Preparing my pre teen for a successful school career

[RunningMn9]

How important is it for students to take AP/Honors classes for college?

IE: it helps with acceptance into schools or it has no bearing?

What is important is that kids are placed into the appropriate level of classes, for them. Not because a college does or does not want it. If the kid can handle and excel in an AP/Honors class, they should take the AP/Honors class. If they are going to struggle, they shouldn't. That's got nothing to do with college.

[GreenGoo]

In Canada when I reached the appropriate age, going to a good reputation school or not was a matter of competition, not cost. Low, middle and high rep schools all cost the same, getting in the front door before they closed was a matter of academic performance. I think anything outside of academic performance was only evaluated in reference to scholarships, I think.

I have no idea how university works today, and while I understand costs have risen significantly (looking back, it was basically free when compared to these conversations. It didn't feel free), I don't think they are nearly as capable of bankrupting the kids here as the costs in the US are capable of bankrupting American kids.

Plus I've already saved more for each of my children individually than my parents did for me (in terms of buying power. i.e. real dollars or whatever it's called) and I still have almost another decade to go (almost).

They are all smart enough to go to university. It will be on them to work hard enough to make it.

[Jeff V]

How important is it for students to take AP/Honors classes for college?

IE: it helps with acceptance into schools or it has no bearing?

What is important is that kids are placed into the appropriate level of classes, for them. Not because a college does or does not want it. If the kid can handle and excel in an AP/Honors class, they should take the AP/Honors class. If they are going to struggle, they shouldn't. That's got nothing to do with college.

By the same token, the kid should be matched to the competition of whatever college he or she will attend. There are stories abound of people washing out of places like Harvard or MIT when, if they chose a more appropriate school, might have finished with honors and accolades.

To emphasis what I said earlier, when I was in high school, the AP classes were more a matter of peer pressure...my peers were in the classes, therefore I should be in the classes. Some I did well in (English/Lit, History, and Biology); some I did not (Chemistry) and some I couldn't even attend (any of the math classes). Come to think of it, I may have been excused from a basic biology class. History was too topical and it was sort of a moot point when I became a history major. The same more or less in English (I was a double-major).

[Blackhawk]

Having completed the AP classes also can't help but bump their SAT scores which do matter.

[Jag]

I would recommend trying to reward hard work more than just good grades. I had an easy time getting As without trying very hard in high school, and it made me develop all sorts of bad work/study habits (or more accurately, led me to never develop good ones.) I did fine at the start of college when classes weren't all that much harder than high school coursework, but once I got into higher level college courses I did terribly. I didn't have the mental toolset to actually buckle down and work hard.

This is my biggest concern for son. He already has bad study habits and I don't even know what good ones look like.

[GreenGoo]

I would recommend trying to reward hard work more than just good grades. I had an easy time getting As without trying very hard in high school, and it made me develop all sorts of bad work/study habits (or more accurately, led me to never develop good ones.) I did fine at the start of college when classes weren't all that much harder than high school coursework, but once I got into higher level college courses I did terribly. I didn't have the mental toolset to actually buckle down and work hard.

This is my biggest concern for son. He already has bad study habits and I don't even know what good ones look like.

The same thing as good work habits.

[Jeff V]

When I was in high school, good study habits meant going to the library BEFORE getting drunk and stoned.

[Jag]

I would recommend trying to reward hard work more than just good grades. I had an easy time getting As without trying very hard in high school, and it made me develop all sorts of bad work/study habits (or more accurately, led me to never develop good ones.) I did fine at the start of college when classes weren't all that much harder than high school coursework, but once I got into higher level college courses I did terribly. I didn't have the mental toolset to actually buckle down and work hard.

This is my biggest concern for son. He already has bad study habits and I don't even know what good ones look like.

The same thing as good work habits.

I don't know what those are either.

When I was in high school, good study habits meant going to the library BEFORE getting drunk and stoned.

That was basically my college study habits.

[Jeff V]

When I was in high school, good study habits meant going to the library BEFORE getting drunk and stoned.

That was basically my college study habits.

See, I lost those habits in college. We'd sometimes get stoned DURING class!

[PLW]

The research says that by the time they get to middle school, kids are like iphones. You can't really make them, but you can break them. I'd focus on making sure that one of the handful of things that can ruin their lives don't happen:

1. Car accident
2. Drug addiction
3. Suicide
4. Pregnancy

Otherwise, a smart high-SES kid with good supportive parents is going to turn out OK.

If you want to invest beyond that, you should invest in helping the kid find something they are enthusiastic about. Kids that drift through high school getting mostly As with a few Bs are a dime a dozen. A student who has really become interested in something and done a lot of productive and unique stuff related to that thing is super attractive to schools. In college, you need to be self-motivated, and that usually comes from some intrinsic interest.

[El Guapo]

SES?

[PLW]

SES?

Sorry.. Socio-Economic Status. Basically, income, but adjusted for the fact that (for instance) grad students or people working at NGOs don't make much money, but they could if they wanted to.

[Jeff V]

Kids that drift through high school getting mostly As with a few Bs are a dime a dozen.

