Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Best H.S. class placement, grades vs challenge?

What is more important to you for your child in H.S. a student getting top grades or being placed in classes that appropriately challenge them? Obviously, the goal would be both but I'm dealing with a 2e kid and these don't always go hand in hand. Before my DS16 was in H.S. I always pushed to have DS in challenging classes and didn't worry to much about top grades. But because grades affecting college entrance it looks like I have to compromise.

A few examples.

1) We have to decided between AB vs. BC Calc for next year. I'm coming to the realization that I should stop pushing Calc BC. I know he can pull an "A" on Calc AB and doubt he can get better than a B in Calc BC as taught at his H.S. (Many kids get 5 of Calc BC test but only get B's in the class.) An A on AB Calculus is going to look a LOT better on College Applications and he really needs the GPA boost rather than putting him in the class that will best challenge him.

2) He is currently in a U.S. History class where he gets only so-so grades because he has a teacher who has a uncommon grading/teaching style. It is a class that if he had a different teacher at the same school he could get an A. But this teacher is pushing DS in a direction he needs to be pushed. DS says this teacher's tests are the hardest tests he has ever taken. We had a Parent-teacher conference the other week. DS enjoys the class, it doesn't have any busy work and the teacher is really pushing understanding & debate rather than memorizing facts. Tests/quizzes are entirely short answer questions. In comparison final last semester was a department multiple choice test he got a near perfect score on.

That is a tough call- I think it would vary depending on the class/teacher for us, but one can't always know that specific info during scheduling (ie, if two teachers teach the same class in different sections).

Personally, I think I would go for the challenge, but that is easy for me to say as my DD is not 2E, and I don't have personal experience with that. I will also say that our counseling department stresses to students and parents that "colleges prefer to see you get a B in the most challenging class you can handle, rather than an A in an easier class." I have no idea if this is true, but it is repeated advice here, and consequently DD has observed lots of kids in her classes getting 60s and 70s on tests and other assignments (where she earns top marks without much effort). These same kids are being scheduled into honors level classes for next year as well (I assume they are using the parental override, which allows one to enroll in higher level classes without having earned the necessary grades in the prerequisite classes).

As I said, this blanket advice seems kind of crazy, but lots of kids here seem to be following it. Not sure if that helps or not😀.

Observations from DD's years in high school as well as what we've learned this first year in college:

a) Kids are NOT NOT NOT being well-prepared for college if they are earning A's in coursework that isn't difficult enough to cause them to truly scramble and learn good study skills,

b) Okay, assuming that you can engineer a transcript that is straight-A, worthy of a high degree of merit money, an elite admission, etc. etc. Does this student in particular have both the drive and the wherewithal (and no, I do not mean the cognitive power, but the OTHER skills like organization, work ethic, motivation, study skills) to make good on it at the next level?? Getting IN is one thing. Staying may be something else again. Higher expectations become a burden at some point.

c) Yes, transcripts are important in high school-- but not as important as the preparation for the launch during college. Your second point would argue for the more difficult coursework, IMO.




Don't think of high school as "the game of getting into the Best College Anywhere." Think of it as preparation for success at the Right College For This Student.

If your goal is an elite college and the proper credentialing from this point forward, then maybe learning to play the Tiger Game is a good move at this point-- and yeah, that entails near-perfect transcripts, and carefully groomed extracurriculars, test prep and superscoring, etc. etc. If that isn't your goal, then developing the best study skills with the greatest adaptability and variety possible is probably superior.


Caveat emptor.

But the tricky part of the Calc AB vs. BC class is they are both "honors" classes and get the plus one GPA point. The public universities in my area GPA is THE most critical factor for entrance into the university. AP and honors classes affect this because of their extra point. The only one to care if AB vs. BC were take would be entrance to a departments like engineering.

In my son's H.S. there is no official parent override at our school. If you don't get the grades you aren't in the class. I say officialy because at this point DS already doesn't have the grades to get into AP Chemistry next year, but if his grades continue as top A's in his Chemistry class his counselor can probably ask for an exception. He messed up the first 1/4 of first semester in Chemistry, and she knows the reasons.

In general I appreciate your point of view.
In our case...

a) Elite colleges are already off the table. It's more of pulling the GPA into a range to show off his ability.

b) There is an argument that you are better prepared for college taking the slower AB Calculus class (one college semester) vs. the faster paced BC Calculus (two semesters). Because it's better to have a SOLID grounding in algebra & early calculus than to have speed through it.

c) I do really get the point about not reaching to a university you aren't prepared for. I'm not going into details here but I do have a close friend who's kid has hit this pitfall and is now struggling just to graduate from an elite school.

d) This is why I didn't do something crazy like pushing to pull DS's out of the US history class and into one he could get a better grade in. It is more like a college class would be and it is preparing him better, even if the grades don't reflect this.

