Did you call the GC and find out what the real explanation is?
no. not yet. I have a special needs kid and I am used to GC giving me different reasons on course assignment… I am gathering info and options…one thing that bugs me is that she told DD before the final…
Is taking a physics course in the summer to prepare for the physics course you’re taking in the fall cheating? In the absence of a policy against it, no. Is it ethical? That depends on the circumstances. Is it a productive use of time? Probably not.
Taking a summer course for advance prep exists on a continuum with widely accepted practices like taking SAT review courses. The advantage it confers may be equivalent – or, actually, far more mild – than any other privileges that come from having educated parents of some means. Yet, I think there are key differences in both cases
However it was originally conceived, there is now an expectation that students will have prepared for the SAT or ACT; you don’t have to be a grade-grubber or an Ivy aspirant to at least have done a few practice tests in a review book. Many colleges are also aware of the fact that scores look different in different communities, and can take this into account. The kid from a working-class town doesn’t necessarily need to keep up with the Joneses of New Trier. Whatever a certain number of students in a certain number of districts are doing, I don’t believe that taking a summer class in a subject you will be retaking in the fall is “expected” anywhere. Doing so requires too much money, too high a time/opportunity cost, and isn’t even necessary for the many students who will excel in the course without extra prep.
As for other advantages of privilege, for me it comes down to intention and context. First of all, there is a difference between “passive” benefits that a child will receive from growing up with educated parents – which, outside of a Harrison Bergeron-esque dystopia, we can’t and wouldn’t want to eliminate – and a conscious manipulation of outcomes. A kid who loves math and learns integrals early from his or her math professor parents may have the same absolute advantage as a student who takes calculus the summer before junior year, but in one case, we’re dealing with a natural outgrowth of interest combined with opportunity, while in the other, we’re dealing with a somewhat cynical tactic. In addition, I distinguish between getting extra help for a struggling student – which may also be made much easier by money – and giving an edge to a student who will probably be fine on her own. One involves re-teaching material that should already have been mastered; it is a pity that some students might not have access to the same help (although going to a teacher for extra help will often be as useful as a private tutor), but getting help is an appropriate and expected response to struggle, as long as the tutor isn’t crossing any lines. The other involves pre-teaching material that a student will be expected to be learning for the first time, which seems to me very different; we are no longer talking about moving a student towards where she should be, but moving her away from it in a way that isn’t likely to have any positive outcome other than, perhaps, making her more likely to get an “A” rather than a B+.
Lots of college and high school students take accelerated versions of regular courses in the summer. Of course, they will be taking fewer courses than in regular semesters, so that they can devote more time to each summer course.
So why not just have her take the credit for the summer physics course? Then she can have more space in the school year for academic electives.
@ucbalumnus may be we have a different understanding of summer course…in a school year, a kid has time to digest the material, rather than cramming the material…it is nice to have an exposure of the material instead of a replacement of the material…
BTW, it seems that many assumed that DD is going to spend her summer focusing the course, no, she has a life outside of the classroom.
you may have assumed that she can just take it for credit, our school is not interested for a kid to bring an outside course back to school for credit…
Will she meet all of her normal high school’s graduation requirements without that physics course? If so, and if the school she takes the course at will give her credit for it, then couldn’t she include that course and grade in her college applications?
OP, you wrote that you “hate that she spends the summer on Physics and Chem… I would much prefer she has a break…” So it’s part of why we assumed this will dominate her summer.
@apprenticeprof
I am sorry, I do not see what circumstances will make it unethical. Whether it is a productive use of time is debatable. There are intangible benefits for a kid who feels confidence about herself and a course.
What is the difference between taking a prep course for SAT vs taking a summer course for a regular ed class besides the former is “widely accepted practice”?
Assuming it is not expected, does it make it unethical or “unacceptable”? In our school district, there are kids in the regular classes, and then there are kids in the honor/AP level classes, hypothetically, (I am not referring to this case here), is it unethical for parents of the regular ed kids to enroll their kids in summer schools with the hope of moving the kids to honor/AP level classes? Who set that standard? Where is it set?
Again, see the above… if I understand you correctly, it seems to okay for a kid who was not born to highly educated parents to be able to achieve, but it is unacceptable for a parent who uses her wealth (not that I have) to give her kid an “advantage”. Are we talking about genes now? Or nature vs nurture?
