The Kid has been gradually working on his college list, which consists mostly of reaches. I asked him to add some safeties, and he came up with Michigan State. The MSU Honors College offers a professorial assistantship program in which freshmen can work 8-10 hours per week in exchange for a stipend. I don’t think I’ve seen a similar program at another college where incoming freshmen are basically guaranteed a spot in a research lab. It sounds like a good opportunity.
Have you thought about visiting Olin? VERY small, but sort of between the 2 of those (both geographically and acceptance-wise) and similarish vibe. My 27’s dream would be MIT (though has no real shot), but I suspect I may end up at WPI as they are a robotics /mech-e (or maybe aerospace) kid. Olin is on their list, too.
Anyway, people forget about it because it is so small, and not for everyone, but if you are in area..
We are going to visit WPI too at the beginning of April! Our S25 had some interest there and applied, but never visited because as his senior year went on he decided it just wasn’t the right vibe for him. S27 is more of an engineering guy, so WPI could be a good fit.
My S25 pretty seriously considered MSU and was awarded a professorial assistantship. We visited twice (he did the big scholarship competition but didn’t get anything major in it beyond what he was offered at admission). It all looked great on paper, but he just didn’t get the feeling that the depth would end up being there in his department. He wasn’t all that impressed with the courses offered. He also didn’t like that almost all the other prospective students he met there were from Michigan. I felt like he dismissed it somewhat, and in the end it ended up being about 3rd on his list of the places he actually was accepted to. After he was accepted to Rice it was a bit of a no-brainer to go there, but had he not gotten into Rice I think I would have always wondered a bit about “what got away” at Michigan State.
I have to admit, I don’t love it when schools put roadblocks in the way of kids who want to challenge themselves. My kids’ public school, thankfully, allows kids to take as many APs as they want to, at any grade level, though the counselors do recommend that 8th graders who are selecting their 9th grade classes choose as easy a schedule as possible.
For some kids, that’s good, I guess? But at least one of my kids actually performed better in more difficult classes than they did in non-honors or AP classes – they needed that level of rigor, or else they weren’t really engaged.
But I’ll also say, our school is on a block schedule, so even though D27 is taking 4 APs this year, it’s only been two at a time, balanced with her art, theater and Spanish classes. For literally any other reason, I dislike the block schedule, but it does help with balancing rigor.
Unfortunately, she’s interested in computational biology, and wants a program that has significant depth in both CS and Bio, which isn’t proving easy to find. WPI’s looks pretty good on paper, since it has pretty well balanced # of credits required in CS, Math, and Bio. The pure engineering schools don’t tend to have the Bio piece. The traditional research universities sometimes have a bioinformatics that’s “add a coding class or two to your Bio degree”, but that’s not what she wants either. And doesn’t really want to go down a path where a double major in two non-overlapping fields is her only option, especially at a big school with lots of bureaucracy and major-restricted classes. On the other hand, she thinks the small liberal arts colleges don’t have enough course options in any of her interests. MIT has a perfect program, and she has at least a little bit of a shot there (they did bring her out for their 11th grade rural fly in), but everyone’s shot there is tiny. And most of the other programs we’ve found she likes are also at very low acceptance rate schools. So if she likes WPI it’s not for sure, but is vastly more probable. It’s kind of strange to be looking so hard for a very specific program when I know so many kids change what they want to do, but I figure if she does pivot, it’ll be into another STEM field, and she should be able to find straightforward science/math/cs degrees anywhere.
I had made a bad assumption about engineering because of WPI! But WPI indeed has options beyond engineering:) We have been to an open house…one cool thing is that it sounds like if you have a really advanced kid with lots of credits upon entering, they are open to potential for BS/MS in 4 (!) years in some cases, and certainly make it easy in 5. I have a distant relative by marriage who went to WPI undergrad and actually turned down MIT for grad school (got in) and stayed on for WPIs (engineering) program for their MS FWIW. (I think mech-e ? or bio-medical stuff?). They loved it.
