I can honestly say I never thought about the walking backward all that much until this week when, at Seattle University, our guide said she wasn’t allowed to. Other than that they either have, or have not. A few have made jokes about their clumsiness while walking backward but that’s about it.
Ok I’ll bite. And be in the minority. You do not get these HS years back. They are formative and can be traumatic. I would rather have a happy well adjusted kid taking things that make them happy then worry about a “most rigorous” box. If those are the classes that make them happy, then great. But if theater tech beats out Chemistry, and they don’t need Chem for admittance to their major or to graduate, and they love the theater and hate the idea of chemistry well then, take theater tech! Kids crumble under pressure too and that’s not something a parent or a kid wants to go through. Take classes that suit the kid and worry less about checking every box on this mythical “must”!do list. Must have leadership position, must have a sport, must have a quickly unique EC, must have a talent, must check most rigorous box, have won Honors in some kind of national or state level competition and of course have true community service hours.
How about “must”’be a kid??!
Interesting and compelling LOR’s are written about kids who connect and have passion and have personality. Ones who have balance in their life often are able to have more of those things and I see less and less balance overall, which includes my own kids.
In our experience kids don’t have as much free time for the fun classes in college that you might think. At least not if they want to graduate on time. It depends on the school and major of course but…
@Kona2012 Have you considered having your son take physics over the summer at a community college? D19 is taking a community college class this summer – she needs one more health credit (anatomy) to graduate and it won’t fit in her next year’s schedule unless she drops something else so she’s taking anatomy over the summer at the local CC. I had to jump through a few hoops to get her guidance counselor to approve it (and then pay for it, of course!) but it frees up her senior year schedule so she can fit everything else that she wants in. Otherwise, because of the way our block scheduling works, she would have not been able to take AP Bio and would have had to drop symphonic band (which she has been in every year since she was a freshman so she did not want to drop it as a senior).
I have a friend whose kids attend a neighboring district where the physics teachers are notoriously awful. Both her kids took physics as a 6 week community college course over the summer. I think the class ran from like 8-12 every morning (or maybe it was just 4 days a week) – 4 hours a day of physics wasn’t fun but I guess it was better than sitting through an entire year of high school with an awful teacher.
AP Physics at our school has horrible teachers. It’s a right of passage for some kids, though, and everyone suffers together. Very few kids get As. The median score on tests usually hover in the 50s and the teacher uses a curve for the letter grades. It’s just like a weed out class in college. We’ve made the tactical decision for S19 to take it senior year instead of junior year and I noticed that kids with older brothers and sisters knew enough to make this choice as well. I know that most colleges make decisions based on grades through junior year. Plus, S19’s class load this year is harder than next year and we just couldn’t pile on Physics too. So, he’ll face it next year while most of his friends took it this year.
If any of his schools want updated grades in Dec and he has a B, oh well. Better than him having two B’s from Physics junior year averaged into his GPA. And who knows, he may do better next year since he will be more advanced in math having finished BC this year.
As for core classes vs. more exploratory classes and being a kid, I think he’s had time to be a kid even though he’s taken mostly core classes. Is he studying a lot? Sure. With the exception of a few weeks a year, he’s a pretty balanced kid. Seems in a good place. Gets out to run around with his friends for some time every weekend. Of course every teenager is different. Our D21 spends many, many hours at the ballet studio every week but she thinks that’s fun. And we’ve made a few adjustments here and there to her class choices since she maybe has less time on her hands than most kids to study and still get to bed at a good hour.
People dabble their whole life in different pursuits. S19 loves photography but didn’t have room for the class in his schedule. Took a class at a local camera store and takes photos for fun. He learned that he’s some insane frisbee thrower when he went to a XC camp and they held an Ultimate tournament and wanted to start an ultimate team at his high school soph year but there was no time. He got his friends hooked on disc golf, though, and that’s where you finding those boys every weekend that the weather is good. I guess my point is that, even kids bogged down with core classes, can still be kids and have fun. We aren’t forcing him into some school schedule and making his life miserable.
@JDCaliMom His school has HL and SL Chem, HL and SL Bio and HL Physics. All of his IB courses are two years long. The first year (Junior year) some of the classes you don’t have to specify which level you want. His Bio class he is doing HL but the SL and HL kids are together. Next year they break them out in to separate classes. But his HL math is completely separated from SL.
