Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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[quote]
At some schools an honors program is a great opportunity for a kid who is high stats in comparison to the rest of the student body to make sure they are surrounded by students who truly challenge them./quote

Honest question: Why is this such a strong desire among parents of high-stats kids? As the parent of one high-stats kid and one middling-stats kid, I have to admit that I. just. don’t. get. it.

So can somebody explain it to me? (Using small concepts, please—this remains an utterly foreign concept for me, despite having been on CC for a few years now.)

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@dfbdfb I’m guessing it varies a bit but most are assuming that higher stats kids are more likely to more highly value academics, like their own kids do.

Personally, I was one of those high ability but kind of lazy students in high school. At my own college, I was in some honors classes but I was not offered full admission into the honors program (and I didn’t look into it until too late anyway which probably illustrated why I wasn’t ideal for the full program) but I was friends with a number of the honors program students. Two of my closest friends were 4.0 honor program students all through college. I may not have been as intense as they were in academics, but I’m sure I brought a balance to our friendship anyway. And when we did work on group projects, they never indicated I was holding them back (they also never redid my work and we got good grades). Thus, my own experiences lead me to worry much less about that aspect. The only plus I see for my d19 with a large public university is that an honors college could make it feel a bit smaller and that could be nice starting out. But, as @mom23travelers points out, those large universities will have other ways to make the school feel smaller.

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Mom of D17, D19 and D21 here. @dfbdfb I know for D17 she really enjoys being around kids who are like minded. I can say that she was all about the Honors program/college route. Now that she is actually in college she doesn’t care as much and is drawn to the highly motivated kids regardless if they are honors or not. D17 I would consider to be a high stats kid(some may not) ACT33. My other 2 D’s are equally as smart, so we will see.

Is anyone else waiting on ACT/SAT scores this week? I am a strong proponent of taking these tests starting early junior year. I think it is very difficult to start looking at target schools without having an idea about where your student lands with their scores. D17 started Nov/Dec of her junior year and tested again in the spring and one final shot Sept. of senior year only because she was going for a specific scholarship. I asked her what was her advice for her sister and she said, get the tested done as early as possible. Now all of my kids are on the advanced track, so they already had the math and science that they needed/will need.

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We’re waiting on D’s SAT score from 11/4. She had accommodations so I don’t know if that affects the timing of her score availability. Seems like it shouldn’t but who knows. D didn’t do the optional essay portion of the SAT since at this point her likely schools don’t require or consider it. We have conflicts with the December and March SAT days, so we decided to go for the November date and then re-test in May/June if needed. She’s on the advanced math track but reading is where she struggles. My D15 took the SAT in December of her junior year and was “one and done.” D15 was always good at standardized tests. D19 not so much.

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My kid ended up in a scheduling black hole last year due to being in both the theater and arts magnet, and the only history course that would fit was a standard (not honors, GT or AP) history course. It was the most miserable class he’s ever been in. The students were disrespectful and delighted in wasting time, the teacher was stressed, the teacher ended up having to repeat himself to get points across. Kid was bored and upset. Kid never wants to be in a Standard class again, because he assumes that the kids will act like they did there.

Now I know that if kids are capable of getting into college they usually won’t act like those Standard kids did, but I like the fact that this experience means that kiddo appreciates the value of being in a group full of students who are intellectually curious and willing to respect the teacher’s time.

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@dfbdfb One reason I wanted D19 to be surrounded by other high stats kid is I didn’t want her to become lazy. I lived through that myself. I never did homework in high school at all because I never had to. Then I got to college, didn’t adjust, and got mediocre grades.

I saw that was going to happen with D19. She was in a “gifted” middle school and her classmates were studying all the time. D19 never did and was still a straight A student. I was worried that she would just live her life thinking that school is way too easy until it was too late to change.

When I got a new job, I purposely moved to one of the toughest school districts. The result is that D19, although she realizes she’s smarter than most, still has to work pretty hard. Working hard is probably more important than raw brain power for long-term success in life.

She’s capable of mid 30s in the ACT (we’ll find out tomorrow). Going to a school with an average ACT of 20 will likely not challenge her, and could lead to her getting bad work habits again.

In addition, as for honors colleges, at some schools the honors kids get much nicer dorms than the non-honors kids.

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@jeepgirl We’re awaiting both her ACT and SAT scores this week. Hopeful that she won’t have to take either again.

At least we know that the late registration deadline is still available, in case she does have to take it again.