Also, because not a giant PhD program, lots of undergrad research potential it seems like.
While your D is in Massachusetts, she may want to check out Brandeis. It has about 3600 undergrads and offers through a doctorate in both CS and Bio, and it offers a Master’s in bioinformatics. I’m not into computational biology, but I suspect that with that combination of offerings, it could be a school of interest.
Also, she may want to learn about cross-registration opportunities. At Brandeis,
And so not only can Brandeis students study elsewhere, but students at those other colleges listed can cross-register at the other places. So Olin, or any of the other colleges, could be a good place to investigate. Of course, with any cross-registration opportunities, make sure that the academic calendars align and that the geographic locations of the schools work for any cross-registration opportunities to be real ones rather than theoretical ones, but it’s definitely a way to widen options when looking for a school that’s the right fit.
We definitely know the pain of finding computational biology programs! My D25 also really likes computational biology, but unfortunately found it very difficult to find programs. It seems that most schools that have programs only offer it as a minor and the courses have pretty minimal depth. Of the many schools she applied to, I think she only applied to a few computational bio programs. She also really likes chemistry, so ended up mostly applying as a biochemistry major. She currently has a lab position and does a fair bit of computational bio type work in the lab and really enjoys that. Although, much to our surprise, she is now in the process of trying to change her major to chemical engineering. We did not see that coming!
Just catching up on this thread - it’s nice to see everyone’s updates! I can’t believe we’re already into the second half of junior year. Where does the time go?
S27 had to submit his classes for next year in January. He seems happy with his selections. I worry that it will be too much while also working on college apps.
He attends an independent school with really good college counselors who have all worked on the admissions side. I’ve heard positive things about all but one of the counselors. S27 ended up with the same counselor D25 had, which we are really glad about, this counselor was super helpful. So far they’ve had two counseling assignments to turn in and S27 has met with his counselor twice. They have their big reflection assignment due next month. All the juniors complain about it - it’s super in depth and time consuming, but everyone says it helps a lot with writing the common app essay. They also have weekly college counseling sessions with the whole grade.
It has been a real challenge finding the time to schedule college visits. We couldn’t go on any during his February break because he had two games for his school team, plus mandatory daily practices. We have a trip planned during spring break, so we won’t be able to go on any college trips then either. He did visit several schools with D25 and plans on applying to some of them, but they’re mostly reach schools. I would really like to visit some likely schools that he can add to his list.
We are another school with pretty strict pre reqs for honors and AP classes, though definitely not as strict as some others. I do think that for some of the classes students would really be in over their head if they don’t meet the requirements. The school doesn’t limit the number of AP classes students can take, though I wish they did.
I get that… and despite my saying my 25s LPS has rules about no more than 3 (which is what the profile says) you can get permission from the Principal to take more (the handful of MIT/Stanford/Yale caliber kids do it)….so there are exceptions. However, expectation is set publicly as no more than 3, which is nice for admissions purposes…
I think these rules are often in place when the honors classes are actually hard too… Or at least that is my sense. The rigor between HS varies dramatically out there. The “honors” history vs. AP is no cake walk if that makes sense. Just different topics. We also don’t have ranking or public GPA distributions around here, so the weighting isn’t as much of an issue as it would be in some places. It would royally tick me if if there was some sort of public ranking and you couldn’t actually game it .
I think all that makes so much sense. There are no limits to AP classes at my kids’ school (Top students in upper grades are often basically taking all AP classes, except in cases like arts electives where no AP is offered). But the alternative is a “regular” class where very little learning takes place, with the exception of maybe 11th/12th English where there are a couple DE options offered within the school. And we do have weighted GPA, published class rankings, etc, so it is very much to the students’ disadvantage if they don’t chose the AP classes.
My D22 took regular American History because she had heard so many stories of how difficult APUSH was from friends at other schools, and she didn’t really want to push herself. It turns out at that at their school, regular American History is mostly watching movies and playing games, while APUSH is a very reasonable class with only a bit of homework. But we didn’t find that out until S25 took APUSH.
