<p>As a mom of a valedictorian kid who faced a similar issue, I want to weigh in. 9th grade is really young to already eliminate every class and every activty that is not weighted. You have no idea how her grades will be, how her classmates will fare, what electives she may want, etc. Do you really want to give up on something that is an EC as well as a class just because it is not a weighted course?</p>
<p>My oldest is a varsity athlete. At his school, the sport also doubles as a class. So, once the PE requirement was exhausted, he was taking his sport as an unweighted elective. He was very concerned that this would hurt his class rank, because most of his class rank competitors were not athletes. But, here’s the thing. Everyone at school does something. At number 1, ods has four years of unweighted varsity sport. At number 2, the next kid has four years of unweighted band. At number 3, the next kids has a different varsity sport. And so it goes. There are very few schools that actually have enough AP classes that each student can take six AP classes every year. And even among the smartest kids, who wants nothing but solid APs every class all day from grade 9 or 10 on up?</p>
<p>Can your kid maintain straight As with the added time commitment of band or sport? Can your kid still take some APs with the added time commitment of band/sports/etc.? If so, and if the kid wants to do band, let them do band. If taking only AP classes means no electives of interest, no EC activities, etc., that sounds like a pretty miserable high school experience.</p>
<p>Remember, the GPA rules apply to all kids at your school. What a dull school if no one played sports, played in the band, etc. because they only wanted weighted classes.</p>