My high school had 7 periods. One of the ones my kids went to had 7 periods - four a day but the last one was shorter and that class was every day. Another they went to had 4 periods and you took four different classes each semester. My kids all graduated with more than 30 credits because they all went to both schools.
My D’s HS has optional 7th hour but less than half of the students take it partly due to transportation issue (no bus after 7th hour). It does not rank students. The way they weighted the GPA is to add a subgrade to AP/Honor classes but capped at 4.0. So for AP/Honor classes with A-, A, or A+ would be the same as 4.0 in GPA calculation. Basically, you cannot even guess the ranking from GPA easily. Around 5% students received 4.0 GPA in all 4 years. For students not taking AP/honor classes, any A- grade would keep the student away from 4.0. The only thing they rank the students is by the state mandated test.
I had not heard of schools where kids take only 6 classes before seeing this site. I’m wondering how they have any time for electives. College-bound kids at our school take the 4 academic classes every year, usually 4 years of foreign language, and have 4 other required classes, only one of which they have any choice about and that one must be an arts elective. So under a 6 period system, they would only have one elective during their entire high school career. I don’t understand how such schools can have viable arts programs, much less any other elective offerings.
In our 8 period schedule, the really artsy kids can easily take 2 arts electives per year, and the more academically inclined kids can fit in several academic electives in their area of interest plus 4 years of their favorite arts elective, and the kids with large EC commitments can take a study hall and still have time for an elective. This seems much better to me than a 6 period schedule which seems to leave almost no chance for kids to customize their high school program and explore interests outside the regular progression of the main academic courses.
@mathyone, I am so jealous! Our school district offers six periods (the state only pays for five.) You are right that it makes it difficult to take electives at all. My D chose four years of math, but only three of science so she could fit in three years of drama/tech. Those three courses, plus one semester of creative writing (the district only provides one semester of history for 10th graders, so that opens one slot), four years of language and two years of IB Psychology are the sum total of her electives. (The Psych HL credit and four years of language are required for her IB diploma, so not really electives.)
The principal at her school tries to soften the impact by approving every single credible PE and Health waiver that comes across his desk. He was a music teacher for years and understands the value of electives for the kids.
@mathyone The standard is in our school district is 6 periods per day too except for one HS with 5 periods but in trimester. That’s why they do not provide school bus after 7th hour. The school district has calculated one can meet the graduation requirement with all 4 cores in 4 years, 2-4 years of world language, and multiple electives by 6 hours in 4 year. Note that many electives are only one semester long.
@billcsho, I still don’t see how you get multiple electives with a 6 credit schedule. Don’t you have misc requirements like PE, health, etc?
Our classes have about 3 hours 40 minutes instructional time each week. You have 5 hours instructional time per week for your classes? That’s a lot–way over our state requirements and way over the time I had in high school.
@mathyone In our state, it requires 2 year of world language to graduate from high school. Plus the 4 cores in 4 years, they took 36 semester hours. There are still 12 semester hours left out of a 6-hour schedule (4x2x6=48). PE and health are only one semester hour each. If one take all 4 years of semester, that would take 8 semester hours. Most students with 6 hour schedule would not take band/orchestra/choir for all 4 years anyway. Even if they do, there are still 2 hours left for other electives.
Also, even the student request for 7th hour, he/she may not get it as space is limited. My D2 did request 7th hour in her freshman year and got none in both semester. I know many students graduated with no 7th hour at all through out HS. One will graduate from college this semester.
Our HS has block scheduling - four 90 minute periods a day. The third block, however, has an extra short period for lunch. Some classes are “skinnies” meaning they run 1/2 a block. These are primarily electives (but not chorus or band - which run an entire block all year long until Honors chorus which runs 1 block 1st semester and 1/2 block second semester). AP classes also run year long. Most APs are a full block first semester and a skinny second semester. A few run on an A/B schedule (full block every other day year long). My D took chorus all 4 years leaving her only 3 or 3 1/2 periods each semester. Trying to pair APs (2 1st semester full block with matching (eg both 2nd block) skinnies second semester, or matching year long A/B days was a nightmare. Then, there was trying to fit foreign language and math (she didn’t do AP math) into the remaining open block second semester. Not easy if, say French 3 is only offered one period second semester. Also results in the situation where kids end up with an entire year between sequential classes like math and languages. I hate block scheduling.
^^ If we had that type of block scheduling, I’d hate it too. Ours is pretty basic. 4 blocks a day with the third being longer for lunch. Classes meet on A/B days whether AP or honors or not. Varsity sports and higher tier bands and choir meet every day which means those kids lose an elective.