@zozoty Yup that is exactly what we were thinking of doing. I looked it up and the local community college offers it during the summer three times. He can’t take it this summer because he has to travel to National Championships during the course but it is definitely an option for next summer or even the summer after his Freshman year if he decides he needs it.
My son said yesterday that if he has to take Physics he’ll do it but he would drop down to SL math in order to be able to handle the work load. And he said that many of his friends are in HL Physics so at least he knew he would have people to help him. But I think with everything that I am reading, the research we have done online with a few colleges and talking with the educational consultant that he’ll be fine without it. I think I will feel even better after tomorrow’s college fair. Virginia Tech will be there and that is one of his top choices so he is going to ask them about his schedule and if there is a need for Physics.
Interestingly he is going to Phsyics day tomorrow at Six Flags America. His HL math class, the AP Physics and HL Physics classes are all going. I asked him why the SL math wasn’t going and he said because the math they were learning was higher level and went with the Physics day curriculum.
The toughest teacher at our school is the AP English 12 teacher. Kiddo felt like he dodged a bullet this year when the teacher switched from AP English 11 to AP English 12, but he is resigned to taking the class next year. The thing is, he loves her personally. She goes to all of the plays and helps with costuming, and a few years ago they bonded over shared love of Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. She’s invited kiddo to perform his various Shakespeare monologues (Hamlet, Iago) to her class.
My secret wish is that he takes her class next year and rises to the challenge. She is a tough grader but she will prepare him for college-level work. And she could end up being the ideal letter of recommendation writer for him, not for the early applications but for anything with a later deadline or for scholarship applications.
I think we’ve had about 1/2 backwards walkers-talkers and the rest were walk-stop-talkers. We had one foreward-walker-talker. That didn’t work well and we couldn’t hear anything. PS though I was ragging on the RPI tour-guide, that was a great tour. We saw tons and went into many buildings. Seemed like a good place for a student who wants a more tech school. They also have a 5-year (I think?) undergrad architecture program and an accelerated (7-year) physician (MD)-scientist program.
We’ve had a few backwards walking guides, and plenty of walk until we get to the next building and then talk types.
We’ve had a couple of tours where it was just us alone with a guide, or maybe 1-2 other families. Those were better.
The best tours we’ve been on have been WPI, BU, and RPI. BU was the most professional and organized. The friendliest tour we had was at Clarkson.
I’d say we had lots of “average” tours where you just walk around and look at stuff, but don’t really learn a whole lot.
We seemed to have better luck with events like Fall Preview Day, or Engineering Day, or Explore So and So day. Those events seem to be fairly well run, the schools line up things for the kids to see and do. At Babson on the spring invite day, they took the kids separated them out into groups and worked on a small project and then the Student Panel reviewed the results. While the kids were doing that, they invited the parents to attend other sessions or meet with professors and organizations on campus. It was excellent.
Edit: wanted to add it’s snowing again this morning, nothing heavy, but still snow.
The walking backward thing is interesting. Definitely one of the “college tour tropes” that S19 likes to observe. Along with how many times the guide says “awesome” in relation to a particular building/activity/progam/food and how he could always create his own club if there isn’t one for his interest.
Here’s the tally from visits since the beginning of the school year.
I gave up the dream of the “most rigorous” box a long time ago - probably with the ADHD diagnosis and the realization that my kid just doesn’t like many academic subjects very much. This combination (for my kid at least) doesn’t result in a student who can power his way through two extra years of foreign language or the humanities AP classes with the most homework. The entire household would be miserable if he tried.
So, he will look for colleges that will take him with the classes he does have, which, next year, will include 3 music classes (AP theory, jazz and advanced orchestra), regular English, AP gov, AP Calc AB, and CS Principles. Oh and whatever science he decides on. (So many kids want AP Chem and Bio senior year that S19 was practically alone in requesting AP physics 2).
I asked him who he was thinking of asking for recommendations and he said he talks to his honors pre-calc teacher a lot (he’ll be lucky to avoid a B- in the class). I asked what they talk about and the answer was . . . music. She used to be a cello player. Not sure how this one will turn out. “X doesn’t do the optional homework, ask for help, or work up to his potential in math but he knows his Shostakovich.” I probably need to make sure there are a couple of “letter of recommendation optional schools” on the list.
