Question about taking non-dual credit college classes during high school

PurplePlum
Sat, 09 Jul 2016 20:47:03 +0000

Good catch on the NCAA issue Glido–she is an athlete and I do need to check on the NCAA rules. It had not even occurred to me to check…

And mom2aphysicsgeek, I have heard of AoPS. She and I need to look into the site more carefully though. You hit the nail directly on the head with your comment about schools not caring about early graduation. I agree that she will have to be equally competitive and I am worried about her overloading herself in order to graduate early. Of course she says she can handle it and still maintain her grades, but for example, she likely will have to take AP Eng.3 and AP Eng. 4 side by side her junior year. I’m afraid that may be a recipe for disaster! I can recall how work intensive those two classes were back when my older child took them and she did not take them in the same year. And its funny because she can handle whatever math and science you throw at her, but thus far her English classes have not been very hard, even though they are honors/pre-AP–plus she says she does not enjoy her English classes. So, truthfully, how she would handle two AP English classes at the same time worries me some. Of course an option would be for her to take the one of those two English classes at an AP level and one on an honors/pre-AP level, but then she won’t necessarily be viewed as taking the most challenging curriculum.

Ultimately, her goal is to major in engineering and she plans to apply to some competitive colleges (with a few safeties thrown in, of course). So, I don’t want her to graduate early if that will somehow negatively impact her college admissions. But I also hate to see her so miserable in high school. She really finds attending classes painful. Though I know that its possible that it may get a bit better the more AP classes she takes. At least that is what I tell myself. She does go to a great high school and the students there are pretty competitive and the teachers seem fine. It’s just that she is a fast learner and she absolutely loves to learn. I wish I was more like her back when I was a student.

If anyone else has any other thoughts or opinions on the graduating early idea, please share them with me. I can’t tell you all enough how much it has helped me to read the thoughtful responses that I have received. I am really struggling with this issue as I’m sure you can tell.