MOD NOTE: This post was split from another thread.
Thanks, OP, for bringing up this topic, which is very relevant to us.
I’m very surprised at some replies saying high school level courses taken before high school could be omitted from a high school transcript. High school level courses, regardless when taken, must be included in the high school transcript. There is no discretion about this, so anyone taking high school level courses “early” had better be prepared to have the result be part of their permanent record. Also, some courses in the list of high school graduation requirements are commonly taken earlier, so obviously it wouldn’t even work to have these omitted. Perhaps different states/regions do things differently.
Also I don’t see why a HS level course taken at MS should be seen as anything less than ones taken at HS. An advanced MS could have a tougher version of a course than an average HS. And at an online school, MS and HS students can be in the same virtual classroom taking exactly the same HS class. And in any case there is a huge variation in rigor between schools, that colleges have to try to sort out, so they shouldn’t judge courses taken earlier by advanced students as being inferior to courses taken later by average students.
I’m really appalled by the description of colleges restricting their view to just what’s taken in grades 9-12, instead of looking at the whole history of HS level courses. This seems to favor students that have access to a cookie cutter lineup of courses and a range of nice schools. It’s not good for families that have not always had good options, and have had to scramble and improvise to piece together an education, which can veer from the conventional progression.
S24 did not have a good/safe school option, so we had to homeschool for some years. He ended up with a year of calculus in grade 8 (and a bunch of other math earlier). He then switched to a virtual charter for grade 9, but they had no math courses for him, so he took no math course in grade 9 (though he did the AP Calc BC test (5) to confirm the homeschool math). He then switched to a great selective public, with no AP courses at all, but with a selection of courses up to college sophomore level (some running rarely though). For example in Grade 10 he did Linear Algebra and Abstract Algebra (and similar level in grades 11-12). Imagine what a college sees if they only look at grades 9-12. The whole history of conventional HS math courses, Alg1-Calc, would be erased, then no math in Grade 9, then suddenly Lin Alg and Abs Alg in Grade 10. They could fairly think it is quite a weird transcript, but would they really disqualify him for no math in grade 9, when overall there’s clearly more rigor than most people have?
D27 has been at virtual charter for grades 7-9, doing mostly HS courses since grade 7, and DE in grade 9, and she’ll switch to selective public to build on that, with plenty of rigor up to college sophomore level. But she’s taking no English course in grade 9! She took the first two required HS English in grades 7-8, and (because reasons) the third in grade 9 would have been redundant, since it wouldn’t advance her a level, and wouldn’t contribute to HS graduation, and she’ll have enough English later (5 in 6 years). Would colleges really disqualify her for no English in grade 9, when overall there’ll clearly be more rigor than most people have?
Several people seemed to imply that elite colleges would essentially disqualify an applicant for lack of a core subject like Math or English in grade 9 (and erase pre-grade-9 HS coursework) despite having more rigor than most people have?
Sorry, I’m freaking out here, because people seem to be saying our S24 and D27 are doomed. I realize that chances at elite colleges are low generally, but it’s important to know critical factors. And sorry OP I don’t mean to thread hijack, but you raised issues that are a big part of our situation, (and I wasn’t even aware of this), so I had to ask posters here.