Reading some of the posts here makes me realize how different some of the schools are. Our school doesn’t offer any 9th grade honors courses, which I think is because the UC system doesn’t accept any 9th grade honors courses as honors. But ive also realized that we offer honors or AP in a subject, but not both. So there is physics and AP physics, but no honors physics. And c26 could not take AP physics this year as our school requires completion of precalc first (doing this year). I wonder if colleges pick up these nuances for the non-tons of AP students.
There was also another thread where a student was doing calc BC because he did “ok” in precalc (was doing badly in BC, hence the thread). Whereas our school allows an override of teacher math recommendations below AP level, AP calc absolutely requires a teacher rec and you cannot do BC without having done AB.
Anyway c26 also got their report card. They jussssst made a B- in history (the bane of their life) and got As for everything else. Only precalc is honors (partly for the reasons mentioned above), but not bad for a kid who looked destined for the community college pathway after freshman year. I’m really proud of how they’ve worked, especially working hard on the ADHD/exec functioning issues. At this stage they are doing well enough to be looking at 2 APs (calc and physics) and 1 or 2 hons (electives) for senior year, which again looked very far off not too long ago. Registration forms for senior year get circulated in the next couple of weeks. Next focus is waiting for end Jan/Feb to do the applications for summer camp intern/counselor + the summer architecture pre-college courses. Summer is going to be busy busy busy!
So far the only college tour we have planned is Boulder, in spring break. C26 currently has their heart set on that so…let’s see how they feel after a visit. I’m a little worried that they are so set on it, even with a reasonably good chance of admittance. It’s not convenient to any other possibilities on their current list so we probably won’t plan to visit anything else unless we happen to be in the area (realistically that’s only CPP) or after any acceptances that they may want to check out more thoroughly.
They talked about this very topic (how do admissions departments at colleges compare high schools + students w/in a specific HS) in 1 of this week’s Your College Bound Kid podcasts. It would have been the one from 1/6 or 1/9. The short answer is that colleges admissions staff know that not each HS is run the same as every other HS.
For example, at our HS, before you take an AP class in English Language, English Literature, Chem, Bio, or Physics, you’re required to take the Honors equivalent of that class.
So the way they do it is in 9th grade, all students (it’s a charter school) take 2 english classes: Honors English Language, Honors English Lit. Then 10th grade, you take AP English Language, followed by AP English Lit in 11th grade. And 12th grade is a Humanities capstone class in a special topic (D24’s was Shakespeare; they usually have 2 choices each year for the Humanities capstone…1 is an english class, 1 is a history option).
For sciences, you pick bio, chem or physics and take the Honors version of it in 9th grade. Then in 10th grade, you take that as AP. So D26 took Honors Bio in 9th, AP Bio in 10th. Plus you’re required in 10th to take a 2nd science class as honors, so D26 did Honors Chem. Then in 11th grade, you have to take the honors version of the 3rd science that’s left (in this case, physics) and you either take AP version of what you had as honors in 10th OR you have to take a different AP as an elective.
D26 chose the latter because she didn’t like the chemistry teacher (same person teaches honors & AP). And she’s not going to be majoring in college in anything that will require chemistry.
In your kid’s case, it sounds to me like you guys are on top of it all and I’m sure that your child will get into a great college that will fit them well! Don’t worry.
We did that w/1 of the colleges that D24 applied to…didn’t visit it until after she’d been accepted. It was because of timing compared to HS stuff & other activities + trying to not break the bank all at once with travel costs visiting colleges. It can all add up a lot pretty quickly.
There’s a college in TX that D26 will probably apply to which we won’t visit before she applies. It’s a public university and they don’t track ‘demonstrated interest,’ so not we’re not going to sweat it.
Yeah, I’m often surprised by the number of AP classes freshmen and sophomores take when I read posts here. Our school district doesn’t allow APs freshman year, and sophomores can take only 1. Juniors and seniors can take as many as they want, and the school permits a couple of outside, online APs.
The school S26 is at now has way more honors classes than his last school, same district. They get the same weighted grade bump as an AP.
I know AOs get a school profile alongside the application materials, so they are aware of how the school operates the curriculum. I think they also get information on the AP test pass rates, which probably helps them contextualize how challenging the course is and how well it’s taught/how prepared the students are.
Same with our HS, no AP classes allowed freshmen year although I have heard some parents complain and push their kids into AP classes anyways. Having dealt with the Bay Area hyper competitive parents I understand the school’s stance. S26 ended up the semester with 3 B+s same as last year. My wife had a good description of his work ethic, “he gives 100% effort when 90% of the time is wasted”.
He always ends up having to get a high score on his finals to get an A or B+ and he always gets those scores which shows he could do the work, he simply spends more time on YouTube/video games during the year. But he’s one of the youngest in his year and the maturity just isn’t there yet. It might be good for him to get a few rejections next year and realize he needs to put in effort the whole year not just at finals.
He has AP BC Calc, AP US Hist, and AP Env Sci along with honors English so he’s not taking a light course load plus he has jazz band and the afterschool jazz ensemble he plays in so he’ll have a full year.
I was talking with another dad whose daughter attends Harker in San Jose a 60k/year private school. His daughter had 12 APs by the time she was a sophomore. I described the school to S26 and he said he would run away from home if he was forced to attend that many AP classes.
Some of his friends are already planning on attending CSUs, one is going to join his dad as a mechanic while another is preparing to apply to Oxford. I am glad he has a mix of different friends with different goals but wish he would take his classes just a tad bit more seriously. If last year is any guide he’ll do great in the 2nd half of the year after having goofed off the first semester. Not sure what message that will send to colleges but it’s def not that he’s a dedicated and focused kid.