FWIW I disagree with this - for students who are good at math. From my perspective (which may be totally skewed, except that back in the old old old days I did take AP Calc in high school (before the AB vs BC split). It seems to me that the reason there is an AB Calc is due to the push to get as many kids as possible taking AP courses - hence the need for a slower-paced Calculus course. For kids who have a good aptitude for math, there's no reason to think that taking BC Calculus should be an issue or to think that they wouldn't have a solid grounding in what is covered in the AB course (or the BC course), and there is a lot of potential up side to taking BC - I suspect it will look better in terms of setting a student apart from kids who took AB, and it will also potentially give the student more college credit.

That said, I absolutely understand the confusion over deciding what to do re grade vs challenge, so more on that in my next reply...

Best wishes,

polarbear

This may be two dumb questions but how can you take BC without taking A? Also if you had A before why would you repeat it ?

For me, the appropriate challenge is more important. Unlike HK, I am not terribly concerned that my kids absolutely need this in order to not sink in college - I don't disagree with HK on this, just don't see it as a large issue. Instead, the issue I see is boredom and missed opportunity re what the transcript will look like to the universities and programs our kids apply too. I suspect that the more difficult classes always look better - once you get past any GPA-filter where the college admissions people might not ever look at the actual transcript and courses taken. Most importantly, when our children were younger, we were always looking to keep them challenged intellectually in school - that was the challenge as parents of intellectually capable kids. High school offers a lot more of that in terms of the more difficult courses - so why wouldn't we want our kids to have that intellectual challenge? My ds still wants it.


As you know, I have a 2e kid in high school also and yep, they don't always go hand in hand. OTOH, fwiw, I also know a lot of non-2e kids in high school and they have the same issue. Re my ds, I don't believe the issue is so much a 2e issue really - he's doing well with accommodations to the point I feel that for the most part, in most classes, his 2nd e is a non-issue. That said, he has a counselor who actually warns students about taking difficult classes or extra classes that aren't weighted etc to avoid bumping down your GPA with low grades or with non-weighted grades etc. My ds who really only wants to take interesting classes in school is already, in 9th grade, very aware of his class standing and what it will take to be in the top 10% of his graduating class and is hyper-focused on grades. Not because of anything we have pushed as parents and not because of any internal obsession on his part - but because of the push from his school program. There are some kids in his class who are already worried they aren't getting into an Ivy League school like their parents and their siblings etc.


I think this really depends on where your student applies. And fwiw, I believe that SAT/ACT scores play an equally important role. If your ds already has an idea of the type of program he wants to pursue in post-secondary - take a look at the colleges/universities he might apply to and see what their websites have to say about what is weighted in admissions. Go to college fairs and talk to the admissions folks about what is important. We've already done that - in ninth grade, and I found it helpful.


I think this is ok reasoning as long as - it's your ds' choice. If he wanted to take BC, I'd have him take BC. Also is he planning to go into a STEM program? If he is, having taken BC might be the better option.


This is a situation that I think most students will find themselves in at one time or another and one that's usually entirely out of our hands in terms of making course selections. My ds has one of these teachers this year and I don't think he could make an A in the class if he did everything 100% correct and perfect and all that. His teacher has even told the class she considers that she's done her job well if the entire class gets a B or less on exams - she doesn't want to make the class easy. In some ways, I'm glad he's had this class because it's forced him to let go of any hope of getting straight As in high school early on lol.

Anyway, I don't mean to make light of your question, and I'm looking forward to reading what others think about this. It's a very real and frustrating issue for us.

Best wishes,

polarbear

My understanding is that AB covers the first semester of Calc over one full year of high school, and BC covers the first two semesters. I can't in a million years imagine a scenario where a student would take BC after taking AB, but fwiw, our school district suggests that as an option for kids who take AB as juniors (or before). Considering the ability level of the kids who are going to be placed in order to be able to take any Calculus class as a junior or earlier (and I have one), why on earth would the school a) put them in a slower-paced Calc class and b) suggest they repeat a semester's worth of material?

polarbear

ps - just to be clear, you can take BC without taking AB in our district - it's just written into the curriculum that it's ok to take BC after you've taken AB.

I get the point too... but fwiw... I also see this struggle over grade vs challenging course going on with students (locally) who are very capable of the high-level universities they are applying too and can and are very successful in those schools... still having to worry over GPA. One example of this is high school credits earned in middle school - the students I am referring to here are all highly able, highly capable, highly successful in school students. Many of them have taken high school level course in middle school (as allowed by our district). Our school district also allows you to add these courses to your high school transcript - and our high school counselors advise the students to be *very* aware that in doing this, they are potentially lowering their GPAs both through adding anything less than an A and by adding classes that don't carry weighted grades.

polarbear