@eandesmom I know it is early, but having just gone through the process with my D, it is hard not to start thinking about potential colleges. Yes we can always hope for upward trends, but I’m not planning on it. He also will not have much rigor. After this year I expect him to be out of all honors classes except history. I’m not sure he will ever take an AP course. I know he will be allowed in some of the history APs but am not sure that is the best idea. I would rather have him get A’s in honors than struggle in an AP.
I have bookmarked that thread you mentioned and love reading about everyone’s successes but it does seem to trend to the upper end of the range. There are many more people with 3.4’s (and higher) posing than there are people with 3.0’s (or 2.9’s). I think most of those schools people are posting about will be well out of his range.
Hello. So D19 is at a 3.39 GPA with 2 honors courses. She is on track to take at least two honors courses (math/spanish) for the remainder of HS, but I don’t see how she will get more than one AP in, based on her strengths, and the school’s requirements (private school, fewer APs, stringent pre-reqs and teacher recommendations). PSAT did not go well (as expected…we’ll start working on it this summer). I am trying not to buy into the hype and stay on track. She is a bright child who can definitely do college work and be successful. She would absolutely do fine at our state flagship, but it is so frustrating to see their average admission GPA of 4.33. We have several schools other schools on the list, and I know she will get into one or more…I am just venting. Ugh.
@me29034 – I hear you on the higher stats’ kids posts. There was another thread (not the 2017 one) for “B” students and someone joined the thread with a 4.0 uw. I thought to myself, “Nope – that’s not going to be my kid” and moved on along.
You know your kid best, and a strong A in a class is better than a stressed out kid struggling to make (vs. keep) high grades in an AP class.
@eandesmom My S19 sounds like he might be a lot like yours in terms of effort and outcome. All quarter long, he’s been saying that he has all As. Suddenly, as the quarter winds up, he has a B, 4 B+ grades and 2 A-s. The B is in Driver’s Ed which I swear is the only class I ever see him do homework for. Boggles the mind.
He has a B+ in Orchestra because he forgot to do a few practice recordings. He has a B+ in Honors Algebra 2 because he didn’t turn in ANY homework (it doesn’t count against him, but teacher provides extra points for doing even some of it. “It takes too long to open the online text book and graphing is boring”) He has a B+ in Chemistry because he was teaching Algebra to his friend instead of studying for the most recent Chem test, etc., etc. It seems like all of his grades are always between 88 and 92, so with just a little more attention, he would have solid As and A-s. He has a 3.7 wGPA (that’s all his school reports), but he would need a 4.0 to be competitive for an instate public like VA Tech, which seems nuts.
Next year, he plans to step up the rigor and take two APs (Lang and Physics I) along with honors in history and PreCalc, a weighted STEM Engineering class that he said “seems like shop” and orchestra. He can’t seem to pick that 7th class! I don’t even know if they’ll let him into AP Lang after taking “regular” English for two years, but he wants to work on his writing and likes that the class doesn’t focus on literature.
Does anyone have a kid in AP CS Principles this year? It’s an option for next year, but I don’t have a sense of how difficult it is/how much work. He might just take art or guitar, which is fine by me. I just wanted him to explore the CS field a bit without me paying for an expensive summer program, haha.
@eh1234 – D19 plans to take AP CS Principles as a senior; it was bumped by a year as she wants to take Ap Studio Art 2D as a junior. We met with the AP CS Principles teacher as part of the decision process as I planned to teach her (maybe it is pre-teach her?) this summer as my background is in CS/IS. The content itself is pretty straightforward but there is a team/group project (one of the two “performance tasks”) which I think could be a huge time commitment (and distraction). There’s more info on the scoring rubric on the AP site: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/exam/exam_information/231726.html
@orangefish Thanks for that - I had poked around a bit on the College Board site, but I don’t think I had looked at the exam/task info. Group projects can always be dicey. Maybe we’ll revisit this class senior year (it will be new to the school in the 2017-18 year, so it would be a crapshoot as to whether the teacher will know what he/she is doing).
S19 seems to think CS is “just” programming and I thought this course looked like more of a survey of the field. I think he’ll end up in a STEM field by default (he strongly dislikes humanities/social sciences), but it seems like so many STEM kids are doing programming and engineering projects from age 7, and that’s definitely not him.
@eh1234 My college freshman son is a CS and Data Science Double Major . He didn’t do AP CS in HS because of schedule conflicts. He also hasn’t done programming and engineering type projects until HS. He has done quite well and made the Deans List Fall semester. I’d say that there’s more STEMS students like your son and mine than there are that started in elementary school. Don’t despair . There are great programs out there that he would do well in.
