Is your choice Regular English or AP english?
or Do you have honors english? That is what typical “smart” kids would take as sophomores.
Same deal…taking Pre-calc as a sophomore is 1 to 2 years earlier than everyone else. No need to skip Pre-calc.
I think for a kid who is “meh” about school work, that you shouldn’t be pushing them to be working at a junior/senior/college level even if he is “smart”.
You should be pushing for honors level work at the sophomore or junior level.
“Wait UCB/UCLA are not T20? I thought they were.”
I meant to say T20 private colleges. But regardless, it’s also clear what’s needed to get into UCB/UCLA from our school and that’s a bunch of strong ECs and a ~4.0UW GPA. Even the NMFs who didn’t have good enough ECs were rejected. So those are unlikely to be an option.
“I am not at all sure that you should consider UK colleges-they require far more independence and initiative that their American counterparts, and there is not the same support structure for students”
Well we are British originally so intimately familiar with that system and we have lots of family there. Having said that I don’t see my S18 at UCLA using any more support than I had in college, other than (optional) access to an advisor for course selection, which isn’t really necessary for the much more prescriptive British degrees. I guess a struggling student might be allowed to flounder for longer in the British system (perhaps until they failed the end of year exams), but I wouldn’t want him to go away to either place for college if he wasn’t living up to his potential and hadn’t grown up a lot by senior year.
“Is your choice Regular English or AP english? or Do you have honors english? That is what typical “smart” kids would take as sophomores.”
Just like in math, there are two main tracks: Honors (referred to as AS but unweighted) English 1 & 2 leading to AP Lang and AP Lit in junior and senior year respectively, or regular English 1, 2, 3 and 4. You can drop from the Honors track but students rarely go the other way.
Thanks for all the input. I’m particularly interested in how wide the range of opinions is. Perhaps this is similar to the controversy over tiger parenting?
I think the range of opinions reflect the fact that not every smart kid who is not living up to his/her potential is the same.
Some suffer from anxiety.
Some have time management issues but are otherwise OK organizationally.
Some really could do the work/focus but they’d rather do something interesting than be bored with homework, studying for a quiz where they “get” 99% of the material without having to learn it, or “show your work”.
Some like being challenged but don’t like to be singled out as the smart kid
Some have various LD’s and have learned to compensate, but once the work in HS becomes more demanding, that gets harder to do without actual accomodations which they are reluctant to use since they didn’t need to in the past.
Etc. YMMV. We don’t know your kid- we can only describe what worked and what didn’t in our own families.
@blossom Thanks, that’s a good list to consider. Almost all of those points except time management are at least somewhat applicable in this case, albeit to a different degree in different subjects.
If a student doesn’t like to write, I’d be wary of any AP courses in English or history. So keeping him in English honors till the AP courses kick in may be the best bet. The transcript would show the student dropping from honors to college prep (or whatever it’s called in the hs), and that could have an impact at the more selective schools, but really it’d only be a handful. It’s not worth the stress, imo.
I always start with the end goal in mind. For my kids, the goal was a happy, productive, fulfilling adult life. HS and college are both opportunities for learning and necessary steppingstones along the path to the goal. (So, incidentally, is grad school).
One kid had serious LDs (dyslexia that caused fatigue and then physical pain), speech delays, and who knows what else as well as physical issues that we discovered were sleep apnea. But these were balanced off against pretty extraordinary gifts. [He was interested in behavioral econ in college and I persuaded him to take a math course every semester so he also was a math major and later told me that he didn’t have to even read the math textbooks at all until his 8th or 9th math course in college and got A’s or A+s every semester and frequently did not have to attend class].
Given the goal, I hoped that ShawSon would go to a college where a) there would be other very bright kids; b) the professors would quickly grasp how bright he was; and probably most important c) the distribution requirements would be non-existent or minimal. To get in to such a school, in my judgment, he would have to show no weaknesses and one or two serious strengths. So, we decided he would not try a foreign language (consistent with all of his neuropsych testing). At the HS’s suggestion, we partially homeschooled him so he could work on improving writing and go faster in math. He took social science courses that were challenging, because they interested him, but we kept him out of courses that would be taxing with no real gain. He did art classes as well.
