Well here’s an interesting question that I may post to the more general forum…
As I’ve mentioned S25 is transferring for his senior year. It’s been tricky getting his schedule ironed out because he took more advanced classes the past three years, so he doesn’t have a ton of options… this is what looked like was going to work as of yesterday:
AP Research/Senior Capstone
Lit & Comp Accelerated (DE)
AP Micro
AP Stats
Jazz Band (audition only)
Psychology (accelerated, fall)
Forensics (accelerated, spring)
Just got an email saying the English department chair at the new school does not want him to take the DE class with AP Research, but instead take AP Lit because AP Lit runs in conjunction with AP Research. Which would not be a problem, except for the fact that he took AP Lit last year at his current school because they do not offer honors classes in anything. It’s regular or AP for all classes, so there’s only 1 AP in each subject offered each year (so one year it’s AP Bio, the next year is AP Physics, 1 year is AP Lit, the next is AP Lang, you get the idea).
So, he’d end up with AP Lit on both transcripts. And he sat for the exam last year and scored a 3 - he is not eligible to sit for it again. But got a 4 in the class.
He’s taking AP Lang this year, so that is also not an option.
The GC at the new school says they will address it in their letter.
What do you all think? It was hard enough to iron out the science because he is not interested in AP Chem or AP Physics or AP Enviro. This, however, feels like a bigger deal to me. Not sure yet what his thoughts are - he’s doing homework…
Can I clarify something? Your original list doesn’t include AP Lang, but then later on you said he’s taking AP Lang this year. Is the school suggesting he take AP Lang and AP Lit/AP Research?
The update from our neck of the suburbs:
D25 has a draft of the common app essay complete! Huzzah! She has promised she will have another draft done before we leave for our family vacation. (Fingers crossed!) And before any of you get jealous, remember that she flies from our family vacation to do eight weeks of ballet (five in one place, three in another) and will do absolutely zero on any other college thing before school starts again. Her list is still a work in progress. I find it interesting that D25 is not driven by prestige and is clear-eyed about her chances at highly rejective schools academically, but she’s very driven to apply to the “Ivy equivalents” in the ballet world. Folks, these cohorts take 11, 12, 12, and maybe up to 20? females. Not for the first time, I am reminded that the ballet world is sometimes nuts. For all intents and purposes I am a teetotaler, but perhaps @NiceUnparticularMan can give me a select few drinks to keep me company over the next year.
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The new school is suggesting he take AP Lit/AP Research.
He took AP Lit in 10th grade and is taking AP Lang this year.
As in he’s taking AP Lang as a junior just to clarify (sorry for the extra post).
Oh, got it. (My kid is clearly done with school, so when someone says “this year”, I’m already thinking about this coming year.) Does the school offer any other English class to take that isn’t a repeat of what he’s already done? A creative writing class? Film and literature? I’m not super in favor of him repeating a class, but if they don’t offer other classes and DE isn’t approved by them, it sounds like you don’t have a better option.
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That’s great! How do you know for sure what the essays will be for the common app this year? Are they generally the same as the previous year?
There is always a “whatever you want” essay. Our strategy has been right the essay than figure out what prompt it fits into. They are fairly broad.
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I would also advise not to repeat a class. We had a similar situation, my son transferred junior year and had already taken 4 years of Spanish. His new school used AP Spanish as Spanish 4. They would not let him take AP because they said that would be doubling up, which colleges look down on. It stinks because he can’t get college FL credit.
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The common application prompts for next year are already announced (and they are the same as last year): https://www.commonapp.org/blog/common-app-announces-2024-2025-common-app-essay-prompts
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Well, the ship may have sailed…
He is surprisingly OK with rolling the dice on this one. His logic is that the odds of them covering the same material are low, given the huge list of AP Lit books that they could assign. I’m still not really there on letting this happen though. I followed up with the GC to get some more answers and will wait to hear from both the department chair and GC before signing off on it. I suspect that this has happened before and the GC may be able to provide some more context.
