Emmie
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Posts posted by Emmie
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Obviously, it depends on the college, but at my alma mater, intro Chinese was a very, very hard class, and required a lot time out of class studying, and pronunciation practice in the language lab. I would also want to know if any of these pre-req classes are also offered 2nd semester -- so if she doesn't take them in the fall, does she have to wait a whole year? Also, does she plan to take classes next summer? That would also factor into my advice.
Also, if she could find an "environmental science majors" club, or something like that, it is incredibly valuable to find students ahead of you in your program. These students can often give better advice than advisors.
Dd took some chinese in HS, so she already understands pinyin, basic grammar, etc (she would try and test out of beginning chinese but we never focused on character writing).
This is a question that is really hard to give a general answer to because so many individual factors come into play. Relevant considerations for me would include:
Overall academic strengths - Is the student a fast learner or tend to take more time to master concepts? She tends to catch on very quickly.
Academic background - Have they been in a lot of structured situations before like community college or is this one of the first graded experiences? No CC classes but she did online HS classes
Organizational skills - Am I confident they are ready to "hit the ground running" or will it take some time to learn study and time management skills? She has EXCELLENT time management skills. Its perhaps the best thing she is bringing to college!
Other obligations - How busy will the student be? Will the student be working, playing a sport, family responsibilities, involved in a lot of activities? This is the big question.... Whether or not she will need a part time job. I think that will play a big role in whether or not she can do well with so many credits.
Overall maturity - Is the student focused or will they be likely to be distracted with fun stuff, partying, etc.? My take on this is that dd is often too focused. :lol: She really is a homebody also
Challenges - Does the student have any learning disabilities or health concerns? no disabilities, minimal health concerns
Scholarship - Does the student have a merit scholarship that requires a certain GPA to maintain? no.
Thanks for those questions! They were good to go through and think about :-)
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There is no blanket answer to how many credits would be too many to take. A serious student without too much of a social life could handle more than a student interested in taking part in lots of extracurricular campus activities and/or that was also working significant hours. I took up to 19 credit hours my freshman year and handled it fine. . .but I didn't start working a campus job or get to know people well enough to have friends to hang out with until sophomore year. :laugh:
It's also best to balance difficult/technical courses with less technical elective requirements. I would personally NOT try to take 3 science courses at the same time.
:laugh: Dd is very introverted and has never been too interested in having one million social activities. She enjoys quiet time in her room, so I am sure she will have some more time to devote to studying... I guess I big determiner on how much time she will have will depend on whether or not she gets the scholarship she has applied for (she should find out within a week). If she gets it, she doesn't need to have a job her first semester, so that would greatly increase her chances of being able to handle 17 credits.
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I have always encouraged my kids to sign up for one more class than they need (scholarship requires 15 credit hours) so they have the ability to drop one if necessary. The course that is dropped has to be dropped in the first two weeks.
My middle dd signed up for 18 hours her first semester. She signed up for one class beyond the 15 credit hours required just to humor me. That was going to be the class that she dropped. It ended up exciting her so much that she changed her major to speech therapy. The class she dropped was biology. She said the only reason she was able to make it through the first class (the only one she attended) was because she knew that she could drop it as soon as the class was over. She just went to the scholarship office first to get permission to go under the required hours for her first semester, which they readily gave. They had said in orientation that it's fairly typical for first or second semester freshmen to take just 14 hours instead of 15.
Every semester, the class that she was sure was going to be the one she was going to drop ended up being the class she kept and a different one got dropped.
Last semester (her 4th) was the first time she kept all of her classes and that was because a 3-credit hour class she had signed up for didn't make and she replaced it with a 1-credit hour class (her favorite of the semester) so that she ended up with 16 credit hours.
Thank you for sharing your dds experience! My Dd has decided to try and contact the advisor she met with, and if "intro to enviro science" does not need to be taken as a freshman for enviro science majors, she is going to keep chinese as her "extra" class, and be well aware of the drop period. :)
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Well, if it's only precalc and she is familiar with the material already, that alters the picture. In that case, I would not expect math to be a time consuming class and possibly go for the extra course.
That is what I was thinking, too. Do you think it would be wiser to stick with Chinese as her extra course, or would enviro science be okay? They are both 3 credits.
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One option is for her to sign up for 17 credits but be really vigilant about the assumed workload of the various classes. If it looks like the workload will be too much, she can drop the last class. If she goes this route, she just needs to be VERY aware of when the last day to drop a class is!
Both of my older kids took insane loads the first semester of their freshman years. (One had the bribe of a great internship if she managed to take certain classes which required her to overload; one wanted the challenge.) They both did really well despite their advisors' concerns. It definitely can be done!
She has been leaning towards this, the only problem now is trying to decide if it would be a horrible idea to take three science classes (adding in intro to enviro science) during her first semester at college. She was trying to decide between that class and chinese.
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Colleges vary and courses vary, so no blanket answer is possible.
However: the three courses she is taking, math, bio. and chemistry, are hard classes, if they are regular college level, and they are time consuming classes. I assume bio and chem include labs, which take up a lot of time even though they may not count many (or any) credit hours. Together with the freshmen seminar, this makes a tough load for a student.
