No wonder my daughter is freaking out about high school. It’s not high school itself that’s got her worried. It’s how her choices in high school will impact her ability to go to college. They started early on this school year pounding it into her and her fellow eight-graders that everything they do from here on will determine where she can go to college and whether or not she’ll be able to afford it. In typical teen fashion she’s been taking this to mean “one slip-up and you’re through.”
But I didn’t really understand just how heavily this message is getting pounded into them until last night. I accompanied her to a meeting at the high school discussing options for advanced academics. When I was in high school they had a handful of honors courses you could take, and three or four AP subjects you could for college credit. Today her high school is offering around 40 AP-focused classes, and around a dozen classes that can be taken for both high school and college credit.
This was all prefaced by a presentation where they presented statistics about how much better AP students do in college than regular students (I wasn’t entirely impressed. Sure, AP students average a 3.3 GPA, as opposed to a 2.5 GPA for regular students, but if they care enough about their education to take AP classes they’d likely be focused, motivated students that would get a 3.3 GPA even if they skipped the AP classes.) I could feel my daughter’s blood-pressure rise as she took this all in. “Take AP classes or you’ll fail college!” was the message I think she heard.
The other message I heard was that AP and CE (Concurrent Education, ie. the classes for both college and high school credit) classes save you money. This is undoubtedly true. The ability to pass some college classes before even going to college will reduce your tuition, certainly. But there, too, they’re mostly succeeding in convincing my daughter that she needs to start working a part time job at age fourteen to get enough money for college. Yikes! While I commend her for her dedication, I’d hate to see her have no fun at all for the next four years just so she can go to college and no longer remember how to have fun.
If her experience is typical, it’s no wonder kids go to college and lose their minds, getting involved in all sorts of stupid things. The focus seems to be on “cloister yourself now to ensure college success later” while totally forgetting that once you get to college you still need to perform. Eight years of high-intensity schooling just for a bachelors during a time in their lives when kids are still figuring out who they are can’t be healthy. It’s bound to lead to high-intensity partying just to keep from going totally bonkers.
And, assuming they make it that far, they still face a high rate of unemployment upon graduation, while facing mounds of student loan debt. I think we’re about to create a new “lost generation”.
On the way home I had a talk with my daughter and tried to reassure her we’re not expecting her to work herself to the bone during high school, and that we’ll find a way to help her get through college. I would hate to see her have no fun, have no further chances to explore and discover herself, because she’s so stressed out about getting into college. Being a kid is tough enough. We don’t have to go out of our way to make it worse.
Some obscure comment about balance and moderation in all things.
This absolutely drives me nuts about high school now days. What they don’t tell you is that if you take a boatload of AP classes, when you get to college, you end up wasting a year or two because all your electives / generals are filled, but you can’t get into the upper division classes yet. Caitlin took a semester off, had a semester of flower arranging (one of the most expensive textbooks on the planet, thank you very much) and still is going to take 5 years. She had one year’s worth of AP classes on her transcript going in. Colleges will extract their pounds of flesh regardless. There are no shortcuts. In retrospect, I would tell my kids to forget AP classes, concurrent enrollment and just enjoy high school. Time will tell if Alec’s AP classes help or hurt him.
” Colleges will extract their pounds of flesh regardless. ” True statement.
A few AP classes, because you love the subject, I agree with. But as Dan said we have perhaps paid more for college due to Caitlin having to take filler classes.