My daughter is going into 7th grade next year and already has the opportunity to take high school credit classes. Should she? Her goal is to go to University of Florida (in-state) and eventually law school.
For math, she can take advanced 7th grade math, or Honors Algebra I (HS credit). She has all A’s in advanced 6th grade math, and her current teacher says she can handle Honors Algebra next year. But that would put her on track to take Honors Geometry in 8th, Algebra 2 in 9th, and then she will have to take very high level math courses for her last three years of high school. She’s pretty good at math, but not a math prodigy, and she doesn’t plan to do pursue a STEM major, so is there any benefit to starting her HS math credits already?
For science, she currently has all A’s in her regular life science class. In 7th, she can take Comprehensive Science 2 Advanced, or she can take Earth/Space Science Honors (HS credit). In 8th, she can take Comprehensive Science 3 Advanced, or she can take Physical Science Honors (HS credit). When looking at the high school curriculum guide, neither of those science classes are offered at the actual high school, so it’s not like she would be completing them early. It’s just an opportunity, I guess, to take one or two honors HS science classes while in middle school. It doesn’t seem like it would affect her actual science course selections in high school. Is there any benefit to taking one or both of these HS science classes while in middle school? Again, not planning to be a STEM major. Would colleges like to see extra HS credits on her transcript, or will they really only be looking at 9th grade onward?
Taking the science classes would benefit you and would help make first year science in HS easier, epsecially if earth science.
Colleges won’t look at middle school classes and grades. So it wouldn’t matter if you took them or not.
If your daughter wants and knows she can do well, there wouldn’t be a problem in taking those math classes. And all she would need is to reach AP stats/pre-calc if not doing STEM Major.
Having good analytical skills would be needed in law school.
Algebra2H in 9th, Precalculus in 10th, AP calculus AB in 11th, and AP stats in 12th would be rigorous but not incredibly hard, and appropriate for a non STEM major.
I assume the class&grade will appear on her Hs transcript - if it turns out to be too hard, can she drop down to Advanced Math?
All in all, if the math teacher selected your daughter for this class and she’s consistently had As in advanced math it sounds like it’d be a doable challenge for her.
If she’s interested in the science classes, why not? Earth&Space science sounds really cool, especially for students in Florida and Physical science will be good preparation for Physics or if it appears on her HS transcript and she doesn’t apply to a STEM major could serve as her “Physical science” class in addition to Biology and chemistry (the 3 subject basics), thus freeing her to choose 2 science classes of interest Jr&Sr year (I would recommend APES for a nonSTEM student aiming for UF and selective universities.)
If she isn’t interested for 7th grade, can she still take
Physical science in 8th grade?
Does your MS offer an “early” FL program? Many college bound students start HS in world language level2. Sometimes, level 1 is split into 1a (7th grade) and 1b (8th grade). It’d be worth it to inquire: like math, Foreign language is sequential and it’s difficult to change tracks.
I would discount law school and “not planning to be a STEM major”. She’s in 7th grade! And there will be many careers for her that don’t even exist today. So I would not make a single decision based on what she thinks she might want to be doing in 12 years.
There are dozens of careers now that are significantly more “math-y” than they used to be. Kids who didn’t like math but wanted a career in business used to gravitate towards marketing- one of the least “mathy” paths. Guess what- it’s math, math math now. The days of “should we make the package blue or green to make it stand out on the shelf” are over. Now it’s an actual test market with sophisticated regression analysis to make the decision. Nobody is making advertising decisions based on gut… it’s all data all the time.
Same with HR (which is what I do). No, it’s not rocket science. But when the CEO wants to know "why did our health care costs go up last year even though we had fewer employees globally AND we increased the employees share of health insurance? " you’ll be leading a team doing a three week intensive deep dive to answer the question- and yes, it involves math. Or the perennial “how much money would we save by moving our procurement team to…”. Fill in the blank- Warsaw, Costa Rica, Prague, Manila. Each with their own specific costs, risks, upsides, downsides.
I would encourage her to talk to her teachers to figure out the optimal mix of interesting, challenging, a stretch intellectually that won’t overload her, and time management. Nobody ever regrets being numerate.
Whatever she chooses in 7th grade…I would suggest looking to the future. In my opinion, she should plan to take four years each in high school of math, English, science and social studies, and foreign language through level 4.