I would advise her to start with these classes and not enroll for an extra one. If she handles this load fine, she can always take more classes next semester. Since her academic advisor counsels her to stick with the 14 hours, I would heed his words and do so. Please remember that one hour in class requires approximately 2 hours of work outside of class, and while there are classes for which this is overestimating, in my experience math and science classes definitely require this much.
The classes are introductory chem and bio (chem 101 and "bio concepts", both are lab and are a part of a 2 semester sequence) and Precalculus. Dd has chosen to retake PreCalc this year because a health issue over the winter distracted her from focusing on math. And I don't think the labs count for any of the credit hours (both science classes are 4 credits)
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Dd is in the process of signing up for her fall classes. She will be a freshman. From the beginning, she has been planning to major in biology. She wants to do something involving wildlife or environment conservation. I think she has been leaning towards graduate school in zoology/biology/etc.
One of the "kinks" in the signing up process has been a required seminar. It is a freshman seminar that is a 3 credit class. When you add that class along with 3 other classes she needs to be taking in the fall for her bio major (Bio, chem, math), she has 14 credits. When she met with her advisor, she said she was going to try and take an additional class, even though it would be 17 vs 16 credits, because she didn't want to fall behind and she was also planning to double major (she is leaning towards environmental science, but has also considered world religion) ... He advised her to heavily consider staying at 14 credits, because she was a freshman and would be adjusting to college life in the fall.
Any opinions? Dd says she would be much more comfortable not adding any additional credits if she was atleast at 15 credits, but 14 sounds like too little. She doesn't want to end up overloading herself, but she also wonders if it is smart to not take intro to environmental science if she is considering majoring in it. She had also considered taking Chinese, since that is the language she took in High School and she will need a language to graduate anyway....
Opinions? How much more work would that one additional credit be in comparison to the average 16 credits? Did anyones child take 17 credits as a freshman?
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For me, the worst part is knowing that I told my son that the grades, the test scores, the ECs, and being the first generation male (on both sides) to attend college would matter and that the merit aid, scholarships, and financial aid would be there.
To the best of our knowledge about hooks, ECs, and whatnot - DS held up his end. I feel like I let him down.
Yep - we're in the same situation! DD's got the ec's, I'm a single parent, dd is first generation college student, etc etc etc.... So frustrating.
Sorry to hear your going through the same stuff, though... Does you son have good backups or is he in a situation like my dd is?
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The worst part is dd's comment of " I thought the hard part was getting in! I never thought i'd work hard, get in, and STILL not be able to go."
She's worked her butt off hsing these past 5 years - through health issues and everything.... And of course, once again it is finances that get in the way. Blah.
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I understand completely. We can't afford DS's top choices either and have been stretching our creativity to try to 'find' the money. Even if we can do that for one year, there is no way we can do it for four. :(
The only good news is that dd did not plan to stay there all 4 years - the best schools for what she wants to study are schools that had extra requirements for hsers that she did not want to meet (SAT 2;s etc, also would have had to retake ACT to include writing)
Her first choice is a really good school to study science @ (she wants to major in bio), but it is more focused on human bio than animal, and she is animal/wildlife focused and specifically wants to go to a college that has lots of opportunities for ocean-related courses or research/volunteer opportunities... So because of that, starting out at this school was a great choice and then transferring to one that better fit long term goals (while avoiding extra homeschooling requirements) was the best option...
So very disappointed, but thankfully she isn't losing a 4-year dream, just a one year one..... :/
The only worry now is that the less selective school that gave her a full ride (seriously, how cruel is the world? full ride at safety, horrible aid at first choice!) will lower her chances of transferring as a sophomore to a more selective college... because it is much more lower ranked than her first choice.
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Right now i'm feeling disappointed because DD worked really hard and got in to all the schools she applied to, including her first choice which was pretty selective and was her "reach." Then we heard back from Financial Aid - after grants her first choice still would have been more than 8x my EFC. :(
She can't bring herself to reject it, but we really cannot afford 39,000 per year!
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Dd was accepted to her first choice college yesterday!
Bennington College in Vermont.
She is THRILLED.
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The reading would be ok. We normally have a living science book added.
Did the Oak Meadow Syllabus or solutions manual give answers to the questions from the Coming of Age in the Milky Way?
Yes... Unless I am mistaken, it does (sorry have not looked at it in a while & I don't have it with me... Dd has been checking her answers!)
But I cannot imagine that I would be incorrect- their syllabi always include all the answers to the questions they assign.
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My DD is using Oak Meadow Physics this year and she enjoys it. I would only NOT recommend it if your dc does not want to do a lot of reading from a novel- about half of the questions come from Coming of Age in the Milky Way and the other half from the textbook...
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Thank you both!! DD is a fast reader, though I am not sure if she is exceptionally fast or not... As an example, we did Beowulf in one week. Sir Gawain took just over a week (I think maybe 6 or so days- but DD did not like this one very much) On the other hand, she is reading The Importance of Being Earnest over three days, lol. Today she read Act 1 scene 2 and 3 of Hamlet with no trouble (took her just under an hour, including 9 after reading questions).
