Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Ivy League Admissions.

That is a HUGE concern.

We did not permit DD to take "Chemistry" via her virtual school because we both felt so strongly that the laboratory experience is so central-- and so difficult to replicate successfully at home-- that it made the class nothing more than theoretical. Most colleges seem to agree. UC, for example, will not accept most virtual school science coursework for their a-g prerequisites.

We did allow AP Physics, however-- because that one came with a Lab kit from escience labs (like LabPac) and could realistically be done at home.

AP versus college... hmm.
It just really depends. At our school it is probably six of one, half a dozen of the other. The classmates are likely a bit brighter in AP, but the instruction is not college level.

My personal opinion re: AP in general terms is that it isn't really the equal of the college course, and much of that has to do with instructional depth. The people teaching AP classes aren't PhD experts in those disciplines, by and large. They ought to be if those are truly the equal of a college course. IMO, of course.

Then again, your average adjunct teaching at the local community college isn't necessarily putting forth "better" instruction.

I ETA'd above. Our local uni is a/the state flagship. But it is not one of the really good ones. Median SAT scores would be in 550-600 range. Median ACT scores are 25ish. Most high schools in the state would be lower than this (logically).

There's no logistical problem taking classes at state flagship (it's nearby and it would be the only B&M location -- all the rest would be at home).

This choice would be between either (a mediocre) state flagship or the virtual school, so I think your argument would shift the choice towards the university. The virtual school may require students to take available classes at the virtual school, but hopefully that can be worked around.

There's the possibility of B&M school (with its hands on facilities) but these are not ideal for various reasons, and doing lab-based classes at the uni seems like the more ideal solution.

The regular or honors level high school classes would have to be done at the virtual school, but maybe the AP phys/chem/bio classes could be skipped in favor of the freshman college versions with professors doing the lecture halls and TAs doing the labs (and then maybe the AP exams could then still be taken once the material is learnt in the college class).

We have DD save her work on laboratory exercises, and have since she was in middle school. In part this is to develop the habit of keeping a laboratory notebook, and in part it's to be able to demonstrate that she has actually done laboratory work in the subject.

This is the approach that many virtual charters recommend, by the way-- keep records and let schools evaluate on that basis.

Thanks, intparent, for the book recommendation. I am reading it now and I'm finding it very compelling. I think my DS13 will get a lot out of it, too, because the talk has already begun among his peers about what "looks good" on a college application.

An important reason for "holistic admissions" is to provide cover for a process that sets racial targets for which kinds of students are admitted, even though explicit racial quotas are unpopular and illegal. A recent NYT article discusses this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/e...e-university-of-california-berkeley.html
Confessions of an Application Reader
Lifting the Veil on the Holistic Process at the University of California, Berkeley
By RUTH A. STARKMAN
August 1, 2013

Some commentary on this article is

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/08/want-to-get-into-uc-berkeley-lie.html
Want to get into UC Berkeley? Lie
by Steve Sailer
August 2, 2013

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2013/08/working-in-dark.html
Working in the dark
by Steve Hsu
August 2, 2013

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/08/the-shell-game-of-berkeleys-holistic-admissions/
The shell game of Berkeley’s holistic admissions
By Razib Khan
August 3, 2013

Thanks, Bostonian. I have nothing against people doing whatever extracurriculars they want for fun and fulfilment. But it seems universities are misusing them to favor some applicants at the expense of others.

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Another issue I thought of regarding admissions is foreign languages. Some universities want four years of high school foreign language credit (Harvard, Princeton), while some (MIT, Caltech) just want some foreign language credit but don't really say how much, meaning maybe two is enough if other qualifications are strong.

Two years of foreign language is sufficient for high school graduation, and most universities also seem to think this is sufficient for admission.

So what do people think is the prudent approach for learning foreign languages when it comes to university admissions?

Honestly? I have no real idea. I do know that most classroom instruction in foreign language isn't terribly effective. I'd think that an immersion experience of some sort would be much better-- and would definitely make a couple of years of a foreign language 'stand out' a lot more.

It'd also signal that the student has some sort of personal investment in the language, other than "it's what my high school offered as an AP class."

Am I missing something in that Berkeley thing? It says 92 percent of whites and Asians graduate within six years, and 31 percent of whites in the science field graduate with a science degree within five years.

We're talking about a 4-year degree here, right?

I don't think this is necessarily misuse.

If you want to have an orchestra on campus, you need a certain number of string players and a certain (lower) number of bassoonists on campus to sustain that. Likewise all the other things that make up the particular campus community of that school. I think it's fine for the school to look at the balance of people it's bringing in-- X number of engineers, Y number of likely anthropology majors-- for reasons of academic programming and staffing, but also look at the skills and preferences of the incoming students for how they contribute to the whole of the place.

DeeDee