To me, it just makes no sense to wait until March to May of junior year. If you take it the first time in May and do badly, your early senior year is wasted doing re-tests instead of finalizing college choices and doing essays. If your first test is in November and you need to retake it, you can still re-take in December, February, March, May, and June of junior year.

So we’ve been targeting an early junior year test date since before she started high school. E.g., the high school wanted to place her in Algebra 1 for freshman year and we changed that to geometry specifically so she will have Algebra 2 done in sophomore year so she can do an early junior ACT. It almost backfired on us when we changed school districts and the new district wouldn’t take her word for it that she took algebra 1 in 8th grade.

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@dfbdfb S19 is just a highly motivated, very curious student. He’s the kind of kid who comes home and is dying to show us what they did in class today. And he wants to learn extra about things that particularly interest him. After homework is done on the weekends, he can be found trying to dig deeper on an astronomy concept or a particular author he’s decided he likes. He wants to be with kids like him. He’s taken a few non-honors classes to keep his work load manageable and he ends up being one of the few in the class discussing ideas and trying to get more out of his teachers. He’s not judgemental. It’s just been his experience that he wants to be in the classes where discussions are interesting and where kids want to LEARN. His APUSH teacher told us at conferences that he seems five years older than the rest of the kids in the class and that’s an AP class. She said it’s especially wonderful to see a boy as this kind of student as it’s usually the girls who are more mature in class.

I know many students since I’m a math tutor and even some of the bright ones just want to get an A. Don’t care so much about the learning part. And then there are the kids who don’t do as well in school and just don’t like it. All of these kids from our high school will still go to college (98 percent of our 700+ students per grade go to a four-year college). I can’t tell you how many kids moan “why do I need to know this?” when it comes to math…and S19 wouldn’t say that about any subject.

I am not trying to make any blanket statements about honors kids versus non-honors kids but I have to just go with the experience our kids have had so far. When he was at Carleton last week, he was in an Ethics class and he could tell the kids were super engaged and he really liked the discussion. Felt like he could have held his own. It got him excited about being in class with kids like that. Honestly, I wish he didn’t care so much. We could merit hunt even more and he could do the big fish in a little pond thing but it’s just not his first choice to do that.

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@homerdog funny you say this about your college visit last week. My D17 is the big fish in the little pond and Merit was very important to us. She loves to be engaged, but wanted to be around what she would call “normal” kids. That is where she found the nice balance with an honors program.

@gusmahler we totally think alike! We are planning on the late registration as well. Good luck to your son.

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@homerdog Great to hear that about your kid. When we ask D19 what she learned in school, she almost always answers “stuff,” although sometimes she mixes things up and says she learned “things.” Only real exception was AP Psychology. She loved that class and that will likely be her major (or at least a minor).

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@gusmahler D21 tells us she learns “stuff” all of the time. And S19 rolls his eyes.

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@homerdog my D21 is extremely animated and excited to tell me about what they are learning in
school, especially every detail in Debate and Academic Octathlon, her two favorite classes. She would get along well with your S19.

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My opinion is that public honors colleges and programs can’t guarantee that every student will be your intellectual peer, but your intellectual peers will be there and you end up finding each other. We’re in AZ and ASU is our local public university and it’s huge, 52K at the Tempe campus and more at the other campuses. I’ve definitely heard that there are classes at ASU with non-motivated students who either can’t show up for class or show up but are barely more than a warm body, especially in intro classes. But I also think that any capable, motivated student will quickly move into the more advanced and challenging classes and leave those slackers behind (same as in high school). My D19 went the LAC route. But she had many peers who chose Barrett for financial reasons. Very bright high stats kids whose parents can’t afford their EFC’s from top schools. One of her friends, for example, got into Rice, Georgia Tech, USC, and Carnegie Mellon to name a few, but couldn’t afford them.

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I guess part of my non-understanding is why “intellectual peers” is such a salient thing—really, I don’t know what that even means. My wife is a PhD engineer, and she intuitively grasps issues of the physical world that I can’t even begin to recognize that I’m not getting; I’m a PhD linguist, and I intuitively grasp issues of interconnected effects of emergent complexity in human behavior that she’ll readily admit leave her utterly mystified; we have a friend who’s a professional (many-degreed, much-honored) musician who intuitively grasps issues of the way acoustic phenomena work in actual practice that either of us need a diagram to even begin to know what’s being talked about, let alone understand the details of what she knows; and so on.

Are each of us each others intellectual peer? Yes. And no.