BTW, here is a short version of a story which I resisted to raise earlier…I have said that I am not concern with her Math. However, she used to be “average” in my view. I did not teach her and did not encourage her to aim to be the top of the class, then one summer a few years ago, she had this “advantage” of taking a summer course, her confidence level was raised, she asked to skip a course and she was able to move to Honor level Math classes without extra help. She “likes” Math and is getting better and better. This is the snowball effect that I assume you knew.I don’t see anything wrong in giving her “an edge”.
Therefore it is acceptable for a struggling student to get help so as to become part of the norm, but it is unethical for an “uneducated” parent to use her wealth (not that I have) to bring up the potential of her kid?
There are more positive outcomes than you realized…and if not, it may not be a good use of time as you said but what is the harm? In this case, she asked to enroll in the class and be able to see her friends.
The OP’s account keeps shifting.
First "The problem is if we use the Summer course for credit, the school may not allow it, if they do, they will definitely not use the grade for GPA calculation…and if she were to use the course for credit, she will lose the opportunity to get an A in Physics 1 to raise her GPA. " Then the desire to keep the course off the schedule became “our school is not interested for a kid to bring an outside course back to school for credit…” Ok, which is it? Does the school not grant outside credit or do you not want the outside credit?
First “She was told by the counselor that due to schedule conflict she would not be able to take 2 Science classes,”
Then the scheduling conflict morphed into a school policy: "Is it normal for a school to tell a kid that she cannot take one of the AP Science classes? " “that’s exactly my point, the school has no such policy that a kid can only take one science course.” The school already told you that it’s a scheduling conflict. Why did you start going on about a school policy forbidding 2 science courses? And the reason why they didn’t tell you about the scheduling conflict until now is because they only now completed making the master schedule for next year, which is a big job. You’re lucky that they are telling you about conflicts now, because our school notifies about conflicts 3 days before schools starts, and that’s really hard on kids who suddenly need to do summer homework for a class they didn’t plan to take.
as a parent, I am not interested in her taking a 6 week summer course as a replacement of year long course, IMO, they just won’t learn enough nor have the time to appreciate the course.
Then it seems like it was a bad decision to spend the money for the summer course in the first place.
She can take physics in 12th grade if it does not fit in her 11th grade schedule.
yes, I hate that she has to take a summer course. The summer course I brought up was Physics…but it does not mean that she has to spend 12 hours on the course…I like her to have a break outside of the committed activities…It bugs me as I would unlikely to enroll her if I knew she is going to take 1 AP…
Why do I (or you) care (or bother to find out) whether the school grants outside credit if I am NOT interested in the summer course as credit course. But to answer your question, school has a published policy on not using non-district course for GPA calculation…However, I had told my school that my special needs kid’s online course grade, they didn’t include in the transcript…I don’t care and didn’t push for it. I had also discussed with the school about the DD skipping a course (post #107), the Principal told me they would only consider if the kid successfully challenged the course (aka obtained an A) and ONLY for Math, DD did and I sent them the transcript, I don’t know whether it was included in the GPA calculation. I don’t care.
What I don’t know is why do you continue to push taking the course for credit?
I think you missed several points and my posts (a) there is no written policy that the kid cannot take 2 AP classes, therefore why can’t the kid take 2 AP classes instead of Spanish or Social Studies? (b) the GC telling me now is not making sense… because students have to qualify for the classes, therefore before the final, they just don’t know who qualifies for the classes, hence they cannot determine the schedule…hence, how can I know it is a real schedule conflict.
I am sorry, this has previously been answered, I just do not want to cause any confusion… 
@annamom - My daughter is a rising senior and had the same decision to make last year as she could not fit both AP Phyiscs 1 and AP Chem into her junior year schedule. She was not taking a summer class so that didn’t weigh into her decision (which after reading all of these comments, probably made things easier lol). She decided to take AP Physics 1 as a junior and will be taking AP Physics 2 and AP Chem as a senior. As a few people have mentioned, AP Chem is not necessary to do well on the subject test - both of my older kiddos took it after honors chem but before taking AP Chem and both did very well (high 700s).
