We are officially halfway through junior year here with the end of term 2 today (classes are all yearlong in our small public HS) and also thinking about course selection for next year. S26 is planning on Calc BC, Stats, and Euro for his APs. He had wanted to take Psych, too, but since he’ll have to take PE (graduation requirement), there’s no room in his schedule. Other classes will be Spanish, Band, and English. He’ll be dropping from 4 APs to 3, and I’m not sure how much that will hurt his chances at more selective schools (he’ll have 8 total classes/9 exams, which is pretty close to max rigor at his school, I think). He really doesn’t want to take Lit, though, and that’s the only option for a fourth AP (taking Lang this year, along with Spanish, USH, and Physics 1). I’m happy for him to have a lighter load, though, remembering how much work the apps were in the fall for D23.
We’re also gearing up to visit some more schools over the February break. We saw a dozen over the spring/summer, and I’ve finally recovered enough to begin round two. We have the beginnings of a good list (mostly LACs with a couple of exceptions), but I’d like to find 1-2 more likely/highly likely schools that he actually likes, since many were rejected in our first round of tours.
He’s taking the SAT in March, and there’s definitely been no prep happening. All of his schools will be TO, but I’ve gently suggested a couple of times that he take some practice tests or look at Khan Academy. I’m hoping he’ll spend at least a little time on it over the vacation week.
My D26 will only be taking two APs (stats and Calc BC) senior year, so will have 9 in total by graduation. She had zero interest in AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Macro. She’s taking humanities to fulfill her 4th year English requirement, honors physics, Spanish and a second science class TBD. Is it enough rigor for the schools she’s targeting? Maybe, maybe not. She’s looking to be recruited, so if enough schools tell her she needs to add an AP class during their academic pre-reads, that will carry more weight than me nagging her.
^^ Yup, same. My D26 said: “I don’t understand poetry, and I’ve heard there is a lot of poetry in Lit!” So she will also go from AP Lang to Honors English 4 next year.
thank you for the advice, turns out he can’t even take AP Physics, he hadn’t taken any physics classes yet I thought that he had taken that last year. On retrospect 3 AP science classes would be a bit nuts.
So it’s more like
AP Bio
AP Chem
AP Stat
AP US Gov (he says he has to take it to fulfill social science requirements)
Chinese
AP Lit (has to take another year of English)
Band
He’s tried several times to talk to his counselor we are 3 for 3 for new counselors and the latest one is never in school. So I suggested he just email the counselor since it’s been impossible to talk to her this year. He just saw her once at the start of the year and she’s never been in her office at lunch, before or after school.
D26 is also thinking about course selection for next year. She wanted to major in Biomedical Engineering but changed her mind to nursing. For science, she already took AP Physics 1 in 10th grade and currently taking AP Physics 2 and AP Chem with three other APs. She should have taken Anatomy & Physiology or AP Bio instead of AP Physics 2 this year but it’s too late now. She thinks she needs to take both AP Bio and A&P next year.
Our D26 will have 12 AP/IB Classes by the time graduation is over.
Senior year is not much different for her than is this year.
Senior Year will be:
AP English
AP Bio
IB Chem
IB World History
IB Spanish (she is taking Spanish 4 now)
Pre-Calculus
There are a handful of students she knows who have taken more of both AP and IB. A couple students she knows are actually going for the ‘official IB diploma’. She is not. She says those students who are, are incredibly burned out at this point and literally sit there and cry almost daily during lunch.
She completed Physics last year. She did Bio in 8th Grade but really wants AP Bio next year as an elective.
This year she is taking IB Sports and Anatomy as an elective. Many consider it to be the hardest class in the building. By week two more than 50% of the student’s dropped the class. Apparently they interpreted the class being more ‘sports’ driven versus science intensive encompassing Bio, Physics, Chem and Anatomy.
She’s not a math wizard and that’s fine by us. She maintains a 100. GPA in all of her math classes but she believes she’d be left behind in AP or IB math environment.
She is not a ‘walking’ encyclopedia so she puts in an amazing effort to get to where she is (currently ranks 2nd in her class). Her work ethic is absolutely incredible.
We tell her continuously as long as she does her best, let the chips fall where they land. We also remind her daily how incredibly proud we are of her in her efforts.
Our HS hasn’t done course registration/sign-ups for next school year yet. But I know that it’ll involve the following:
1 Humanities capstone class. There’s always 2 classes to choose from for this. Usually 1 history-related, and another in the English realm of things. D26 will probably pick a history option. The AP Euro/AP Human Geography teacher taught History of the Middle East as a senior capstone class last year, she’s hoping that’s available again this year.
1 foreign language capstone - in whatever language you took in 11th grade. So it’ll be in Spanish with the new/green teacher who is still figuring out how to teach Spanish.
