Better to take electives like required art in 9th grade or later on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid took one easy required elective each year to balance his load. He took a very rigorous load in 9th, 10th and 11th, so that he would go in with a strong GPA (UW GPA 4, WGPA 4.7) and most rigorous curriculum when he applies to college after 11th grade.

He did not take electives like Health during summer because he built up on ECs, internships and more classes during the summer. He basically used the easy electives as a breather during the regular school day.

We were given this piece of advice by our public school counselor who sat and charted a course for us for the entire HS journey. And it was a really great roadmap.

I wanted to add -
A balance of APs were made possible with this strategy. At least one AP was covered from each of the core subject areas (English, FL, Math, Science and Social Science) and a few in the major they were interested in in college by end of 11th grade. None of the APs were self-study.
1 AP - 9th, 3 - 10th, 4 - 11th and 4 - 12th

So this is how a kid ends up w 12 APs by graduation. Just wow. Do the kids need this many APs?

Not PP but for some kids it's not an issue, they actually prefer it. They enjoy the higher level content and collaboration with other students that actually want to be in class learning as opposed to kids hammering on Snapchat and shooting spitballs...at least that was my kids take. Like PP outlined though you have to build, most schools will only let freshmen take 1 or 2 to get used to it, full throttle after that.