Really the only other option other than the 1-semester DE English class would be creative writing - and I don’t see that gaining much traction with him and even potentially backfiring if he’s miserable in the class.
In the interim - dare I forward that link with the prompts to S25 when he’s still toiling away on his last essay of the year?.. 
just kidding. I’ll wait until next week…maybe.
It’s odd to me that a high school would ask or even approve a student taking the exact same English class twice.
What’s the concern with DE? Does it cost the school money? Any idea what’s their motivation behind denying access?
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(curiousme2, I’m replying to you only because I don’t see where I can post a fresh comment.)
Alright, party people. I’m back for my last rodeo. D25 is No. 4 and the baby. S17 & D19 - done (with undergrad at least). D21 is entering her final year of college.
I’ve been holding down the California CC path here at College Confidential, as the older 3 kids all decided to forego their UC/private acceptances to go for the dream (transfer to Cal and UCLA). It worked out for them, after some tremendous hard work (two went to Cal and D21 finishing up at UCLA).
All 4 kiddos were A average kids in AP/Honors, but D25 has bested them all (straight As except for her math class this year - 
). Looking forward to this upcoming app season. However, wife is adamant for now in not paying crazy money for privates and D25 is UCLA or die at this point. Navigating whether to do SAT or not.
Good luck to everyone!
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Is it wrong that I was highly jealous of the other local high school that had classes cancelled today because they have a water main break? And that I seriously spent time this morning thinking “how long would it be worth it to go without water for my kid just to have a day to relax because this damn year is NEVER GOING TO END.”
At least, that was my Before Enough Coffee musings. Because the answer is that I’m working from home today, my husband is working from home today, if school was cancelled the kid would be home and that means we’d be fighting over flushing toilets before too long. So no, not worth it.
As we get closer to summer I’m trying to figure out how to motivate my kid. He SAYS that he wants to get all of his essays done over the summer. And I believe in his heart that he wants that, because he knows next school year will be a mess. But I just do not relish the battle to get him to do them.
When my older son was in the summer before senior year he had large weeks of summer available. He did two boy scout things that were each about two weeks long, and a volunteer gig for a week. The rest was free time and he used those week-days as work-days and did the essays.
This child is determined to have a job this summer and earn money. I appreciate the goal, but he’s working 9:00-4:30 every day, and he has to bike back and forth and wrangle kids all day long. He’s going to be exhausted. I’m never going to get him to work during the week and the weekends will come and he’ll want to relax. Sigh. Maybe I’m just projecting dread, but I really wish he was less interested in work this summer.
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Did your daughter take the PSAT? If so, how did she score? Is she considering applying to private schools whose merit scholarships might bring the price below a UC? If so, those private schools will look at test scores along with essays, passions, LOR, etc. Does she have those and is she willing to do the Common App plus individual college supplementals? Or is she content sticking with the UCs and possibly doing CC → UCLA?
Edit to ask: What is she interested in studying?
Naviance Users:
Has anyone’s kids entered the DSAT score? We are being asked to enter sub scores between 10-40 for reading, writing, and math. I’m not getting a score report like that for the new DSAT.
did your score come out already? Also, no I have not entered anything into naviance and have no idea where to find those sub scores.
It’s better to have it than to scramble to take it. She can use the (excellent) free prep on Kahn Academy. A couple of consistent hours each week (my kids did 20 minutes a day) over the summer is not much work with big pay off to keep her options open.
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D25 is not the greatest test taker re math. She did ok on the PSAT. So, she’ll likely not take the SAT.
My wife and I assumed we wouldn’t get any money (grants) from privates re our income. However, my best friend’s S23 is at Princeton (his 3 kids are stellar students). Princeton gave them ~$30k even with their family income (their D21 is at Wellesley, so we assume Princeton took that into account).
D25 wants to be a director and a screenwriter (we do live in Cali - 
), but I’ve been telling her she needs a back up. She expressed interest in international affairs (she has been duel immersed in a language since kindergarten and is an excellent speaker/writer in that language).
We have a March Score, June 1 has not come out yet.
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