High school teacher here. I just want to bring to your attention another factor. Besides “what” a student is learning in a class, it’s equally important to consider “with whom” they are learning. Some students learn/grow better with highly similar peers, some learn better where they are the star, while some gain a lot more in “trying to catch up” mode.
I encouraged my kids to stay on the “advanced” track as long as they could understand the material, and they were “enjoying” the learning. (I mean, I expected them to work, but not to the point where they were missing sleep, they were 12 yrs old, for heavens sake.)
Our district does put the grades from those 7th & 8th grade math classes (Alg 1 & Geometry) on the HS transcript. You can choose to remove them, if you take others that fulfill the requirements and have better grades. You can leave them on the transcript if you aren’t as math focused and you have other things you want instead.
S22 felt chronically behind in the Alg I in 7th grade class. He would’ve been better served by doing “8th grade math” and only being 1 yr advanced rather than 2. (He completed AB Calc as a sr. in high school, and has only needed to take a statistics class at college. He is much more “writing/history/social studies” focused.)
C25 has just been enjoying the heck out of having gotten to “skip” 2 years of slow boring math, and be on the 2 yr advanced track. They’re taking AB Calc right now and planning to take BC Calc next year.
If the choice is to do math in middle school, make sure you track it to see that it is following her to hs. I knew more than a few kids that were scrambling to get those courses on the hs transcript.
This was in Florida. You’d think they’d get better at it, but they really don’t seem to and every year someone is scrambling to fix a transcript before the hs guidance office closes for the summer.
May I ask why it is important to have high school classes taken in middle school (like Geometry and Algebra 2) on the high school transcript? At my child’s high school I’ve never seen anyone concerned about that. Is this a state of Florida thing? If it’s for colleges, I would assume that colleges know that when a 9th grader is taking Algebra 2, she has successfully completed Algebra 1 and Geometry in middle school. Is there something I’m missing that we should be aware of?
While Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 is the more typical math progression, Algebra 2 before Geometry is not uncommon. The absence of Geometry from the high school transcript could indicate that the student never took Geometry.
Thank you for responding! This doesn’t really answer my question, though, which is more general than your specific example. I mean, what if the ninth grader is taking Geometry (Algebra 1 would have to be assumed) or Precalculus (Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 would all have to be assumed).
My question is more generally, why is this a problem? Are we to understand that colleges DON’T assume these classes have been taken? In my child’s school, these classes are absolutely not on the high school transcript if they were taken in middle school and the kids get into all the top colleges. So is this some kind of Florida specific question? Genuinely curious as I don’t want to miss something.
That has never been an issue or concern at our district, nor our BS, where a significant number of kids come in post Geometry, sometimes already in Pre-calc, or even AP Calc.
FL, from what I have seen, is one those states where weighted GPA is a huge thing and kids take 20+ APs. Kids choose classes solely based on the GPA bump they will get. I could be wrong but my impression is that certain HS classes will count towards your GPA even if taken in MS.
It may have been a Florida thing, but yes, if the classes are taken in middle school you want them to appear on the hs transcript. I think the only classes that can be taken in middle school but ‘count’ toward graduation are math and foreign language. Even if you take, say, Spanish 3 in 9th grade and then stop, you need to show Spanish 1 and 2 on the high school transcript to get credit for at least 2 years of foreign language for Bright Futures. Even if you take 2 years of math in middle school and only 1 in high school, you need to make sure those show up on the hs transcript.
If there is a way to screw it up, the schools will find that way. My kids were ‘disadvantaged’ for gpa because they had attended two other high schools (OOS) and didn’t get any honors or AP boosts since their other high schools did things differently. They survived. The others we knew who took the middle school math and foreign language got things straightened out, but I just remember them scrambling just before graduation (which was June 1 and then school closed for the summer like the next week). At that time, Bright Futures closed at the beginning of the summer (now it is Aug 31) and everyone was trying to get the right paperwork in.
Had the parents made sure the middle school classes were on the transcript in 9th grade, it would have saved some of that paperwork madness.
and Physical science will be good preparation for Physics or if it appears on her HS transcript and she doesn’t apply to a STEM major could serve as her “Physical science” class in addition to Biology and chemistry (the 3 subject basics), thus freeing her to choose 2 science classes of interest Jr&Sr year (I would recommend APES for a nonSTEM student aiming for UF and selective universities.)