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@dfbdfb Maybe it’s not intellectual peers in the way you’re describing it. S19 wants to be with curious, interested students and, at least at his school, they exist mainly in his honors classes and have high grades and GPAs. Of course, they all have different strengths and they respect those in each other. In general, though, the super math kid is also in AP Lang and APUSH and is a good student in those classes as well. And the strong writers hold their own in advanced math. Maybe the lopsidedness emerges more once they get to college and can focus on their strengths.

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For my kid, she finds the level in the cohort and does not rise above it. When she’s surrounded by smarter kids, she tries harder, because she wants to be a team, one of many, etc, etc. She wants to fit in…and she will work above her pay grade if necessary to find that happy place.

When she’s surrounded by not-smarter kids, she drifts. I’ve seen it happen.

So yeah, for us, smart kids are something we try to throw at her all the time.

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Participating in a Honors College is a very personal choice, just like any other college choice . Being surrounded by other students who choose to go one step above can be very comforting to some students. It has nothing to do with bragging rights, it has everything to do with personal choice . People shouldn’t have to justify why they chose to participate in an Honors Program, just as those that didn’t shouldn’t have to justify their decision . It truly is unfair to say that Honors students are not like "regular " college students just because they find a program that is a good fit for them .

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I was in an Honors College my freshman year at an state school back in 1989. It was a party school and my Honors classes and Honors dorm did slightly increase the caliber of student that I was pooled with on campus.

I then transferred to Michigan for 1990 & opted out of the Honors College. I just felt a school of that caliber would be hard enough to be with ‘normal’ people. I wound up doing a double major and was always content not being in their Honors college. There were always brilliant kids in my normal classes. I did have several friends in the Honors College and they both had some really neat experiences being part of the Honors College. Their dorm was just a super cool spot to hang out and they had some crazy famous people as their capstone advisors that were visiting professors. It was a fair amount of extra work though at the time, and I never regretted deciding against it.

So one has to think about the caliber of school as a component of the impact.

I think the biggest impact for some schools is the early course registration. With education cuts, that reassurance you are getting an early crack at your required courses in a certain order is a huge benefit.

:slight_smile:

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In discussing honors programs:

Now this I don’t question at all, ever! :smiley:

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Missouri Science & Technology Tour

S19 came back from a SITE week at the University of AL newly interested in Metallurgical Engineering. When I typed in schools that were ABET certified in this, there weren’t many.

Saturday morning we drove to S&T for their Open House day. This school is 2 hours from were we live. It was a pretty busy agenda. There was a general overview presentation of their available degrees. There were lots of tables for Housing, ROTC, Diversity, & all of their design teams I think were there with their ‘toys.’ There is a lot of military people in this area, so the school was openly friendly to military students. We took a campus tour. It is not an ugly campus, but it is utilitarian compared to something like Washington University or the Michigan Law Quadrangle. It is not overly large. Then Admissions had a big overview presentation with a lot of detail about how to apply and FAFSA. I suspect between first generation/transfers/military they need to explain stuff a little more than readers of this website would need. After that we split by degree interest & there was enough time to visit two majors.

We went off with Metallurgical. The students presented and fielded questions, then did a really nice job of mixing with visitors as we all ate some pizza. We then got to see a foundry pour. My son was totally into it. We had decided to go see Mechanical as our second major, but we got swept up with the Ceramics people as they were in the same building. Again my son was totally into this and was having a blast in the labs goofing around. The Ceramics group had 3 separate presentations, so I just sat back and let him enjoy himself. I don’t think there are too many schools that have these two degrees as undergrad options.

All the future engineers we met were all planning to depart with a degree in 4.5 years due to the impact of a co-op. These kids were best described as being hard working and down to earth.

We then tromped off and toured two of their dorm offerings. We did not care for Thomas Jefferson at all and hot footed out of there to see their newer dorm. That one was nice. By this time the tour day was over and we doubled back to the school store and it was closed already.

We spent the night in Rolla. The downtown is pretty midwest rotted out like a lot of small towns. Tuscaloosa seemed more lively and alive when we visited there. We also drove around several neighborhoods and the housing was sub par for even the people who live there (IMO). I really did not like the area whatsoever, but my H gave me a big lecture that it is not my decision and most of his time would be taken up with school, so what he needs he could find right on campus or very close by.

S19 really liked the school. He claims to be done looking at schools. So all we visited were AL. Wash U, Purdue, Mizzou and S&T. I see all the schools some kids are visiting, but then I realize I think I only visited one college back in the day after I was admitted! He has seen 3 flagship state schools, one ‘mining’ state school and one private.

As a parent, there is a lot to be said to know that if he goes to S&T, it is very inexpensive and we would accumulate NO debt.