t,when i asked the counselor the reason,she didn’t know why and then after speaking to other counselors,she said that the coumpter could have made a mistake by ranking them second since there were more than one with the same gpa.Aren’t they suppose to know this before hand and corrected the mistake?I know ranking in freshman year is not a big thing .But still its their duty to take of these things.</p>
<p>Wow tripleamom - that awards “ceremony” sounds pretty crummy. I have nothing to compare it though, D’s school does not give awards to underclassmen. That’s a little shocking that they are getting rid of counselors altogether. While I understand budget cuts, who is going to do the work of getting the kids’ transcripts, etc., together?</p>
<p>D’s only AP option next year is APUSH. She’ll have two honors classes (English and Pre-AP Calc) and is taking Chem as well, but there is no honors level for that and I’m told it’s tough.</p>
<p>momsings: *I am amazed by how many APs some of the kids are taking as posted on this forum. * Me too. Actually, that thread kind of scares me. :)</p>
<p>My D2015 will take APEngLang and APWorldHist next year. These are new courses that were not offered when my D2012 was a sophomore (at the same HS). Back then (three whole years ago!), the only AP offered for sophomores was APEuro. But that teacher retired and no-one stepped up to teach that course so it’s no longer offered. Interestingly, the new AP courses are reputed to be less work than the retired one. </p>
<p>One thing I’ve learned from reading CC is that you don’t have to be constrained by the normal curriculum offered at your HS. There are kids that jump around and take classes at their HS but out of sequence. Your HS won’t like this, but in the end they’ll usually allow it. There are kids that take community college classes, and kids that do dual-enrollment. It’s also possible to take AP and other advanced classes online. If you feel that your HS’s offerings aren’t serving your child well, then get out there and explore your options.</p>
<p>But … be careful! CC makes it easy compare to what others are doing (or what they claim they are doing) and overlook what is appropriate for your child. In the end, your kid will do better if they take their time and get a solid foundation in their HS-level courses before advancing to college-level material. Yes, colleges want to see kids pushing for a rigorous curriculum – but only to the extent that they can be truly successful in the courses they take, in balance with extracurriculars and personal development.</p>
<p>@mihcal1,i second your thoughts.We can get carried away by the things at cc.It is more important to take the rigorous course the school offers and the kids comfort level.I believe that kids have an indepth knowledge of what they are learning than spreading themselves thin and end up not doing good.As far as taking classes in community colleges,our school district does not encourage it,as the community colleges are also tight in budget and do not encourage school kids to take classes.
I can see my D making decisions on her own and she is more sure about what she wants and what to do.This is a good change in her.In years to come our kids will know what they are interested in and decided on classes,doing research etc.</p>
<p>@suzy100,yes thats what we are wondering too.Who will write the recommendation letters to school for the incoming seniors and other stuff.They are planning to manage with a counselor’s assistant and an assistant principal.With 3000 kids in campus don’t know how they are going to manage.The award i mentioned is given by DC with president’s signature and a pin through out US.</p>
<p>Last week of school.Finally the end is here for this year.</p>
<p>Hi everyone! Our high school has been out for a week and a half now, so we are in full summer mode. 
</p>
<p>Comparing AP offerings, our HS lets freshmen take AP World History, and it’s a brute of a class - hours of studying every night. Sophomores can take AP Comp Sci, AP Stats, AP Euro, and AP Human Geog. My son won’t take an AP class until junior year. At our school, if an AP class is offered, then there is no honors level course - it’s either AP or regular.</p>
<p>My daughter is jumping around quite a bit. She is taking AP chem and APUSH next year. She is probably the only sophomore in those classes. She is done with Algebra II and geometry because she doubled math. I confess, I made her do that because our county’s math is behind those of other places. I teach a summer camp for GT kids and she is in CTY so we know… She wasn’t happy at first but now she’s thankful. She wasn’t happy because she was the only freshman in algebra II class. Now she’s happy she did that because she found out from her CTY friends that in most schools in other areas, good students take geometry in middle school and algebra II in 9th. She said if she didn’t follow my suggestion, she’d be behind her CTY friends in the same grades. </p>
<p>I just found out she’s ranked #2 in her class. I don’t know the class size. She has a 4.0 unweighted and 4.27 weighted GPA.
