^ Yes on gym. Our HS requirement is 3 trimesters of PE. D did 2 trimesters as a freshman, and has to finish that last one this year.
Four years of gym every quarter for all students, including three sport athletes. A health segment is scheduled in somewhere along the way each year for half a quarter, I think. CPR instruction, the evils of drugs, etc.
Son’s GC just resigned. That is most unfortunate timing with LORs unwritten. Sigh.
At our HS, students have to take PE all four years (but athletes and band kids don’t have to take it during the season of their sport). DS (not an athlete) has a PE waiver for next year due to his heavy course load, so instead of a regular class, he will do an “independent study” for PE (not sure what that’s going to look like).
His other classes are AP lit, psychology/sociology, philosophy (1 sem), calc 3 (DE), data structures (DE), plus 2-3 TBD DE classes in the spring (probably differential equations and physics).
@CT1417 sorry to hear about GC resignation - that stinks!
My DS is taking 5 IB classes (Biology, Chem, Math, English, TOK), health one sem and American Gov another sem. He figured he will have wiggle room for college apps in first semester and science tournaments second semester.
My daughter will have 5 AP classes (Calc BC, Biology, German, English Lit and Physics C -2 tests for that one). Will have band and a lunch. Probably is another class but I cannot remember it now. My son took a similar schedule his senior year last year but wasn’t in band and didn’t have a lunch but had 2 additional AP classes. That was his idea rather than me or my wife. Sounded better spring before senior year than it did last spring when senioritis had set in.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I love “rigor mortis” haha. @Mommertons yikes, that does sound heavy duty.
Senior rigor My D’s sounds pretty normal by comparison, haha. She too is choosing not to go to the AP level with language, stopping after Spanish IV Honors this year. She will instead take AP Calc AB and AP Stats. Science this year will be AP Physics 1 (which sadly, is all her school offers.) For social studies (her school requires 4 years of social studies) she’s opting for AP Macroeconomics over AP Gov (she’s hoping, probably in vain, that this will be the end of “dead guys named John” lol, even though she’s done very well in history.)
Instead of AP English Lit (she took AP English Lang this year) she’s doing a dual enrollment course Syracuse does for HS students called Project Advance on Academic Writing (which she desperately needs, because she’s a talented writer but her HS barely asks her to do any!) It costs money, but having looked at the syllabus I think it will be worthwhile for her to have more practice at those skills before college (which costs much more money! 
)
We have PE required all four years too. Fortunately, the school offers something called Personal Wellness (D calls it “hipster gym”) where instead of team sports, they do rotations of individual fitness activities like yoga, pilates, TRX, etc. and she really enjoys it. She’s decided to take AP Studio Art, because she missed having a formal art class terribly this year (Art Club just didn’t make up the defecit) and AP Studio Art is the only drawing/painting class she hasn’t taken yet. 
Senior year rigor
I suspect it will be about the same in terms of his workload at home though I suspect it may be perceived as a tad easier. 3 AP compared to this years 2 so that is something I guess. He will do APES, which while possibly not perceived as being as difficult as some of the others, is a possible major and so is pretty important to him to take. He will not have FL and that will be replaced by Theater Tech which I am sure is perceived as easier but again, given that there is tech scholarship $ out there and it is a likely college job option, it has its own benefits as well. The rest lines up for the most part though Senior Civics is only a half year and then one required semester of PE. Math and English (AP Calc AB and AP Lit) are equal to this years rigor. In some ways, I would prefer he was taking another science versus the theater tech. It would look better on apps and help him in other ways however I also respect the fact that this is the first year the kid has been able to consider an elective that wasn’t music and it is only due to the extra work he put in to qualify for a PE waiver. He earned one fun class. Hopefully it will not hurt him, but if it does, it does.
@RightCoaster I would think it depends on the overall acceptance rate as well and factoring in your schools track record with those choices. For a lower acceptance rate school I am not sure how much 1 point on the ACT really does help. It certainly doesn’t hurt but is that the deal breaker? I do not know.
Our reality is that schools where S would be at the 75th percentile (lower stats kid, especially in this crowd lol) are schools I don’t want him at. He has one school on his list where is above the 75th and I want the school off the list. However, his 50th percentile schools are relatively high acceptance rates and several with 100% acceptance from our school at his stats so I think it’s better than the pure quartiles may indicate. At least I hope so! 30 does seem to be a magic number for many though, at least in our tier range and we will not hit that even with a retest.