So, we didn’t always push him in every course, but enabled him to show his strengths. He got into several of the colleges that I thought would work for him (NESCAC, Ivy, other), went to one with minimal distribution requirements, did extremely well . He was tired throughout but pushed through. He has been very successful post-college by playing to his strengths. In his case, I thought a prestigious school would be desirable for him given his goals and drive but did not think it would be nearly as important for my daughter (who was very bright and less driven) to get to the happy, productive, fulfilling adult life.
I think @blossom’s advice is good. Try to figure out where the apparent lack of drive comes from. ShawSon would not push his English essays as much as he could because a) they tired him out; and b) he said, like your son, “Dad, I’m going to get an A on them anyway so what’s the point.” I had always told him he needed to get rid of fluff words, do a better job on transitions, etc. But, no uptake. However, when he decided to compete in Moot Court and was given only a limited time to speak (which was even more limited because of his speech delay) did he focus on making every word count and became a good writer (with my help). I did insist that he write down intermediate steps in math in middle school.
In short, his HS schedule was chosen strategically to show no weaknesses and one or two strengths, his college was chosen strategically to play to his strengths and he has done so ever since with great success. I hope this is helpful. Happy to give more detail in DM if desired.
“We decided he would not try a foreign language (consistent with all of his neuropsych testing). At the HS’s suggestion, we partially homeschooled him.”
I don’t think avoid foreign language is an option for OP’s son and those are the kinds of classes that could be challenging. You don’t need to take AP but probably two or three years would be needed for the more selective colleges. Again, homeschooling is good suggestion but not sure it’s an option for OP.
“I don’t think avoid foreign language is an option for OP’s son and those are the kinds of classes that could be challenging.“
He’s doing Latin as his foreign language which is actually his favorite class (mostly due to the teacher, as well as the logical structure). So that’s not a problem, he can have the same teacher all four years (up to AP Latin if desired).
We met the teachers this week and both his math and English teachers are strongly recommending he does the advanced courses because otherwise he’ll be bored. He seems more willing to take the advice from them than us, mostly due to a severe lack of self-confidence. So it looks like his classes for next year should now be reasonably straightforward to decide.
But convincing him that he is good enough to do well will take some time, he feels somewhat intimidated by the success of his older siblings, who found school much easier and always got As. The key may well be in getting the right teachers who can understand him and provide encouragement.
Well, that & the inherent lack of credibility that parents have! The ‘well, you would say that, b/c you love me so can’t be objective and/or don’t realize what it’s really like’ dismissal takes a long time to fade…
Post # 24. I disagree with opting out of AP lang/lit classes for a child who dislikes writing. I hate to write but can do well enough at it. Love reading. Placed into the UW (Madison) honors lit class (pre AP days) and was a chemistry major. A HS student who can handle AP/Honors English should do so. Taking the regular version will not be more pleasant perhaps. Learn as much as you can, when you can.
It is different if the student has difficulty mastering the subject material. Honing skills of reading and writing should be at the pace where the most is learned, not a like/dislike.
Three years, preferably four, of a foreign language are now required for UW-Madison. The good thing- this means using the HS classes to meet college graduation requirements. A lot nicer to get that out of the way. Of course there could be exceptions made but not typically. That language requirement could be more common than you think.
Also. academics are strongly considered while extracurriculars are low priority. This from a link with data released that I saw on the CC UW site recently. Better for a student to spend more time on academics than many activities if time is a factor. Better prepared for college as well.
All of the above said let the gifted/bright kid enjoy taking fun classes as well as the academic ones.
“Three years, preferably four, of a foreign language are now required for UW-Madison. The good thing- this means using the HS classes to meet college graduation requirements.”
@wis75 Does Latin always count as a foreign language for college graduation requirements? When I was growing up Latin was taken in addition to, rather than instead of, a foreign language (French, Spanish, German or Russian in my school).
Latin is a foreign language although I doubt any ecclesiastical Latin learned from Sunday Mass decades ago would suffice (couldn’t resist that one).
I have heard that computer languages are being proposed as meeting requirements somewhere but I disagree with that. I think it is a great idea for students to formally study other languages as it helps understand how one’s own language is constructed and used plus cultural contexts and so much more.
For college graduation requirements as opposed to admissions requirements? Usually. The military academies being the notable exception.
“The key may well be in getting the right teachers who can understand him and provide encouragement.”
I think in IEPs, the head of the student services program or whatever it’s called tries to find teachers that would best fit the student’s style.