I don't know about them being particularly common, but it definitely doesn't bode well for future success. I remember a kid in high school that breezed through everything with just about straight As (once he got a B in a class the rest of us got As in, when he asked why, the teacher said he didn't like his attitude. On a field trip for that class, he passed out in the can on the commuter train and was discovered after the train was in the yard and kicked off. He showed up for the opera at the start of the 3rd act. We might have been doing beer bongs at his house that morning.) Anyway, his ability to coast ended at college, and after flunking out of two schools, he worked for a moving company for a few years before getting his shit together and finally finishing with a trivial degree from a forgettable school.

[Scuzz]

When I was in high school, good study habits meant going to the library BEFORE getting drunk and stoned.

That's how I did high school and college. Good study habits can be as simple as finding a way that works for you, even though it may not work for others. I worked nights (3-12) and used to write papers or do homework after work while relaxing from work.

[PLW]

Kids that drift through high school getting mostly As with a few Bs are a dime a dozen.

I don't know about them being particularly common, but it definitely doesn't bode well for future success.

In 2007, 33 percent of college-bound seniors had a cumulative average grade above 93 percent, with 10 percent having one above 97. GPAs have only been rising over time, so I bet it's even higher than that now. In 2007, about 2/3 of high school seniors immediately transitioned to college, so you can deflate those numbers or not, depending on what population you want to compare your kids to.

[Jeff V]

Ah, ok, I forgot how lame schools became in the Age of Litigation where a deserving grade might be a sueable offense.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

The University of Chicago will no longer require ACT or SAT scores from U.S. students, sending a jolt through elite institutions of higher education as it becomes the first top-10 research university to join the test-optional movement.

Numerous schools, including well-known liberal arts colleges, have dropped or pared back testing mandates in recent years to bolster recruiting in a crowded market. But the announcement Thursday by the university was a watershed, cracking what had been a solid and enduring wall of support for the primary admission tests among the two dozen most prestigious research universities.
...
U-Chicago is also expanding financial aid and scrapping in-person admission interviews, which had been optional. Instead, it will allow applicants to send in two-minute video pitches, in an effort to connect with a generation skilled at communicating via cellphone clips.
...
The National Center for Fair and Open Testing lists more than 175 colleges that have become test-optional since 2005.
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U-Chicago already has an ultralow admission rate (7 percent) and high test scores (three-quarters of last year’s freshmen who took the SAT scored at least 1480). Officials say their policy shift has nothing to do with rankings.

“It is about doing the RIGHT thing,” Nondorf wrote in an email. “Which is helping students and families of all backgrounds better understand and navigate this process and about bringing students with intellectual promise (no matter their background) to UChicago (and making sure they succeed here too!).”

[Matrix]

So my sister is about to go to college (yes, we have a giant gap in years), so i had seen some of the prep my father had to do.

From what i can tell, that need to get him on some team, get him some extra curricular activities, start some HS club (aka show leadership).
If there is latest tech , join something like blockchain club or VR or Ai, something of latest tech. Anything that would make him stand out in an unusual but positive light and catch an eye of college admin.

Thats all i got.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

The SAT and ACT essay tests began with fanfare in 2005, a bid to assess the writing chops of college-bound students under the pressure of a clock.

Now, many colleges say time’s up for those exams. With a few notable exceptions, the consensus in higher education is that the tests are becoming an afterthought even though hundreds of thousands of high school students still take them every year as one of the grinding rituals on the road to college.

One by one, major schools this year are dropping their requirements for prospective students to submit an essay score from the national testing services. Princeton and Stanford universities last week became the latest to end the mandate, following Dartmouth College and Harvard and Yale universities.

Those schools are dropping the requirement because they wanted to ensure that the extra cost of essay testing did not drive applicants away. Others have resisted requiring the essays because they doubted the exercise revealed much.
...
Fewer than 25 schools now require the essay scores, according to some tallies, including nine in the University of California system. Brown University, as of Friday, was the lone holdout in the Ivy League.
...
But Janet Rapelye, Princeton’s dean of admission , said she finds the scores helpful and sometimes reads the essay that yielded the score (colleges can view them) when she wants to know more about an applicant. “It’s actually a very good test,” she said. But the university dropped the requirement, she said, out of concern that testing costs or logistical issues would deter some students from applying.

Students are still welcome to send in essay scores, Rapelye said, but the university will now require applicants to send a graded sample of high school writing, preferably in English or history.
...
The College Board, which oversees the SAT, added a mandatory 25-minute writing assignment to the main test 13 years ago and raised the maximum total score to 2400. But that version flopped.

In a 2016 overhaul, the SAT’s top score reverted to 1600. The essay was retained, but the time for it was lengthened to 50 minutes. It was made optional and scored separately.
...
The ACT’s essay, optional from the start, is a 40-minute assignment scored separately from the other sections of the test. The prompt presents a complex issue, gives students three perspectives on it and asks them to develop their own take, with reference to one or more of the other viewpoints. The essay does not factor into the main ACT score of a maximum 36.