@RightCoaster Snow here too! Track meet still on for this afternoon, though, since it should be in the high 40s later today… S19 chose to run the two mile instead of the mile. Should be interesting as he’s never run this race in competition. I think the boys prefer this weather to the 90 degrees weather they have to deal with in the fall for XC.
@eh1234 if your son is going to ask the teacher where he’s getting a B- for a LOR, make sure he asks the teacher “Would you be willing to write a POSITIVE letter of recommendation for me?”.
I sat through an admissions presentation the other day, and the lady went on and on about getting " good positive LORs". vs. just" I know the kid from class and he’s fine". types. They want the LORS to really describe the kid. They get lots of boring generic LOR and it does nothing to help the kid. They want positive and personal letters to differentiate the kids and learn more about them.
My son found this interesting. His best grade is in Physics, he has an 98% avg. I thought he should ask that teacher for a LOR and he said he did not think it was a good idea, because the teacher is kind of weird, they don’t know each other at all and he doesn’t trust the guy enough to know if he’ll write a decent letter.
Now, this admissions talk was at a very selective school where stuff like that matters, I don’t think those play a huge factor where your kid has a great chance of admittance based on stats alone, like a true safety.
@eh1234 I think a recommendation from that pre-calc teacher sounds perfect! She will speak of how she knows him as a person and that’s what AOs need to know. They can already see his grade. And his app will be pointy with music and I think colleges love kids in the arts who hope to bring that experience to the campus.You guys just have to choose schools where he will have the opportunity to do just that!
@eh1234 I see a lot of similarities between your S and my D. My D also has ADHD and insisted at stopping at two years of foreign language, and has avoided the social studies AP’s. She gets A’s in classes she likes and B’s in classes she doesn’t like, and the B’s are almost always the result of failing to turn in all the work. Unfortunately most of the B’s are also in the core classes while more of the A’s are in electives. I’m struggling to think which teacher of a core class would give her the best LOR.
I don’t know if S19 will actually get a LOR from the pre-calc teacher, although he also had her for Algebra 2.
I think the only class he participates in really enthusiastically is probably AP psych so maybe he’ll just be a weirdo and submit recommendations from that teacher and his orchestra teacher. He’s most likely just applying to matches and safeties anyway and some of them will probably take him based on his decent GPA and good test scores.
Kiddo will definitely ask for an LOR from the theatre teacher, they are tight. But many schools want someone academic and that’s where we are scrambling.
@ninakatarina we’re in a similar situation where the Art teacher is the obvious person to ask, although she is very familiar with D’s perfectionism issues and chronically turning things in late. D also has one teacher for 2 classes, US History and Criminology, both non-honors. That teacher is brand new and while he likes D, I feel he’s probably never written a LOR. That leaves AP Calc AB, AP English Lang, and Anatomy Physiology Honors. Math is the class she keeps up in best, and he’s a very experienced teacher so maybe he’s the way to go. The English and Science teachers might write more interesting letters, but she’s chronically behind in those classes. Pondering what to do.
I don’t think my son really interacts with any of his teachers really. He goes to class, shuts up, takes notes and leaves. I don’t think he has a bond with any of them, except they probably think he is a decent student. But they probably have many decent students. I don’t know if any would think he is exceptional. He does what it is expected, when it’s due, and that’s about it. He get a decent grade, usually and A- to A. But he’s not going in after to school to discuss the book they are reading, go in for extra help etc.
In his particular case I’m not going to get to worked about it, it is what it is. He either get a nice note, or the boring bland letter. As long it’s not a negative letter then it works for him.
I just wanted to let you know what this particular admission rep said. She was particularly adamant of positive LOR’s and exceptional essays. She said she loved reading them and it was her favorite time of the year, because she got to know so many new people. If she didn’t get to “know” your kid, your kid probably wasn’t getting admitted.
You’re not the only one, @eandesmom, believe me, you’re not the only one.
And, given how much of the actual (as opposed to the CC-bubble) college-going world very clearly doesn’t care about prestigiosity, I have quite real reasons to believe that you (and I) aren’t in an actual minority on this.