“Three years, preferably four, of a foreign language are now required for UW-Madison.”
https://languages.wisc.edu/policy/
That depends on the college, engineering ,education, e.g. do not have requirements. You can also get out of the requirement with a documented disability.
“Does Latin always count as a foreign language for college graduation requirements?”
It should, not sure if you’re specifically asking about Wisconsin, but given they have a Latin dept, Latin should count. There’s also an AP test for it so you should be ok. The only issue would be if you went to a college where the AP test couldn’t fulfill the language requirement and Latin wasn’t offered, so your son would have to start from scratch in another language.
The issue that needs to be addressed regardless of the level of the courses…is that the work needs to be done, and turned in. This is a life skill your kid will need to be able to do independently when he goes off to college. There won’t be teachers or a case manager, or EF coach to chase him down to turn in work, or write his work in on tests when requested to do so.
So…if it were me…I’d pick courses but then get some plan in place for getting the work actually turned in.
Was being general and L&S has the majority of students. Just to point out there are many schools with admission reqs. it is not just elite private schools. Years ago it seemed it was two years with more being competitive. Parents should be aware of language requirements for instate and other likely schools when their kids start HS. UW makes it easy to use HS credits- no specific grades required. There is a placement test but, as the name implies, it is used for placement in a UW course for those wishing to continue and get college credit for HS work. More than anyone here cares to know.
Latin IS a language, even if not spoken by populations for many centuries.
I did not read any of the other responses yet…
Absolutely let him do what he wants! He will not lose his intelligence; it will be there when he feels like using it. And I would assume that he most likely will want to when he’s older. A friend of mine who had a son older than mine at the time shared with me, to reassure me, how she was seeing her son changing before her eyes. As he matured mastery came into play and she could see her son who previously flitted from one thing to another, or worked hard at things only to not see them through, really caring about mastery for the sake of mastering. Well, I saw the exact same thing in my son as he got older! My very intelligent son (maybe not as intelligent as yours LOL) who also has ADHD really started to change around age 17. By age 18 he was on a real upward trajectory that has not stopped. He is 21 now, completely self directed and self-motivated, and very high achieving, except when it comes to laundry and cooking. Because (for other reasons) he did not take all the AP this and Honors that in high school, he didn’t like his college choices straight out of high school, and chose to go the community college route. He is now working on transferring and will surely have some great options, including “top-tier” universities. We always knew he COULD achieve most anything he wanted, but we weren’t sure for a long time if he would. Now it’s clear.
And another support for my position to let him do what he wants is our experience with our other son. We are unschoolers. In other words our kids never had to do anything academic-wise that they didn’t want to do. Our older son chose to go to high school (that’s why he didn’t do all the AP and Honors stuff because he was still new to formal education) after not doing anything much academic his previous years homeschooling, but our younger son, now 18, did not choose to go to school until a couple years ago when starting community college classes. So, think about it: this kid never took ANY classes, let alone hard classes, and he never did academics either except tutoring for his dyslexia when he was about 15, and self-studying math for about a year before starting college math. In our opinions, he’s doing great and will continue to do great. He’s gotten all A’s in the six college classes he’s taken, and is aiming in that direction for his current two classes. He can still choose to go straight to a four year school, or he can keep going and do the transfer thing. Either way, he will have plenty of options. He can still choose MIT or Yale even though that would be a tough one given the path we chose for him, but it’s not out of the question, but MIT and Yale would be tough for anyone! Point is, might some doors have almost closed, yeah, I guess, but are there a zillion other great ones? Yes. AND our kids are healthy and happy, had A LOT of fun growing up, and their self-esteems are great, not beaten down by expectations that were beyond their own wishes for themselves at the time.
Hope that helps.
Yes, yes and yes…
Our D18 played the GPA game because we lived in Texas at the time and kids are trampling each other for top 6% for auto admit to UT. She made the cut, but was miserable as were we throughout her high school years, Killed herself with 12 AP’s, hardly slept with so much homework, it was awful. She ended up hating UT and is now at a Texas private.
With our S22, we are doing things quite differently. He is taking accelerated and that’s it. I don’t care. He has great grades, can do his sports without stress, works a part time job and we all don’t fight. Whatever college that this method gets him in I am good with. D’s high school years were hell with the stress. We aren’t going down that road again.
Another vote to let him take whatever he wants. Kids should be enjoying HS and not making themselves miserable trying to get into elite colleges.