@eh1234 – as a STEM practitioner, I can assure your son that STEM is not “just programming”
Do you have any friends that have family members in STEM? I know my D19 had things “click” more when she found someone she knew doing the job she would want to do. Maybe that might help your son have things seem more real? (The infamous What Color Is Your Parachute? book talks about informational interviews, as an example.)
@eh1234, D19 was not too much into coding/engineering until last year either. She is doing just as well in her CS classes as other kids who are into it since elementary school. If they like it, they pick up very fast IMO.
D19 found AP Chemistry to be intense. She made a couple of Bs this semester. She is taking 2 APs, and 2H(English, Math) classes this year. She is planning to take AP Eng, AP CalcAB, AP Stat with regular Physics (our school doesn’t have H Physics) next year. Will this schedule be considered diluted as compared to her schedule this year?
@orangefish Nope - no friends/family in those fields. We’re in the DC area and friends are mostly government employees doing work that requires studying law, economics, political science, etc. I think my idea of what kind of coding/engineering skills a 15 year old should have is skewed because so many people in this area are trying to get into the local science and technology high school (always ranked in the Top 10 public HS in the country) and focus on that starting at age 5.
S19 is actually looking forward to AP Physics and the STEM engineering class, so hopefully he’ll like one or both of those. Think I’ll drop the AP CS idea for now and encourage him to take something easier. He’s already planning to go from 2 honors and no AP to three honors and two AP (sophomores rarely take more than 1 AP (APWH) in our school). He might have to actually do some work next year and I don’t want him to be overwhelmed or implode.
I posted the below on the Parent Forum but now I’m thinking I might just get the best advice from my fellow class of 2019 parents!
S19 is currently taking Pre-Calc H as a sophomore. Doing well in the class. For junior year, he has to choose between AB or BC Calc. At our high school, you take one or the other, never one after the other. I understand the differences between the two classes. He wants to take BC because that’s where his teacher placed him and insists that only the less-smart math kids are in AB. His counselor and I think he should take AB because (1) he has three other AP classes planned and they will be a ton of work, 2) he’s already decided that he does not want to be an engineering or computer science major and (3) AB is probably an easy A for him and he can use the extra time to focus on his other AP classes.
So, his junior and senior year would either be (1) AB Calc and then AP Stats or (2) BC Calc and then an honors course called Honors Math Topics which is basically the class you would take in college after BC Calc with differential equations, etc. The second track is usually just for kids who plan to apply to engineering programs. S19 isn’t sure what he wants to major in yet (he’s 15!!) but he likes writing, environmental studies, history, economics, maybe even biology.
I’m looking for advice on what kind of majors would require him to continue on the calculus track in college. Does it depend on the college? If he’s a bio or environmental science major, does that usually require more calculus than the AB course? I’m pretty sure that the AB and AP Stats classes would be just fine for the other majors.
Anyone have older kids and have some experience with this?
@eh1234 – I think we may be in the same Overly Large school district. B-)
There are a series of day-long field trips to tech companies in the northern Virginia area that you may want to see if your son can take part in. We learned about them through the middle school counseling office, but there have to be other ways to hear about them. D19 has done on the MITRE visit each year for the past four years, visited Google when she was in 8th grade, and visited Lockheed Martin in 9th grade. I think your son would learn about “non-programming STEM” through field trips like these, plus making contacts along the way can prove quite valuable.
@homerdog there are plenty of kids that go to college never having taken Calc at all!
It really really depends on the college as far as how much math, or not, will be required. My S17 (who is in AP AB as at our school it is a series not a one or the other) will likely major in environmental science/studies or policy. Of his 7 schools, the curriculum and amount of math required varies tremendously. Some of them will require up to 3 calc classes. And while he “could” test out or start at a higher level, based on AP results, it is generally not advised.
There are other paths where he would take zero calc, but a fair amount of stats and econ. Personally I would have him take the classes that interest him now and not worry about how it might impact college curriculum or not. AB versus BC will not impact admissions c or perception of rigor, in my opinion.
thanks @eandsmom. I tend to agree with you. I don’t think it will look too much less rigorous. I looked up biology and environmental science majors at two of the schools he might like and neither required calculus. These majors would require a few stats classes. Of course, having taken AB or BC calc looks good for admission but isn’t required to graduate with a degree in those majors. And, I totally agree about NOT starting at a higher Calc level. I took BC in high school, placed out of two quarters of Calc in college, and I was lost!!!