1 math capstone - also 2 classes to choose from on this. Usually 1 is either multivariable calculus, differential equations, or linear algebra. and the 2nd is called ‘applications in math,’ but it’s really more of a finance math class. D24 took the latter, learned a lot of practical stuff from it. DH & I were really happy w/that class. In order to take 1 of the ‘option 1’ courses, you need to have completed Calculus BC in 11th grade.
1 science capstone - 1 always has to do with physics & requires you to have taken an AP Physics class in 11th grade. So D26 won’t be doing that. the 2nd choice is usually a biology or biochemistry topic, so D26 will end up in that class. D24’s science capstone was a Bioethics class, but the teacher had to go on medical leave part way through the school year.
1 College Counseling class. This is taught by the 2 counselors at school. Entire purpose of the class is applying to college. This is an awesome class. Kind of wish this was available everywhere at every single high school. Each student is required to apply to at least 1 public & 1 private university. The counselors & teachers all figure out together which teachers are writing letters of rec for which students & teachers are all expected & required to write letters of rec when asked.
So next year, D26 will only have 5 classes. A lot of the seniors also end up being a TA for a teacher at school, so I think D26 will ask to do this for the AP Euro or AP USH teacher.
We’re probably not going to have D26 take the AP Spanish exam. But after the end of this school year, she’ll have taken 11 AP exams & 12 AP classes.
She hasn’t gotten 4’s and 5’s on all of the ones she’s taken in grades 9-10 (it’s a mix of 3’s & 4’s). Her SAT score wasn’t great (1170, I think?). Is doing no test prep for the March in-school ACT. Won’t be doing any SAT test prep the rest of this school year either.
This summer will be a mixture of her working part time, maybe doing an “Art of Problem Solving” Python programming class online, and staying off of her foot for 6 weeks after having foot surgery (which I need to figure out the schedule for w/the doctor). And then before she goes off to college, she’ll need surgery on the other foot, too…which is another 6 weeks of not putting any weight on that foot.
Senior year in-person capstone classes end at the completion of Trimester 2, which is some time in early Feb. At the end of trimester 2, the seniors usually go on a senior trip to southern CA (we’re in AZ) to Disneyland or Knotts Berry Farm. And then students who’ve decided to do a senior project start those in Trimester 2 when they return from the senior trip. Conclusion of the senior project is doing an in person presentation in early May. Then mid-May will be graduation and then BAM! All done. May 2026 feels super far away and really close all at the same time.
That’s tough! Our S23 had foot surgery during HS as well. Staying off the foot was a hassle, but ultimately he’s glad he did it before college started. Hope your D’s surgery goes well and she heals quickly!
Thanks! She’s got bunions in both feet. Podiatrist said without doing anything, they’ll get pretty bad when she’s older. A year ago, he said that by the time she’s 18, she’ll probably have a lot of foot pain on a regular basis without surgical intervention.
So we’re gonna make it all happen before she has to go out into adulting-land. My grandmother had terrible bunions that she always refused to have surgery on and it caused her a LOT of discomfort for many many years. Looks like my kid got those genes. I’m just glad it’ll work out in terms of scheduling stuff for us to get it all out of the way.
However, thanks to this, she’ll get to experience the fun of applying for temporary medical leave at work.
Yes, S23 also had bunion surgery. It was his idea to do it during high school… the same year he had his wisdom teeth removed… just to get everything over with at the same time. It worked well! He was glad to be able to spend the recovery time at home with all of us doting on him
We’re still figuring out classes. I think they have until early March. But, so far he has:
IB English HL 2
AP Physics C
AP Calc BC
Band
Capstone engineering
He has 2 open spots and we aren’t sure what to put there.
Haven’t chosen yet for next year but planning ap calc, AP physics 2, ap lit, AP world history and graphic design 1 and 2. And over the summer a class at UMaine in marketing.
Plus a capstone. She’s going to do something in book publishing for that. It’s her latest interest and she’s already running with it. This year she did a paid internship as editor of the school magazine and loved it. This summer she’ll be applying for a paid internship at a local book publishing company. Fingers crossed! It’s with a friend of mine so maybe an advantage in getting it but her availability is tight due to needing to work so it might not happen.
Add my kid to those who have no interest in AP Lit.
We are hoping to do a summer architecture school, hoping to get C26 into the Cal Poly SLO program (heard good things about it, including from parents on CC). We were looking at UCLA’s one as well (it’s a week shorter which might make it easier to juggle with the camp counselor weeks) but found out this week that UCLA has a hard age limit of 17 or older as at 23 June to be able to do the residential track … C26 will only be 17 in October. Seems a strange thing to have as a condition when you’re offering your program to rising 9th to 12th graders, but maybe they want to focus on local commuters?
UCLA has so many camps on campus over the summer. Housing probably had a reason (ie. previous problem) to set a hard cut off for age.
If your child is gets in, I would call. Summer sublets are easy to find. They might be able to connect kids who are under 17 and they might offer dining packages so participants can eat with everyone else in the dining commons.
