Maintaining a handle on this year’s academic classes while simultaneously trying to plan for next year’s can be quite the challenge. As spring approaches, you and your teen will soon be faced with finalizing classes for next semester.
If your teen is struggling with honors classes, is it wise to enroll next year in AP?
If your teen is breezing through honors classes, should you push for AP next year?
If your teen is having a difficult time with classes this year, is it OK to request a repeat for next year?
The choices you’ll soon be asked to make and the decisions you come to, will have a lasting impact. UC requirements, family changes, health challenges, or reality, are but a few things you may need to consider. Whatever choices you make, do not make them in a vacuum. Talk with teachers, counselors, other family members, and especially your teen.
Along with short term benefits, take into account long term consequences. This is especially true for seniors who will be in college next semester. Making the wrong choice in class selection can add an extra year and thousands of dollars to that four-year-degree.
Whether for high school or first semester of college, consider selecting classes and extra curricular activities based on building not only a strong foundation of academics, but also on building a strong foundation beyond academics. There’s more to a teenager’s life than academics. Art, music, sports, hands on activities, competitions, traveling, and you fill in the blank – all add balance to the life of a high school student. The important element is balance.
What do you think? Post a comment and add to the conversation. If you had it to do over again, how would you balance academic rigor with extra curricular activities? Would you change anything? What worked for you?
Its not a guaranteed acceptance, but the UC schools do have to accept 80% of their transfer students from California community colleges which is really helpful.
It is so frustrating to see kids work their tails off and then not have a clear track to a degree because too much money is going to top tier staff in the UC system. Here is a link to an article by the teachers union. http://www.cft.org/universities/394-uc-budget-qa.html "Possible Salary Reductions" "Q: Is it true that we are going to have our salaries reduced? A: It is very possible that the UC may decide to cut all salaries 5% or use a furlough system to accomplish the same thing. However, in the case of lecturers and librarians, the university has to negotiate any salary reduction. Q: If the UC is broke, why would the union resist a 5% salary reduction? A: We do not think the university is broke, and we want them to prove to us that they need to make these cuts. Q: Why do you think they are not broke? A: The university brings in billions of dollars every year in profits from medical services, extension programs, parking, housing, research, patents, and fund raising. They are just trying to maintain a high level of disposable income, while they claim they are poor. (see http://universityprobe.org/2009/04/budget-lies-a-letter-to-the-president-of-uc/)" I don't know who is telling the truth and who is lying I just know that kids that are a hairs breath away from a degree can no longer get classes in impacted schools. I thought the JC path was a way to insure success but it looks like that is broken too.
"The top UC coaches earn, on average, three times more than the system’s full-time Nobel laureates. The top eight coaches earned an average of $1.2 million in 2010, while UC’s eight full-time laureates earned an average of $403,000." http://www.dickmeister.com/id117.html "Hard times continue at the University of California - except, of course, for UC's very well cared for administrators. Their six-figure salaries continue to grow handsomely while the pay of those who teach and do most of the university's other work remains stagnant, and even as student tuition and fees increase and qualified students are being turned away." I am not sure when government jobs began earning at the same level as private industry jobs. The difference in pay use to be justified by the better retirement and benefit package. Now it seems they get a private industry salary and all the other perks that go with a tax payer subsidized job. At the very bottom of the pyramid are the students. If we can't cut back salaries to increase classes and give students what they need then our system is failing.