FWIW, my D loved Physics 1 and is looking forward to physics 2 next year. I, on the other hand, think the whole breakdown of it into 1 and 2 is weird…and new for my town’s HS in the last year or 2. My oldest kiddo took honors physics as that was the highest level offered when she went through and it prepared her well for her engineering major. Middle kiddo took honors physics and then took online AP physics C (both E&M and mechanics). The issue I had with physics 1 this year is that it didn’t (at least D’s class didn’t) get through enough material to adequately prepare students for the physics SAT subject test. D dealt with that by self studying the topics that weren’t covered.
Good luck to your daughter!
They can’t have exact enrollment numbers anyhow, because of students moving in and out of the district over the summer. Other posters on this site have said that their school makes the master schedule by this time. Are you saying that they don’t have any schedule yet, and just lied to you about there being a scheduling conflict? I really doubt that, but it’s quite possible that a busy GC hasn’t tried every option to make this schedule work. Have you met with the GC to see whether there’s any way to make the desired schedule work? How many sections does this school usually run for AP chem and AP physics1?
Where I live it is very common to “pre-take” classes during the summer to get an A during the regular school year. It is also common practice for parents to push their kids to the brink all the while lamenting that the kid should really take a break. They claim that the KID WANTS to take these extra classes. It is all the kid’s idea.
BTW, in my opinion it would be much wiser to take 4 years of foreign language and AP Chem over Physics 1. Why not take Physics C senior year? What is the rush to get everything over with so early? Could the parent want the kid taking classes at a local college by 12th grade? (That is a common dream goal around here.)
“…a published policy on not using non-district course for GPA calculation.” So we’re back full circle: you want the course to help with the grade and any scores. It keeps coming back to that, even if subtly.
Posters are asking about taking summer school for credit because it ticks off the checklist, IF she gets credit for it.
There are plenty of kids, in plenty of school districts, who get to double up on sci. But you have to deal with your district and how they feel your daughter is progressing (both in skills and in terms of the distribution requirements.) They may not allow her to order a la carte.
This isn’t necessarily about their willfulness or a slow process. You’re just one part of a larger system.
I don’t have a problem with kids taking classes in the summer, but the class and grades should be on a transcript and that transcript should be part of the college application process. Seems fair to me. If a high school uses the class as replacement credit or as no credit could be up to each district, although it seems that replacement credit makes the most sense if the class can logically replace an existing class. I can see why schools might not like that however. An “enrichment” class to me would be a class that is not available in the current high school but some of this is splitting hairs. To take a class to “bone-up” for the next level class makes sense if the kid failed a per-requisite but to take a class to “bone-up” for a similar class and not disclose for the high school transcript feels alittle unethical plus the return on investment is pretty marginal in the grand scheme of things…one class is not going to make or break an overall transcript for the vast, vast majority of college applicants.
@Granit– thanks. Another poster suggested a summer SAT chem. To prepare for the subject test, I am looking into it, and I am not sure whether I want to do it, I really think she needs at least a month with no school.
@matyone
I think other posters have said that their schedule came out at the end of summer. Again, I am not going to say whether she lied, but based on the published policy in my district, a kid has to qualify for a class, they won’t know until they know who qualify for the class. I said it is not making sense to me and I am about to find out more.
I have said I am gathering info and options, this is what I have been trying to find out…
Thank you for sharing the common practices and expected behaviors in your area. But as the quotes above were not referring to this case here, I don’t want to comment what happens in YOUR area.
I hope it is not intention here to add to the growing list of accusations “unfair advantage”…“legal cheating” “not owning up”, “unethical”…
I knew about the policy for a long time, the policy does not come into play for my mindset here…I believe the learning in a summer course is no replacement from the learning gained in a year long course. I have no interest for her to take a course in the summer to ticks off a checklist…. I knew it is common for college students to take a summer course to check off a course that is not related to their major, but it is not the case here.
However, I am not sure why you think it is such a discovery that you wrote I wanted the course to help with the grade…I have said early on that I agreed to enroll her because I think it will be easier for her given her workload next year. Hence I had been accused of giving her “unfair” advantage, unethical…I don’t want to come back full circle to answer those questions again.
Trust me, I have a special needs kid, I have been dealing with the district and the GC more than you ever want to know LOL. What I have to deal with is published policy and how it is applied.