My S27 chose to take regular Geography instead of AP this year (Their social studies requirements for 11th are 1 semester of geography and 1 semester of Econ). He was hoping to have more time for Robotics, and wasn’t eager to spend time memorizing world countries and capitals, which is required for AP Geo. But now he keeps complaining about how regular Geo is so boring and they do/learn nothing. He said something like “every day it’s ‘map of the day’ and almost nothing else.” I reminded him that he would be spending a bunch of time that he is now doing Robotics things studying for map tests if he were in AP…LOL!
ugh! Yeah, even regular classes here are not that easy– for most part - a few teachers really phone it in/don’t do their job (there are always a very few bad apples) but generally all the classes they are doing something of note. I mean, average SATs across the large public school is like >1200+ (and yes, that obviously tracks a lot to SES, but has to do with school too:) Then again, like 50% of kids take AP Lang/AP Calc (of some sort too). Colleges also know this, too, obviously. Contexts really are VERY different. A town near me (2000 kids) has average SATs of like 1300+ average in a public school, and they offer very few APs. The courses are all HARD. Send tons to top schools, I have heard of families moving there from China (!). Obviously, this is not typical of US in general….. pockets of US are wildly different.
I really feel for AOs trying to figure it all out remotely fairly. As bonkers as admissions is, I honestly think they don’t do a truly terrible job in the end, given what they have to deal with.
I think all that makes so much sense. There are no limits to AP classes at my kids’ school (Top students in upper grades are often basically taking all AP classes, except in cases like arts electives where no AP is offered). But the alternative is a “regular” class where very little learning takes place, with the exception of maybe 11th/12th English where there are a couple DE options offered within the school. And we do have weighted GPA, published class rankings, etc, so it is very much to the students’ disadvantage if they don’t chose the AP classes.
Oh, interesting. Amazing how different every school is. AT S27’s school there are 4 levels: College Prep, Accelerated, Honors and then AP. AP is not offered for every subject. College Prep level drops off once you get to junior year and at that point the Accelerated level becomes the “regular” grade-level class. Honors level classes are quite rigorous. APush is a beast at S27’s school. SO much reading and writing both in school and out. My S25 took Honor’s American History (at the same high school) and it was also fairly intense, but not at this level.
Our school does not publish rankings, but the school profile does show a bar graph of GPA distribution. It also mentions that kids typically don’t start honors or AP level until Junior year and that they are limited to no more than 2 APs junior year and three senior year (there are some exceptions). About 40% of the class will graduate with more than 2 APs total.
Our school offers a lot of great 1 semester honors level elective classes, so it’s hard to justify taking a third AP course in a non-required subject, when S27 could be taking some very interesting classes that are still quite rigorous as electives senior year.
I enjoy all the updates, too. I do find it fascinating how different schools operate so differently.
My youngest is class of 29 and just in the 2 years between my children the (public) high school has revamped their tracks and options quite significantly. DC29 is in AP World as a freshman, whereas there wasn’t even an honors world history class 2 years ago. (I have a hard time believing though that most 9th graders are capable of actual college level work - wouldn’t it be normal for them to still be learning how to study, how to analyze, how to write effectively at age 14?) Her class was able to accelerate honors science in 8th grade while his class wasn’t able to do so, although APs come after the initial science coursework it gives her a more opportunity for AP Science. Also, the middle school focused on accelerating more students in 8th grade math beginning with her class, so there is both an accelerated and an honors accelerated - both on an AP Calc track. So she has FAR more options and will have had far more APs than he will have had even though they are (roughly) comparable in terms of interests, aptitudes, grades.
APs have pre-reqs, grade requirements in other coursework, and teacher approval. That limits the amount of APs a student can take - esp as an underclassman - but otherwise there aren’t caps per se on the number of AP classes per year as a junior or senior.
Overall, I would say the honors classes are pretty intense for the most part. My son’s grade in AP Lang is better (so far) than his 9th and 10th grade honors English grades and the reading and writing homework for those classes was similar (if not more) than for the AP.