Re another Arthurian story- i'll keep that in mind!
We have "til we have faces" by C.S. Lewis as an option, we've considered the hobbit, so maybe that should be an option, too. Oh, and she already read Animal Farm- hated it, would probably not like me if I assigned 1984. Ha, ha.
Kind of interesting- I think i've heard of a lot of people cutting Wuthering Heights! I always assumed that was a good title (i've never read it).
Thank you both for your responses, and to the first poster- i'll keep your list in mind in case we need to cut a few selections!
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DD is a few weeks in to British Literature. This is our first homeschool year where we are basically designing our own english class- before we either used a pre-made curriculum or used an online school.
I'm not sure about how many books, on average, we need for a full year, so I wanted to see if people thought our selections were enough, too much, or not enough. Also want to know if the books we have considered adding are worth being added...
So, we have:
Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Hamlet
Importance of Being Earnest
Canterbury Tales (will only read 1-3 of them)
Paradise Lost (not all of it)
Rime of the Ancient Mariner and other poems
Gullivers Travels
Three Men in a Boat
Frankenstein
Emma
Wuthering Heights
A Tale of Two Cities
Pygmalion
A Passage to India
The Secret Sharer and other stories
Dubliners
and as a sort of "fun read", Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass.
We have considered adding in:
Grendel (John Gardner)
an additional shakespeare (either Romeo & Juliet, Tempest, or Twelfth Night)
+ some others that I cannot remember off the top of my head. :)
Do you think the list we have is sufficient? Or should 1-3 books be added? If so, is adding an additional shakespeare overkill? We considered doing this only because DD has had very little exposure to Shakespeare- she was assigned Romeo and Juliet in 9th but it did not go very well...
If you think we should add, do you have any specific recommendations?
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THank you both for your responses! I passed them on to DD, and I do appreciate it! :-)
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Hi :)
My senior is doing the following-
British Literature
AP Calc
AP American Government
AP Biology
European History
Khmer (foreign Lang)
Physics
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DD is not taking the exams because she doesn't want to. This is not a hard and fast rule. If she decides she wants to take them, she absolutely can. DD is a senior so these scores do not matter to the admissions process. Some of the schools DD is applying to does not accept the scores, and DD has no desire to test out of Calculus 1 or Biology - she wants to take both, from the beginning, once she is in college. She wants to use these courses as a way to prepare herself for the ones she'll take in college. Government is AP simply because it was the only curriculum she liked. Even if someone had said I should label government as advanced, I wouldn't have necessarily done it because there is a chance that DD will edit out some of the stuff to make it more basic.
January start date related question? It is quite simple- DD is going to be finished by August. She'll officially begin senior year in September. It wasn't the most ideal of situations, but she has worked very hard and is finished with most of her courses for Junior year. The only course she may not finish by end of August/very beginning of September is PreCalc, and that is OK- she can work it until she is done and then move on to Calc.
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You should NOT name it "Advanced calculus", because that title suggests an upper level college math course beyond calc 3.
Has she taken any prior calculus course before the AP course? If not, you should label it simply "Calculus", because there is no need to differentiate between two courses of different level on her transcript.
Ditto for Government: "Advanced" only if she has previously taken another, non-AP, government course, and you want to make it clear that it is not a repetition of the same.
Ok, that makes complete sense! I had planned to label them 'regularly', but I wanted to make sure that was the right option. ;)
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regentrude- would you recommend we do the same thing we DD's other AP level courses that she won't take the exam for? We have Government and Calculus that are AP level - should we label them as "Advanced Calculus" and "Advanced American Government"? I knew we couldn't label them as AP, even if she was planning on the exam, but I also knew that honors is a useless term with hs'ing, so I wasn't sure what to call them.
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Why would you NOT give credit for the biology course if it is at a different level?
If you are afraid of raising red flags with an AP course but no exam, call it "Advanced Biology".
My main worry was about raising flags. Calling it advanced Biology sounds good. :)
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DD took biology W/LAB in 9th grade. On top of that she has environmental science and Chemistry. She will take Physics as a senior (and one semester of Oceanography). She is interested in Thinkwell's AP Bio because she really loves bio, wants to be prepared for college biology, and wants to refresh her memory on 9th grade stuff- she doesn't remember much of it!
Since she has no intention of taking the exam, should I even give her HS credit for it? Would it be weird to have a random second biology on her transcript?
College Freshman- 14 vs 17 credits.
in The College Board
Posted
She has decided to stick with her original plan: Bio Concepts, Chem 101, PreCalc, Seminar, Chinese.
She feels most confident taking Chinese over other classes, because some of it will be review. She already has a firm understanding of pinyin, tone marks, basic grammar, and basic vocabulary.
The drop period is 3 weeks, so she said she is going to be very vigilant of keeping track of her schedule, free time, etc during those three weeks to see if her course load is feasible for the entire semester. :-)