Is class rank meaningful at this point? I think she’s not #1 in spite of the fact she gets As in all the classes and took the only possible AP, because of her middle school transferred credits (Algebra I and French I, which gave her 4s instead of 4.5s) and she did band which didn’t give freshmen honors credit. I’d think it’s not a big deal. Also I’m sure class rank will change as years go by.</p>
<p>Personally, I wish our school would limit AP’s because the way it is, there is a lot of competition to get as many as possible for class rank. (Supposedly one of the Jrs. took 7 last year.) BUT, I think colleges look at the number of AP’s taken in the context of the school the student comes from, which would include not only the number offered, but also how many the top students typically take AT THAT SCHOOL. I don’t think one should worry about comparison from school to school.</p>
<p>@herandhismom,the class ranks don’t matter in the freshman year.Since you brough in two more classes from middle school her gpa would have dropped down whe compared with other kids.Their total credits will be divided by six or five whereas your D’d will be divided by eight.Like Gibson said earlier in the thread,taking classes outsides of school or more periods would bring down the gpa.So if you are concerened about the ranks in the future try to fit everthing within the periods available.</p>
<p>@stemfamily,your are right.In D’s school a max of 13 AP’s can be fit into the schedule.It is very hard to get a permission to take extra classes.They don’t let kids take classes for personal advancement.</p>
<p>In our HS, sophomores can take AP World and AP Euro. My son will take AP World. He wanted to take Euro as well and I talked him out of it. I don’t think he realizes how much work load is with 2 AP history classes at the same time. Besides his rest academic courses are all honors.</p>
<p>Congrats to the parents/kids with high class rankings the freshman year!</p>
<p>@tripleamom, I agree that the way your HS handled the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence was strange. Our middle school presented those awards at 8th grade graduation and it was a Big Deal! Our DS15 even has that award listed on his resume and it came up in a job interview at the private school where he TAs in the Summer. They knew what it was and congratulated him on it. I don’t believe his HS presents that award (at least to underclassmen), but they do give other academic awards & DS brought home a few of those. They put on a nice awards ceremony overall at his HS. Congrats to your DD for earning that award and hopefully she knows it’s an honor, even if her school slacked-off on presenting it properly.</p>
<p>On the subject of ranking, DS’s HS ranks weighted & unweighted. I’m unclear as to how rankings are done. DS is ranked 1st “unweighted,” but that’s just because he has all As for 9th grade. There have to be other students ranked 1st, as well. Once grades are weighted, he’s ranked 7th. (There are perhaps 350 in his class - the transcript doesn’t list the class count, for whatever reason.) I asked an experienced mom about “weighted” rankings and she thinks that the kids who accelerated into HS math in 8th grade have a jump in rankings vs. the kids who did not accelerate in math. Those 6 kids have an extra HS “A” on their transcript. Made sense to me. I’m not concerned because, even though DS will (hopefully) get good grades in HS, there is no way he’ll be one of the top 5 students in his class. But keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be in the top 5%. I’d be good with that ;-)</p>
<p>Interesting to hear about the other AP classes offered to 10th graders at various schools. Got DS15 an AP Euro test prep book that was suggested in the AP discussion thread. As a joke, I gave it to him for his 15th B-day. He wasn’t really amused, but he’ll probably look at it over the Summer. At least he didn’t throw it at me! :-)</p>
<p>Everyone’s talking about honors and AP classes, so I thought I’d ask - it seems like most schools offer 3 levels - AP, honors, and college prep. But my D15’s school offers 4 levels - AP, accelerated, honors, and college prep. I looked at the school profile but there is no indication of whether what my daughter’s school is calling honors is the same as what other schools call honors. Or -most importantly - what colleges would view it as.</p>
<p>Does anyone else have an extra level above honors? Is this really viewed as a higher level inbetween honors and AP?</p>
<p>SansSerif–it is varied from school to school all over the country. From what I am getting from the postings here is that there are schools that offer much more than our high school and some offer less. All our school has are honors for most Freshman and Sophomore classses with the exception of AP World for 10th grade, and then AP classes for grades 11 and 12. I don’t think that really answers your question though. I guess you would need to call your school and find out what they consider the highest level to be.</p>
<p>That’s the thing - they say they have college prep as the lowest, then honors, then accelerated, then AP as highest. But I can’t figure out if what they call honors is the same level class as what other schools call honors.</p>
<p>Tricky thing, that^^^</p>
<p>LOL Yes it is. I don’t know if my D took 5 Honors classes this year or none at all … Drives me nuts!</p>
<p>SansSerif – when it comes time to apply to colleges, you just list your classes with whatever titles your school uses. The college admissions counselors are familiar with most of the HSs and know how to normalize. For the HSs that are unfamiliar (e.g., a very small HS, or one that hasn’t sent them students in the past) they’ll call the counselor or administration contact person (specified in your college application) and ask. Colleges can also use standardized test scores and (if your student has them) regional/state/national EC activities and competitions to compare applicants from different HSs.</p>
<p>The school profile usually identifies which classes are which level (though not always, some school want to obfuscate) and how weighted GPAs are calculated.</p>
<p>In our local HS, there are typically 3 levels: AP/Honors, Regular/College Prep, Basic/Transitional but some departments have more levels, and some have fewer. World Languages has 2 levels: AP/Honors and Regular. Math has 4 levels: Highest Honors/AP, Accelerated/Honors, College Prep, Transitional. The course numbers tell which classes can can carry extra weight for calculating a weighted GPA.</p>
<p>Basically, every school handles this stuff differently, but as long as the student is seeking out challenge, it’s all good.</p>