ETA They still have plenty of electives though.
we’ve been through this; and it affected our son’s graduating class this year so much that just last week the school board voted to get RID of rankings
A classmate had scored a trifecta: perfect psat, sat and act scores, as well as perfect grades. the classmate was ranked #6 in the class of 500+ though because others had taken summer school/zero hour classes for credit accrual. This student (and the others) are attending some elite colleges; but this student missed out on a few honors bestowed to val & sal of the class.
now there will be just latin honors for those in different grade point ranges. I think its great; perhaps now high stats kids will feel the freedom to take a class that might be out of their normal zone. (like wood shop! how fun would that be!)
The culture of our high school–a real appreciation of the arts–has most of the top ranked students taking two periods of art or music as well as 5 academics per year. So it balances the playing field and kids who take any kind of elective are not penalized. D managed to graduate top 5% while still taking art and choir each year.
And in the end, D and many others in her grade, did really well in the merit aid department when it came to talent $. Between art, music and theater scholarships, D was awarded $11k from NYU, $13k from Muhlenberg, $15k from GW, and $7k from American. That money is on top of other merit awards for leadership and academics. She was also awarded a Deans scholarship from Brandeis after the ad com went to the web page for the acappella group D started and managed in the middle of her interview. He watched a video of her group performing all the way through.
So maybe in the end we all gamed the system?! 
It wouldn’t even occur to me to expect that a kid should be Val or Sal because of perfect test scores. Or that lack of such a ranking was a problem.
I know for a fact that one of my good friends in HS who graduated a couple of spots lower that I did had SAT scores a good bit higher that mine.
Ours too. I don’t know about other kids, but mine did not worry about rank. While your weighted GPA was on all the report cards, they didn’t calculate rank until mid-way through senior year when it was too late to change it. My oldest actually ended up getting dinged by some choices he made early on. (Taking regular physics because there were scheduling conflicts with honors and AP, taking Latin which for some inexplicable reason did not offer honors junior year even though every other class did. He ended up 8th in a class of 650 or so.)
Our local schools weight honors and AP’s. This is clearly spelled out in the information provided by the schools. The student chooses the classes he/she will take. If a student chooses to take more of the weighted classes to maximize GPA or class rank, so what?
D chose to take unweighted classes in drama and journalism. Still ended up in the top 10, but would have taken those classes anyway. If some other student chose to take additional AP classes and had a better class rank, well good for him/her. D could have made that choice too.
I think the idea of accusing a child of “gaming” the system is ridiculous.
@FallGirl I think that there are some kids (or parents) that do game the system. For example I know of kids who did not take environmental science in 8th grade–which was the recommendation for advanced students–but instead took it in 9th grade so it could be taken (and weighted) as an honors class. They doubled it up with honors bio, rather than have a non-honors class in their gpa.
Our school does not send student’s rankings, but does have a val and sal. So that extra 5% bump in a grade could help. Plus the school designates top 5% and 10%tiles.
To me, if that kind of manipulation was done intentionally (and it was), then I would say they gamed the system.
Since I go to a small catholic school, we don’t really have this problem. AP classes are only weighted 1.08 and honors 1.04. There are multiple kids who take an elective and still have higher gpas then some who don’t. Also, our theology and spanish requirement must be fulfilled and there no weight in those classes.
My school also does not rank. The top three find out their rank last week of classes because they’re the ones who give speeches at graduation and then the top 10 receives an award at the ceremony.
I guess my question here is was not taking enviro in 8th grade an option for all the advanced students or was that something that only a small number of students were allowed to do?
As for recommendations, all I know is that the class recommendations that were given for my S were thrown in the trash (literally and by me).
@FallGirl A few students did not take environmental on purpose. Their parents made a choice to have them not take it so they could take it in 9th grade as an honors class. All honors classes taught in the high school get +5%. When you take the class in 8th grade it is enriched like an honors class, but the students are not given +5%. All 8th grade classes are included on the final transcript. These students then took honors bio as an elective for a second science, which also gave them +5%. The kids who had taken earth science in 8th and were taking honors bio in 9th couldn’t take another honors class for an elective, since they were not allowed to move on to Chem or a more advanced math.
So those kids didn’t get +5% for an elective either. My D’s group of friends only realized this later when one of the kids explained how they beat the system.
It is done!
“All honors classes taught in the high school get +5%” - Not at all high schools.
“when one of the kids explained how they beat the system.” - …while wasting their time and focusing on the wrong thing. This is a waste of all kind of resources that could be devoted to much more productive and rewarding activity that “beating the system”. So miserably pitiful, kids who will continue this later are plain LOOSERS. Others are talking about them in a very negative term.