Parents of the HS Class of 2026

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
7220

My daughter’s hs offers even less! No foreign language APs. Limited in core subjects even. Plus computer science and psych. She MAYBE could have added one more but, without totally redoing her schedule and losing all electives, she maxed out with 5. Such a bummer when schools compare her to other kids. And her school isn’t exactly rigorous to make up for it. Her 1320 SAT is one of the highest- very unusual for kids in her school to score above 1200 even without outside assistance.

I look back on my HS experience in a different state and see my old friends’ kids in that district. A dozen AP classes, early college, 1500+ on SAT and they’re “average” amongst their peers. I get frustrated- we moved here for a lot of reasons but I question, 20 years later, if the sacrifice to her education was worth it. Sigh.

2 Likes
7221

the good news is colleges realizes that or at least they say they do and compare your kids to their peers not kids from different schools.
A friends kids went to a private school in the Bay Area costing 60-70k a year, they take 5-6 APs their first year and another 5-6 the second year, then they start looking for national competitions. But they also send multiple kids to the Ivys every year, personally I don’t think it’s worth putting all that pressure on kids just so they can graduate and go work as a management consultant/investment banker. But it works for them.

4 Likes
7222

D26’s Bay Area private school got rid of AP classes years ago. I think for two reasons. First, to eliminate the AP arms race stress some here have talked about. Second, so they were no longer constrained to teach for the test material. Some of the parents complain that the school doesn’t support the kids who want to take AP tests enough. The school’s take, and mine, is you knew we didn’t have AP classes when you chose this school. If you didn’t like that, you should have chose somewhere else. It’s like going to a sushi restaurant and being mad they don’t serve pasta.

6 Likes
7223

We are in the opposite position — at a test-in public — and it can be just as bad, but in a different way. My D recently said she doesn’t know anyone whose ACT score was as “bad” as hers (a 33), and was upset I didn’t “make her” take it again. (For those who don’t remember, I actually signed her up for an ACT re-take but she refused to go that morning!!) She literally knows more kids with a 36 ACT than below a 30. Her school offers 30+ AP classes, and many kids take full advantage. There are no classes below Honors level, and the only option for foreign language after Honors 3 is AP (i.e., no Honors Spanish 4, for example). It is the proverbial race to nowhere. However, in our city, it’s either this or private (which are also competitive and based on test scores) — or move to the burbs, which many do whose kids don’t test into a selective public or private.

4 Likes
7224

I think half the non-profits in the country would shut down if 17 year olds couldnt start a 501 3(c) through their parents.

8 Likes
7225

All these kids in these stressful and competitive environments – but on the flip side, I was listening to an episode of the Plain English podcast I mentioned earlier called The American Math Crisis, where colleges were complaining that incoming students couldn’t do math.

The example they gave was something like 7+2 is the same as 6+ what? And some alarmingly high percentage couldn’t answer that. Of incoming freshman college students? I was stunned – I mean, isn’t that like 2nd grade level math, if not earlier?

So how is it that we have all these kids with 15+ AP classes and 1500+ SAT scores, and yet there are a huge number of college students who can’t do basic addition?

I believe it was UC San Diego professors giving this specific example, but I might be remembering the wrong school.

7226

Probably a lot of the kids forget the basic stuff because they took it so long ago, I mean not the 7+2 is 6+ what, that just seem like elementary math but maybe algebra or trig since kids who took that first or second year of HS might not remember it by the time they are in college.

7227

Disparity in the k-12 education system.

2 Likes
7228

I wonder if it’s a lack of intuition in the way math is taught today. I was actually talking with some cousins at Thanksgiving, and we were recalling how difficult it is to help our kids with math. The way we learned isn’t the way it is being taught in schools now. Part of what I always remember about math was the importance of learning the intuition behind the math. Some math programs today seem more focused on learning the specific algorithm. At least that’s what they were hearing from their kids.

This is all speculation though. My real guess is that professors probably said stuff like this about our generation, but they could never get that story published anywhere! :slight_smile:

1 Like
7229

Currently there is another CC thread on the UCSD math problem - they have assessed that around 1 out of 8 of their students require remedial math courses at the start of college. The assessment is that many aren’t even at remedial High School level but need pre-high school math as entry. UCSD is considered a top 10 Public University.

A link to the Wallstreet Journal article release 3 days ago was posted - and the thread posted noted the comments to the article.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-math-horror-show-at-cal-at-san-diego-c91f2035?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfRsOnZwfPJL3_SuOhXTmC-wqX8Da_jW2HmS61t6_gYlD8Oea4DAOAMLKhRNoo%3D&gaa_ts=69299e36&gaa_sig=V3W90NO17GPRDbCB7UCAIL1cvInbcnzivjwoOh3hYSltndnMnJ5m9E2hVbwsZS0_4pKApmybQ-igv_Y9av-LoA%3D%3D

1 Like
7230

Articles on this topic attribute it to: Lack of standardized testing, increase enrollment of low income kids who attend less reourced schools, COVID and grade inflation.

My question is if they cant do 8th grade math, can they pass a college level math class? It said 85% of majors require Calculus 1. Seems like a huge leap to go from not being able to do basic algebra to passing calculus.

Are some of these kids even going to graduate or will UCSD just give them a passing grade just like high school?

