Does anyone have a kid who isn’t taking a full course load in the spring? My d just found out that the university has cancelled her dual-enrollment social studies class for the spring. Her school is very small and they’re saying they don’t have another single-semester social studies class to put her in. She has plenty of credits to graduate, but now I’m worried that colleges won’t look kindly on her dropping a core subject. Her counselor says she can explain to the colleges what happened, but I’m nervous!
My kid has what I consider a weak course load. But his school considers it most rigorous. Because of course conflicts, he cannot take AP science at all. He has to take math DE (he finished all the school offers in 10th grade), which means traveling so knocks out other course time. He does an “independent study” social science course–maybe your D could do that? Small schools (and ours is rural too, so nothing close by) have challenges.
At my son’s school, they only have six classes a day, and state regulations require them to have 24 to graduate, so you can’t take an easier load senior spring or you won’t be able to graduate!
@katstat1 I would gently nudge her to drop band and focus on cheer, but I am biased toward cheer…
@KAMmom My kiddo will have 2 free periods. I don’t think the colleges are too worried about what the kids are taking 2nd semester of senior year (unless that class would have fulfilled a required number for admissions, not graduation, but prerequisites for the college admission) I think they are just concentrated on seeing the kids don’t fall off the wagon and start failing/slacking. If your GC has her back I wouldn’t worry about it. But I understand your worries, my DD did mark that she would be taking Sociology and we now know it conflicts with AP Euro so it is not going to appear on her final transcript.Our GC told us not to worry about it too.
Thanks, all! I just talked to the guidance counselor, and after looking at the schedule some more, she has come up with a way to rearrange my d’s schedule to fit in another social studies class. I don’t think my d tried very hard to make it work. I doubt it would matter for the majority of my d’s colleges, but there is one reach where they made a big point of saying she needed to take the hardest schedule in all 5 solids every year.
I am so in the camp of having an extra period for study hall especially if they are involved in ECs/Sports, unfortunately my daughter has never even had a lunch for a single semester no less a free period, her entire 4 years (my older one didn’t either). In order to squeeze in 8 periods a day and participate in music she gave up her lunch period. She also had to choose between AP Physics and Band this year…and she chose band. I was surprised because she complains about leaving classes for lessons, having to do all these extra commitments etc…our school is not a performing arts school but it sort of acts like one. Band is highly intense and competitive winning national awards, etc. so it’s not a light commitment. She only does Wind Ensemble not the half a dozen other ensembles that she could be in as an EC. But @katstat if it can give your daughter a little breathing room, I’d say it’s worth it to let band go, especially if she doesn’t plan to continue into university.
So I’m curious…do your schools require Phys/Health as well? I think that’s unique to some states. We are required to do 4 marking periods of PE/Health per year…all the requirements make it so tricky to schedule these kids.
Our schools require a one semester health class (my kids did it on line) and two semesters of PE but this can be done done after school if they are in a sport. My boys fence 6+ hours a week so they were able to use fencing for their PE requirement, it also counts as an EC so birds with one stone;-)
Wow! It would have been helpful my daughter played two competitive sports: Ski Racing and Field Hockey for 4 years…to have used that for PE would have been so helpful to free her up for a lunch! @3scoutsmom my older daughter Fenced too…what a wonderful sport! I really love everything about Fencing!
Our state requires pe/health. Some of the schools let you count competitive HS sports, but not ours. S18 is a 3-sport year round athlete, and still has to take gym. Drives me batty, especially when he is tapering for end of season competitions and gym teacher thinks they should break out the free weights or something.
@Booajo yes, during Field Hockey which was her most physically demanding sport, she always chose Yoga or Ballroom Dancing LOL. One of her teammates got a concussion in season playing volleyball!!! It happens…every year someone either gets concussed, breaks a wrist etc playing in Gym.
Our state also requires one semester of health (taken by all 10th graders) and two semesters of PE. The PE credit can be earned by two straight seasons of the same sport or two straight years of marching band. Both my kids, who did physical activities not connected to the school, still had to take gym.
The irony of the health class, in which birth control was discussed, is that several of the kids were already parents.
I got the policy to change at our school to allow for outside sports to count for year of P.E. in rare circumstances. Literally, I wrote the policy and fought. Hard. The small school is such that if kids are enrolled in band and choir (for credit, graded classes), they literally have NO TIME to take electives (if they are also on track to take AP classes and other college-ready courses and foreign language). My senior was one of first (only?) to use outside sports for credit, and thinking my sophomore will be, too!
@MomOutWest unfortunately it’s a state mandate in NJ so despite wanting that policy it’s impossible to get it changed at the local level. @bearcatfan REALLY? Oh my!! I think they needed that class a little earlier. Our Health is 1/4 per year and it’s based on the year so Driver’s Ed, Mental Health, Alcohol/Drug Awareness, Sex Ed. I dont recall the exact order but it’s actually informative I think.
@Momoutwest that’s exactly the issue we had. If you take Band and/or Choir it messes up the schedule because we also have other requirements such as Home Economics, Art (Both Fine Art & Practical Art), Personal Finance, PE/Health are all state mandated requirements now they’ve added a Capstone course and Capstone project. The only way my kids could continue on the AP track and stay with their music was to willingly use their lunch period as a class and thus no lunch.
@ppst right?! If you want my opinion, it’s all so far out of hand. I cannot imagine navigating all of this as a HS student these days. Where do you put your energy and time? My D18 had early aspirations of playing college Field Hockey. So in the first 3 years she was playing year round while still involved in another sport. She was doing club, travel etc. Then she realized she was really only at D3 level and those schools are not what she wanted, she wanted a larger urban environment. So all that energy that she could have been putting into community service or something else was spent on something she loved, for sure, but not necessarily the most wise use of her time in terms of the adcoms and getting better merit etc. It’s so hard. There are so many expectations.
I could be wrong but my take was that AOs were looking for authentic participation in ECs. Achievement to the level that elicits recruitment is one thing, but for the rest of us, it is whether or not one is able to extract some human experience from it all… you know, something that makes them want to go harder/faster/longer/broader next time.
I doubt it would matter for the majority of my d’s colleges, but there is one reach where they made a big point of saying she needed to take the hardest schedule in all 5 solids every year.