Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment AP Calculus BC vs Honors Trig

Echoing the recommendations not to skip Trig.

FWIW our district also requires first year biology and chemistry before AP biology. I would research the AP vs Honors Biology issue - we would have liked to have our ds skip Honors Bio and go straight into AP, but our district insisted that would never work. DS has now been through Honors Bio and there have been pros and cons. Some of the work he had was a repeat of his previous life science classwork, but all was more in depth. He had a *great* teacher and depth of discussion in general was good. Also a pro - for ds, maybe not for other students - he is taking during a year he had some other challenging classes and a lot of homework, so having a slightly less rigorous science than an AP course was helpful. The cons - there was some repetition of things ds has already learned.

I'm not sure exactly what the stepping stone of knowledge is from Chemistry going into AP Biology.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - worries over high school GPA can get really complicated depending upon how AP vs honors vs regular courses etc are weighted. For our family, we eventually had to let go and choose to not focus on GPA simply because when it got to the point of coming into play re which courses were taken, that was just too much. I have to believe that the important thing ultimately is that our children have chosen high school course work that challenges them and also interests them, even if they will only get a 4.0 for an A in that class.