It’s time for my 8th grader to choose classes for the fall. He needs to pick a world language, and an elective that meets either the fine arts requirement or the PE requirement.
For both language and fine arts, there are options that are weighted, and ones that aren’t weighted. For example, painting is a weighted course while ceramics is unweighted. He could also continue a language he already knows, which would be weighted, or start a new language, which would mean taking Levels 1 and 2 which aren’t weighted.
His interests seem to be more aligned with the unweighted choices. I think he should just take what he wants, but he is convinced that he “has to” choose weighted classes, because it will look better for college. The rest of his schedule will have plenty of rigor.
For foreign language, it’s common that all first level courses are unweighted. If he wants to start a new language, fine, presuming he will continue that language to the level that fulfills college recommendations.
Similarly, an intro art course is almost universally unweighted, while sometimes an upper level course is weighted. Although IME, I’ve never seen a school offer painting as weighted and ceramics as unweighted when both are offered as jntro courses. I have seen painting as weighted when it requires a prerequisite of a drawing course.
Regardless, the impact on a 4 year GPA is akin to a pimple on an elephant’s butt.
i would also counsel him to take what he wants. For the language, colleges will know there aren’t weighted options available for levels 1 & 2 by looking at the school profile.
Colleges generally won’t care about the electives and their levels. Does the school’s weighted GPA on the transcript even include electives? (many don’t)
Even if what he wants is to game the system and get the highest GPA?
He is a kid who plays to “win”. So, in his mind the higher score is the “winning” score.
Our system adds the same +1.0 for any advanced course, so AP Physics is weighted the same as a freshman level arts elective that’s considered “advanced”. All electives are reported in the GPA.
I do want to let him choose, and I also want to counteract the mindset so I am conflicted.
He wants to game the system so he can win the game of high school. In his mind the GPA is a score, so of course he wants the highest score possible. Because math.
I’m not defending or agreeing with his way of thinking. Just explaining.
I understand. What he is too young to understand is that the day after high school graduation, no one (except him, and you parents) will care who had the highest HS gpa.
But as I said…let him choose. His school counselor will likely have a little advice. Maybe.
Honestly, both of my kids took elective courses for two years that did not increase their weighted GPAs. But boy did they enjoy music and culinary arts.
He is planning to attend a magnet. That isn’t a sure thing, but that’s the course registration he’s working on. His academic classes, other than language, are chosen for him based on placement tests.
That’s what I want for him — to choose based on what he loves. I just am torn on whether to force it because forcing people to do things they love seems counterintuitive.
He can delay the arts question by taking PE first, but he does need to make a decision re: language.
Oh…I hope he gains some maturity and perspective as he advances towards high school. It’s not a game nor should it be treated as such. It’s about getting a solid education. He’s focusing on the wrong things entirely. You win when you learn, not when you Tetris a schedule for some GPA p**sing contest. Take challenging classes, push yourself, step out of your comfort zone, learn new things, enjoy your time, and become a better person. That’s how you “win” at high school.
So just let him take what he wants - whatever it is. Gaining perspective is a process and doesn’t happen over night. Just be supportive and try to temper expectations - because the game he’s trying to play is an easy one to lose, and lose quickly, and if he feels very invested in it, that can be brutal emotionally.
I’m not a big fan of parents choosing courses for high school age students being providing an opinion. For most incoming 9th graders, the question is moot since most courses are chosen for them as are the levels within each. Their big choices are generally which FL to take (but not level, which will be dictated to him) and which class to take to fulfill the time arts requirements.
But as an aide: I will provide below the list of colleges who will care if he takes ceramics vs painting:
There are none.
And here is the list of colleges who will care if he continues the language he started in MS vs starting a new one in HS:
Same list as above.
I will further add that if the HS has weighted art classes, the weight course may not be the easy A he envisions.
Colleges, while they definitely want to see rigor, will often recalculate gpa since all HS’s weigh differently (ours weighs the same as yours, some of kids felt it was unfair since they took a lot of AP’s and the rest honors, so some students had a similar weighted gpa with fewer AP’s, but it doesn’t really matter, you can determine rigor by looking at the transcripts. Can he take a third year of a language he took in middle school? My kids were glad to knock out 4/5 years of language before senior year so they could fit in more.