@HiToWaMom that is interesting the finals were graded so differently between our two schools as I would have assumed it had to be the same test. S got an 83.5, which was on a curve. I think a 58 uncurved, class average was a 54. So really your D’s 16 out of 24 is better! One kid did get 100%…uncurved. I would tend to agree that stats makes more sense with her major but I get where the GC is coming from. That said, it may depend on the list of schools she is applying to as to whether it is really a factor or not. Our GC gave similar advice on the English side of things. S was really torn, kind of not wanting to take AP Lit but not liking the regular English 12. GC was very clear that the colleges would prefer english 12 to the semester long electives that would have been the other alternative (maybe creative writing and debate? I don’t even recall). S would have enjoyed taking creative writing and was definitely talked out of it. Had planned to do reg Eng 12 but changed his mind on the last day of registration. I am grateful, I wanted him to take AP Lit, H didn’t think it needed but I do think it really would have hurt the look of the overall senior year rigor.
@CT1417 I feel your pain, DS’s GC just retired. Time to break in a new GC, who has yet to experience the wondrous brilliance of my special snowflake! 8->
Yikes! I feel bad for you two having your GC leave right before sr yr.
senior year rigor
DD will take about the same rigor load as junior year. AP calc BC, AP lit, AP macro, AP gov and after she barely got an A in Latin this year (whew) she decided not to take AP and switch to AP physics. She’s never taken physics before so she is hoping she does well in spite of that,
No gym/PE. Their school requires a year of health and it can be taken in school or online whenever you want. She took it online in 8th grade. She Is also taking orchestra honors and she gets to leave school 2 periods early. So she will be home at noon every day. I don’t have to make lunch ever again! Woo hoo!
I won’t bother listing all of dd’s courses, but I thought I would share her English course b/c she is super excited about it. She actually asked me mid-11th if I would let her do a capstone sr thesis bc she came up with an idea she wants to research and wants to be able to spend the year doing it. She titled the course:* Shakespeare: A Senior Thesis*. Absolutely not something I would have wanted to do in high school! But, she is my lover of all things words and he had a way with those!
We are required 4 years of PE here - really wrecks the schedule and doesn’t matter if you are involved in sports/dance/marching band - you still take a full year of PE/Health.
I am so sorry for those of you with a new counselor - has to be hard as they get up to speed. Our HS has many counselors, I would hope if the one assigned to our letter of the alphabet would leave that some of the veterans would step up and help with the senior crush in the fall.
DS17 will be taking 3 APs (BC Calc, Comp Sci, Eng Lit) along with Hon Physics, Ethics&Religion (a Sr History elective), and Orchestra. Son was prepared to challenge for entry into AP US Gov (closed out initially) but opted to take the History course in Ethics instead since he loved the teacher this year and will use him as one of the LOR. He will finish with 7 AP total. He finished Hon Spanish 4 as a sophomore and opted to follow his interests thereafter, doubling up on science and math courses (including OChem), in lieu of AP language. Hopefully this choice will be equally acceptable to his college app reviewers as was the case for DS14 who stopped languages after Latin 3…yet gained admission to a top 10 LAC (admittedly as a science major). We’re all about chasing whatever fuels the brain cells, so long as you’re not just opting out of rigor just to skate.
** Sr year rigor **
son17 will take 2 AP classes, Stats and Econ I think. They are the only classes he is interested in. He’s 100% focused on biz subjects and really shows little interest in other subjects, He is taking all honors level classes for the rest of senior year. He did not want to study anything not related to business, ha. Luckily one school he is interested in attending is virtually all biz classes from day 1. They just jump right into it.
I’m really impressed with your kids who take so many AP’s in a variety of subjects and are excited about them. That shows a lot of commitment and dedication.
@whataboutcollege depends on what she is thinking of majoring in at college? If pre-med I would take bio if se did not already take regular bio.
@BusyNapping man that is one tough schedule. I thought my daughters was bad with AP Lit, AP Bio, AP Calc BC, AP Stats, AP US Hist, Latin 6 and Senior seminar.
Only 1 yr PE required here. Makes sense since most kids here are involved with at least 1 sport.
Sorry to those that lost GCs. That sucks! D had gotten in good with her sophomore GC and then she got rotated. So then D had to make nice with the new one. With a big school, we don’t want a generic recommendation so had to make sure she got to know D. Will be really upset is she gets rotated next year.
But has anyone else noticed that many schools no longer ask for GC recommendations? At least among the schools D is applying to, that seems to be the case.
D’s senior year: Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra, IB Spanish V, AP Bio, AP English Lit, AP European, AP Stats, AP Micro, AP US Gov’t, DE macro. Fall semester is harder than spring.
@NCComputerNerd Yeah, it is more difficult than is ideal for senior year, but the teachers are all supposed to be good and understanding about college applications. Plus, she wants to major in IR, so she has been waiting to take these classes since her freshman year!
I’m really glad she’s taking a study hall though! It’ll allow her to make time for college apps in school and talk to her GC or teachers as needed.
Sr. year: Calc 3+ Diff. eq., AP Lit, AP Psychology, AP Physics C Mech&EM, Spanish 4, Chamber orchestra, Technology (graduation requirement 1 term) and 1 term study hall (haven’t had study hall for ever)