Just wanted to follow up on your post. Your son is not alone! I think my son has found Junior year a challenge and managing music activities, sport, and work has been much harder. His busiest time was between Christmas vacation and midterms and it was a struggle. His grades this year so far are good, but not quite as good as they had been.
One interesting thing about different schools’ (or online providers) AP and honors classes is that content rigor and workload rigor are somewhat separate dimensions.
For instance, both of my kids have done or are doing AP Psych, one entirely at home, one with a semester at home and a semester with another teacher. The content of that class isn’t all that difficult, so the class could end up anywhere from fairly easy to very hard depending on how much work is assigned, and it probably won’t correlate very closely with test scores. Similarly, in choosing an AP English class for my D28 next year, I can choose between multiple good classes with different workload levels. However my D27 also did AP Chem and both AP Physics Cs. Those I think are pretty much guaranteed to be rigorous regardless of teacher, because there’s so much difficult content to cover, and D28 doesn’t want to do them regardless of how much work I assign because they’ll be a huge time suck in a subject she doesn’t enjoy just to learn the material. That said, I still didn’t sign D27 up for the online version of AP Chem that takes 12+ hours a week, since that seemed wholly unneccessry.
I guess I’ve leaned more towards in-depth content than lots of assignments in both what I’ve assigned directly or classes I’ve chosen for my kids. I’ll see how it works out for them, I guess.
D27’s math classes are an interesting extreme case of this where this kid is REALLY good at self-teaching math, and understands it very quickly without doing very many problems. So she’s more or less always been assigned “do it until you understand it” and is now on her 4th post-calculus math course (currently self-studying with MIT Open Courseware materials). I made her take two of them online to kind of prove she could get good grades in a more ordinary class, which she did, but said that self studying was more efficient. So now she’s just doing the MIT problem sets and tests which may only have 5 problems in a week. It makes me feel a little unsure on the ‘rigor’ end, but I guess it’s what works for her?
And then there is how hard teachers grade and how stressful they make the class for sake of it… which related but maybe not entirely the same…e.g. curve, no curve, retakes/not retakes (more common than you may think) and some seem to just want things to be stressful, it seems.
Also, I think some HS teachers seem to think they need to make APs really hard to “prep kids for college” (I find this funny, as I think a lot of profs are more relaxed in many ways than HS teachers? though can vary for sure).
Our high school is similar with the AP placement with the requirements of an A- in honors along with a teacher recommendation. The classes are a lot of work. I wonder how the kids with 3+ AP’s do it.
D27 took one AP in year 10, and is currently taking two AP classes. Depending on how the scheduling goes, she may take three next year. The toss up is Honors Calc vs. AP Stats. She wants to go into nursing, which Stats would be more beneficial. However on some of the tours we went on this month, they recommend Calculus for the rigor. She has focused on academics the past three years so she must take her electives for graduation next year, so there is that.
We toured five schools, and did drive throughs of two more over spring break. Of the seven we saw, she’ll definitely apply to four of them, which is a good turn out. The smaller/medium schools are more favored vs the larger flagships. She’ll still apply to a few to keep her options open.
Lastly, it’s SAT cram time. She’s been taking a course which is requiring a lot of study in-between classes. Hopefully it helps boost her score to where she wants. Two more weeks……
Had a last-minute opportunity to view two schools recently (bigger college tour is set for spring break) and 27 LOVED one of them (to the point of anticipating applying ED) and was very meh on the other one. I happened to agree with both reactions and had the same feelings. But of course the LOVED school is slightly over a 10% admission rate, so it’s incredibly unlikely. So still on the lookout for a reasonable admission school they really like.
I felt like he dismissed it somewhat, and in the end it ended up being about 3rd on his list of the places he actually was accepted to. After he was accepted to Rice it was a bit of a no-brainer to go there, but had he not gotten into Rice I think I would have always wondered a bit about “what got away” at Michigan State.