My DS16 signed up for AP Calc AB as a senior. The Calc teacher called him and persuaded him to take BC because she felt that was a more appropriate class for him . It was a smaller class and she felt like he would receive more attention in that class. He had 4 other AP classes that year including Physics , English , Government , Econ and Honors Spanish. That class was his first B. If you have any concerns about him taking it with an already heavy caseload , I’d suggest AB @homerdog.
And on a side note, for everyone who thinks STEM is just CS and programming, you do realize that the S stands for science and the M stands for math , right. Engineering is just part of the equation .
@me29034 fair point and you are right to an extent but often our higher gpa kids have less rigor and lower test scores or there is another reason that the thread fits. There are definitely some on there at the lower end. I wouldn’t let that hang you up though as CC is generally self selecting in that regard. As I mentioned our 3.0 kid went to a lovely school and did just fine and I am seeing kids in that range get some nice acceptances. There are good schools out there, lots, for a wide variety of grades.
@eh1234 I think that is what is a bit frustrating. The half point drop in grades due to silly stuff like not turning things in or “not realizing” how many points something he deemed silly, was worth. He is at a high risk of not being able to get into our flagship, which is silly given his rigor and the fact that he does well in his hardest classes. He wants grad school so that means cheap undergrad and I hate to see him limit his choices. But they are his choices and to an extent, I have to let it go.
B’s in any music class make me very cranky though lol! He currently has a B+ in one of his band classes. Allegedly the scales I made him upload last night will still count for last semester but we will see. It would be easier for him to recover from a 3.3 for the semester than a 3.2. Our school offers both Principles and AP Computer Science A. I believe S19 plans to take “A”. Anything but French will improve the GPA. LOL!
As a parent of a child (my D19) who’s quite devoted to her musical craft (oboe), hearing her tell stories of some of her bandmates’ lack of practice, I certainly hope that if her stories are true some of them get Bs, if not lower!
But yeah, sometimes just doing what you’re supposed to—and thus the half point or whatever for “silly stuff”—is a big deal. College is a big jump from high school—learning to do the basics while in high school is vital to being able to survive the academic shift.
Thanks so much for sharing your stories about college mail coming in for the first time. We’ve got a stack now on the coffee table. I opened a few on accident and a few out of curiosity. He was invited to join some ‘prestigious’ summer program, but it cost a lot of money.
School for D19 is going well. He was unable to switch out of driver’s ed for anything else and I told him to just kick back and relax. He is a bit scared to drive, so maybe learning about driving academically will help. Also he is planning to try Track. Robotics is in build season. He is much more involved this year in Robotics.
He picked his classes and I think he really did a fine job thinking things through. He is dropping out of the pre-AP English route and going into regular English 3. I’ve had several parents tell me the A in a regular class helps more than the B in pre-AP, so who knows. He wants to be an Engineer, so he is putting most of his focus into math, science and his computer engineering series. He requested regular Psychology over AP-Psych as he adores the teacher. He’s taking a half semester ACT prep class next year too. So my son is not the type who is going to come out of high school taking every AP option, but he’ll have taken some. He is pretty focused on As and watches his online portal like a hawk as tests and quizzes drop in. He jumped up in class rank and I just warned him that he might dive with a tough class and not to take that number too seriously. He is totally OK to retake the ACT in June too. I thought he’d resist, but now he totally sees that it’s a game and he’s bright enough he might be able to knock down a few really good test scores.
As for the summer, he wants to try out Alabama’s Engineering week program & get a job.
@homerdog FWIW at our school kids also take either AB or BC. Generally, my understanding is those on Precalc Honors who are doing well are encouraged to take BC and find it relatively easy as a class.
My d19 is going to take BC but if she didn’t love math, I would certainly encourage her to take AB next year instead. I’d rather she take slightly less rigor and not burn out, refusing to continue in a subject she doesn’t like as much. It also means she has more time to expand other areas. I mean, that’s what has seemed to work for foreign language for her.
@mom2twogirls I think that’s why I want him to drop down to AB. His teacher told the kids in Pre-Calc H that anyone over an 88 average in her class should take BC, but she was also ok with those kids taking AB if they had a heavy load otherwise or math isn’t their favorite subject. Makes sense to me. I guess I just hope it won’t be some detail that keeps him out of a college. Not applying to engineering, though, so I don’t think it matters quite as much.
I thought to myself, “Nope – that’s not going to be my kid” and moved on along.