7231

I’m hard pressed to believe that a high percentage of students at UCSD honestly couldn’t answer that question. That’s not even 8th grade math, but more like 3rd grade math. That has to be hyperbole. I do believe that kids are probably not very well prepared for college, though.

2 Likes
7232

Here is the thread on this and it’s probably as most expect.

So we are in the final final final essay review with S26 and he’s going to submit his application today, 2 days before the deadline which is amazing for him. When he was done with his essay he had chatgpt review it, it gave some good structural recommendations like add an example and he did that. Then he thought what would chat rate the essay if it was a UC counselor, it gave him a 4/5 score.
We both look at it and can’t figure out what it’s saying so he thought he would take example essays and have chat rank them, the UC example essays were rated 3/5. MIT example essays were rated not good enough for MIT and needing work.

So AI in small measures is helpful using it to do the bulk of the work or depending on it to help write just leads to circles and bad writing.

2 Likes
7233

Thanks for this – I didn’t realize there was a whole thread on this topic already. I’ll go catch up over there!

7234

I stayed away from that thread because it has the usual poltical bend which dominate a lot of CC threads that start off as politically agnostic.

5 Likes
7235

I saw someone mention that this was one way to use AI – so just for fun, I pasted my D26’s essay in and asked for it to give it a ranking from 1 to 10. (She is done applying to colleges and won’t be editing her essay any further.)

AI came back with an 8.8 and said her essay was authentic and charming with a solid theme, etc. It did say that it was a bit wordy in the middle, and it would be better if she would cut a bit there and add a sentence or two at the end talking about what her theme means in her life. (Which, incidentally, was exactly the feedback she got from her college advisor at school.)

Kid was pretty happy about that feedback.

I then did the same thing with D22’s college essay that she used in 2021. AI came back with a ranking of 9.2 – and it said it was pretty much college-ready, and was good enough to get her into a T20. (She is, indeed, at a T20.) The criticism was that it was almost too polished, and it read as if it had been edited and re-edited and it was a little unbelievable that it was written by a teenager.

I found that funny – she DID edit it a hundred times, but also she’s a language whiz (linguistics major who added a second major in classics just for fun because she wanted to focus on Latin and Greek) and a very solid writer.

But when I told her about this, she got really irritated with me and just said, “Great to know that AI approves of my essay I guess, but going forward can we please not train AI on my writing, mother? Thanks.”

Oof. Lesson learned. :flushed_face:

1 Like
7236

Yay for getting the app done today! Interesting perspectives on AI’s assessment of essays (including samples from the schools). I had not seen anyone discuss using AI in that way. I also find it interesting that AI couldn’t figure out on its own that those were sample essays that were likely rated highly by the schools and answer accordingly. Pretty unimpressive for purportedly omniscient technology frankly.

1 Like
7237

Doesnt UCSD require 3 years of HS math?

How do high schools get away with this? How do these kids get A’s in HS math when they can’t do middle school math? Where’s the accountability?

High school grade inflation is not helping the university evaluate students’ math skills, the report states. In 2024, the average high school math GPA for students in Math 2, the middle school–level remedial math course, was 3.65—an A-minus.

7238

I did skim over at the other thread, but I have no idea what the answer is. And the limited experience in our family doesn’t really qualify me to even surmise.

Both my girls were at a well-resourced K-12 private, and they learned math, both through the pandemic and afterward. My older one had Calc BC during Covid and did well, then went on to multivariable Calc. My D26 is currently in Calc BC. So it’s hard for me to imagine either getting through high school without knowing basic math.

My son, however, was at a special-ed private school during the pandemic, which was more focused on problematic behavior and less focused on actual education.

We ended up pulling him after freshman year and sending him to public school. (He’s got a lot of physical and cognitive challenges, so this was a leap of faith, and I was terrified.) He had already taken Algebra 1 and Geometry at the special-ed private school and done poorly, but he passed, so they wouldn’t let him retake those classes in public school. He then limped through Algebra 2 his sophomore year but did okay – ended with a B or something. He had a fantastic teacher, and both his sisters helped tutor him. (Thank goodness, because I don’t remember anything from high school math, lol.)

He then stubbornly decided to take Pre-calc, but a couple weeks in, admitted that he had no business being in that class. I pulled him and put him in AMDM (Advanced Math Decision Making) – which was basically consumer math. He did great in that class.

Currently he’s in his freshman year of college at an in-state public that attracts many underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students – and he’s in a basic math class that is offered online asynchronously. He’s passing (fingers crossed), but we have no illusions that he would be able to attend a more competitive college.

The only thing I can offer in terms of high schools and accountability is this – our local public school where my son attended had to adhere to strict state laws in terms of advancing kids. I begged and pleaded and talked to half a dozen administrators and even went up into school board levels to be allowed to enroll him in 9th grade when we moved him to public school – to no avail. I was told that he had already “started the clock” the previous year in private school, so he had to enroll as a sophomore. No matter that his academics weren’t at a 10th grade level.

I have lots of thoughts about this, but they’re outside the scope of this forum – and the problem is complicated and multi-faceted.

8 Likes
7239

That is exactly how my D26 feels. She was very clear with me that there will be NO submitting of her essays to AI (unless the colleges do it themselves). :grin:

2 Likes