Senior year elective?

Applying to College
1

S19 goes to a very small high school. There are about 125 kids in his class. Because of its size, the school offers relatively few options for electives and my son has pretty much taken everything he’s interested in.

He’s in the process of planning next year’s schedule. He will definitely take:

AP chem
BC calc
AP Italian
AP lit
Criminal law (fulfills a NYS graduation requirement for a class on participation in government)
Econ (fulfills a NYS graduation requirement for an Econ class)
Gym

Crim law, Econ, gym and the lab for AP chem each meet every other day. This means he’ll have 6 classes each day, lunch and 2 free periods.

This year, he’s TA’ing AP CS, which takes up 1 free period every other day. This is an informal arrangement with the teacher, nothing official through the school, so it doesn’t show up on his transcript in any way, but will, of course, be on his college applications. Assuming it works with his schedule, he’ll likely be doing it again next year.

He’d be very happy to have 2 frees each day. He likes to use them for homework when he’s not TA’ing. His GC wants him to add an elective to look busy for the colleges. The only even elective he hasn’t taken in which he might have even vague interest is a new class in Discrete Math. The two dings against it are that the course guide describes it as math for non-STEM people and he’s totally a STEM kid and that it’s a brand new class. New classes don’t have a great track record for being well taught at his high school.

I’m not just taking his GC’s word for it that he needs the elective to look busy because she is brand new to the college application process. My son’s class will be the very first senior class she’s worked with at this or any other job.

My assumption is that ad coms don’t sit around calculating how many free or study halls a kid has each day. I assume they’ll look at his schedule without the elective, see courses in 5 core subjects, 4 of them AP’s and think it’s a perfectly fine schedule and won’t think he’s slacking off. I assume that if they stop to wonder at the absence of electives, they’ll assume small school, few choices, no big deal. IOW, I’m assuming the lack of electives next year won’t hurt him and that the GC is wrong.

What do you think and why?

2

How about taking some dual enrollment classes at a local community college? My daughter took 7 units last summer in-person, and now taking 2 online classes a semester (6 units). Her goal is to get rid of ge requirements so she could do a double major, masters and study abroad and still graduate in 4 years, but I guess you could say it also makes her look busy to a college (she doesn’t play any school sport, nor does band, but has other ECs)

3

AP Chem and AP calc will be time-consuming. I think is a good schedule. Maybe during study hall he can work on those classes he struggles with.

4

This is a good schedule but Discrete Math, even as an easy intro class, would be useful for a future stem major, especially a CS major - Discrete math will be a requirement for CS and it’s often a bear, so an easy introduction would likely be useful to ease him into the college course. Basically it’s the logic and math behind computing.
Can he talk to the teacher who’ll teach that class and ask him about it? If he tried it, can he drop it later if he finds it’s not appropriate for him?

5

Some schools require calculus 1 to take Discrete Math. I don’t think he can take that class

6

Discrete math is often a college sophomore level math course for computer science (and sometimes math) majors. However, if it is a high school math course for non-STEM people, it is taught at a much lower level.

Here is the web site of a college discrete math course: http://www.eecs70.org/

7

Even if it is taught at a much easier level than in college, it’d still be a gentle introduction to the subject, in the same way statistics regular can be an introduction to the field before college statistics or honors Calculus can be an introduction before Calculus 1 in college.

8

A local community college is giving credit for it, so I guess it’s dual enrollment. He doesn’t care (and neither do I). That part is of no practical use to him.

9

Then it shouldn’t be that light, and it’s still an introduction to an essential course for CS majors.