I grew up in the Bay Area! A friend of mine in high school had a friend from her temple who went to Harker Academy. That and Bellarmine were considered the fancy private schools back in the stone age when I was in high school.
We aren’t allowed APs freshman year either. I think that other than geometry honors (assuming a student did algebra in middle school) there are no hons or APs available to our freshmen.
I can sympathize, my kid is also young in the grade (technically should be a sophomore- just turned 16 in October), but I’m not always sure what is “immaturity” vs the adhd/exec function issues. There has been clear improvement so I’m sure some of it is growing up a bit, but that has also been with introducing the adhd meds during sophomore year too. And sometimes we still insist c26 do their homework in the dining room because they do still have a tendency to be distracted. Anyway - if it works, I’ll take it, whatever the source!
I hear you about those hyper competitive Bay Area parents, but luckily esp with c26 we are not much in that milieu at school so I can ignore them. But my first parent college info session at the school for D19 was a real eye opener about the way these parents view the world, for sure.
We don’t even have Honors Geometry anymore! My D22 took that her freshman year, but it wasn’t available to S26. I think it’s because the UCs no longer recognize the honors geometry class, so the district dropped it. That means no honors or APs freshman year. The one AP they are allowed to take as sophomores is AP World History, which he took last year. Got a 4 on the exam, and a B+ in the class.
This year, my S26 has 3 honors classes (Physics, Pre-Calc, and Art) and there are no AP equivalents of these classes available to him as a junior (he can take AP Art only as a senior). He is taking the AP Pre-Calc test, which is new. He also has APUSH. He took AP World last year. So, the bulk of his AP classes will happen his senior year. I think it’s for the best – he too has ADHD and exec functioning challenges, and has been slow to mature. He has a March birthday, so he’s not young per se, but I have often felt he catches on to the game of school about a year behind his classmates.
We also live in the Bay Area and I’ve definitely seen the competitive parenting rear up. That said, we live in Marin, and it’s more about sports and sports recruiting. It’s pretty insane to see the recruiting commitments our public schools get – usually it’s rowing, baseball, track and field, soccer and volleyball. The Marin Rowing Association is a world class program, and kids are regularly recruited to rowing programs at Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Columbia. They make up a good number of the kids going to Ivies/Stanford/MIT each year. Neither of my kids are “sporty” so that is not a world we operate in!
I just checked and yes, geometry honors doesn’t seem to be recognized anymore. But it was offered for freshman year C26, though they didn’t take it. Technically it’s a 10th grade course so not sure what the issue with recognizing honors is?
Our school /district has sports recruitment across the board (household name WNBA player for example, although she went to Oregon rather than an ivy) and I know we’ve had recruits for rowing etc (to Harvard specifically), but the big thing in this part of the Bay is the pool so swimming and water polo are big for recruiting (and we have had olympians for these from our district too). None of which matters for either of my kids, who have little interest in sports
D26 just got her first semester report card. She’s doing full IB diploma, and got straight As! Two A+ (bio and environmental systems&societies), As for the rest. Her courses are HL bio, HL ESS, HL AA Math, SL Global Politics, SL French, SL Lang & Lit.
Trying to figure out where to tour over spring break. I wanted to take her to Lehigh, but their spring break overlaps with hers so there are no tours available:(
Need to get her to see a few more Target/Likely schools. We’ve seen Tufts, Cornell, BU, USC and UCLA. All very reachy.
We did also tour RPI but she wasn’t a fan (I thought it was great though). Looking for schools with good engineering programs within about 5-6 hour drive of Massachusetts (that geographic limitation is just for purposes of the spring break visits though, we aren’t limiting geographically overall) and with 30% or greater acceptance rate. If anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears!
(She’s not interested in UMass Amherst, much to my dismay.)
Our schools doesn’t have hons algebra 2; we have algebra 2, algebra 2 advanced, and hons algebra 2/precalc, which is UC recognized, as is precalc hons (prerequisite is alg 2 adv). We had wondered why it was called alg 2 adv and not honors, but i guess now we know!
WPI, RIT, U Rochester, UVM, Binghamton, Delaware, Rutgers, and Stevens would all be within that range. For smaller schools with engineering, you could look at Union, Lafayette, and Brandeis (introducing engineering in Fall ‘26). We are also in MA, and S26 was originally thinking about engineering (but has since moved on to economics/math/stats/data science)!
Adding on to @NEMom26’s great suggestions: Clarkson for a smaller tech school and Union for a smaller school. Mid-sized schools could be Fairfield or U. of Harford. U. of Rhode Island if she’s interested in international engineering possibilities.
D24 is there. The airport is pretty close and easy enough to get to. It’s small and I’m sure you’re daughter would have to connect to get to home. D24 had a friend drop her off in December and took an Uber this week to get back to her dorm. It’s about 15-20 minutes from campus.
Our high school has no honors classes at all. We have regular, AP and IB. I wish they had honors for an option.
Our semester has a couple weeks left in it. Things are going well so far. We’ll see how it ends.
No tours set up here, but I think maybe we’ll visit U of Michigan over spring break. He’s mentioned applying there, but I don’t see him going. We should tour though to see it. We’ll do an official tour at Alabama sometime as well. Most likely that will be in the fall. Otherwise, I don’t know. We don’t have much of a list yet. I know he’ll apply to Alabama and likely Michigan. Past that, I don’t know. I’d like to have a couple more on the list!
