Any reason not to wait until senior year to take health?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Plan was for my rising sophomore to take Health A this summer but with work commitments and the amount of summer work required for CAP it turned out not to be feasible. Don’t know what future summers hold.

Sounds like excuses. They have an afternoon and evening sessions online.

Kid gets home from work at 5 pm after working outside in the heat from 8 am. For CAP, Kid has 3 dense books to read, analyze and write about and is generally a slow worker. Maybe possible for your kid but not this one.

I had a slow kid. He didn’t work full time in high school, we prioritized academics. Was accepted at decent colleges, including W&M, McGill and UMD Honors.

[Anonymous]

A different perspective here -

My kid was a magnet STEM student and as a rising 9th grader he wanted to chart out his schedule for the 4 years of HS. The summer before HS, he met his school advisor who gave some great advice. Now, this was the assigned school advisor and not the magnet advisor. He gave advice from the perspective of college admissions. Here was his advice regarding "Health".

1) It is great to build in one easy class that is required for graduation each year along with hard classes. It could be Art or PE etc. It shows that the student can balance the work load and can be successful in college.

2) Colleges only see grades and courses of the student from 9th - 11th in the student application. Therefore, make sure that you have higher weighted and impressive subjects from 9th to 11th grade on your transcripts showing a clear upwards trajectory. Health does not add anything to your transcript and even if your public school makes it an "Honors" class, it gets discarded when the college recalculates your GPA. If you can take an interesting weighted impressive elective instead of Health, your GPA improves.

3) Should you be taking Health during the summer? The counselor advised that my son builds up his EC, scholastic and volunteering profile during the summers so that he can write about them in his college admission. That is a better use of the summer than wasting it on Health. The benefit of this was not only did the summer activities gave him something to write for his ec activities, but also, he accumulated enough service hours to apply early to many honors societies that also have a service component (must have x number of service hours accumulated during HS years, to apply in xyz Honors society).

4) Once you get into college, use a semester (or 2) to finish your health requirement in 12th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A different perspective here -

My kid was a magnet STEM student and as a rising 9th grader he wanted to chart out his schedule for the 4 years of HS. The summer before HS, he met his school advisor who gave some great advice. Now, this was the assigned school advisor and not the magnet advisor. He gave advice from the perspective of college admissions. Here was his advice regarding "Health".

1) It is great to build in one easy class that is required for graduation each year along with hard classes. It could be Art or PE etc. It shows that the student can balance the work load and can be successful in college.

2) Colleges only see grades and courses of the student from 9th - 11th in the student application. Therefore, make sure that you have higher weighted and impressive subjects from 9th to 11th grade on your transcripts showing a clear upwards trajectory. Health does not add anything to your transcript and even if your public school makes it an "Honors" class, it gets discarded when the college recalculates your GPA. If you can take an interesting weighted impressive elective instead of Health, your GPA improves.

3) Should you be taking Health during the summer? The counselor advised that my son builds up his EC, scholastic and volunteering profile during the summers so that he can write about them in his college admission. That is a better use of the summer than wasting it on Health. The benefit of this was not only did the summer activities gave him something to write for his ec activities, but also, he accumulated enough service hours to apply early to many honors societies that also have a service component (must have x number of service hours accumulated during HS years, to apply in xyz Honors society).

4) Once you get into college, use a semester (or 2) to finish your health requirement in 12th grade.

Counselor makes no sense. You can knock out health ed the summer before 9th and 10th. You can do an evening class and get it done with. Its far more important to have better classes than health ed. Most have their service hours fully before going into 9th so you really making no sense and getting bad advice and focus is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Plan was for my rising sophomore to take Health A this summer but with work commitments and the amount of summer work required for CAP it turned out not to be feasible. Don’t know what future summers hold.

Sounds like excuses. They have an afternoon and evening sessions online.

Kid gets home from work at 5 pm after working outside in the heat from 8 am. For CAP, Kid has 3 dense books to read, analyze and write about and is generally a slow worker. Maybe possible for your kid but not this one.

They can still take one health ed in the evenings.

[Anonymous]

Can one take only the first half over summer and then fill in with half PE 1st sem and then second half of health class for 2nd sem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can one take only the first half over summer and then fill in with half PE 1st sem and then second half of health class for 2nd sem?

Yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A different perspective here -

My kid was a magnet STEM student and as a rising 9th grader he wanted to chart out his schedule for the 4 years of HS. The summer before HS, he met his school advisor who gave some great advice. Now, this was the assigned school advisor and not the magnet advisor. He gave advice from the perspective of college admissions. Here was his advice regarding "Health".

1) It is great to build in one easy class that is required for graduation each year along with hard classes. It could be Art or PE etc. It shows that the student can balance the work load and can be successful in college.

2) Colleges only see grades and courses of the student from 9th - 11th in the student application. Therefore, make sure that you have higher weighted and impressive subjects from 9th to 11th grade on your transcripts showing a clear upwards trajectory. Health does not add anything to your transcript and even if your public school makes it an "Honors" class, it gets discarded when the college recalculates your GPA. If you can take an interesting weighted impressive elective instead of Health, your GPA improves.

3) Should you be taking Health during the summer? The counselor advised that my son builds up his EC, scholastic and volunteering profile during the summers so that he can write about them in his college admission. That is a better use of the summer than wasting it on Health. The benefit of this was not only did the summer activities gave him something to write for his ec activities, but also, he accumulated enough service hours to apply early to many honors societies that also have a service component (must have x number of service hours accumulated during HS years, to apply in xyz Honors society).

4) Once you get into college, use a semester (or 2) to finish your health requirement in 12th grade.

This advice makes no sense. These health classes are easy, last 3 weeks and can be taken in the evening. It's no issue to volunteer or work at the same time.

Also your naice view of college admissions is refreshing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A different perspective here -

….

2) Colleges only see grades and courses of the student from 9th - 11th in the student application. Therefore, make sure that you have higher weighted and impressive subjects from 9th to 11th grade on your transcripts showing a clear upwards trajectory. Health does not add anything to your transcript and even if your public school makes it an "Honors" class, it gets discarded when the college recalculates your GPA. If you can take an interesting weighted impressive elective instead of Health, your GPA improves. ….

This is incorrect. Colleges see 12th grade course selections for all applicants. They may or may not see grades from Q1 for ED1 and some EA, depending on both the school and the applicant. If you change courses, you must report it. For RD and typically ED2, and some EA, the colleges will see your first semester grades. They can also revoke after acceptance in extreme cases. Colleges want to see courses in 12th grade that exhibit increased rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most counselors won't allow this.

Why?

[Anonymous]

No reason other than the kids in the class will all be on the younger side. If it doesn’t bother your senior than absolutely I agree with you.

[Anonymous]

I think this sounds like a good idea. Kids often want a break senior year, but feel like they can't take it because colleges look for increased rigor. Since this is a requirement, they'd overlook it, and the kid would get one easy class.

[Anonymous]

Health B is offered the first time this summer. My rising senior took A as a rising sophomore and is taking B now. Such a drag but as he has a full day of volunteering but he says it needs no real thinking skills.

He just writes the mindless babble they require.

He would have participated in other activities if he didn’t need the Health class it’s too bad. Definitely get it out of the way as soon as you can if you take it during the summer.

[Anonymous]

My DD took it sophomore year. NBD. I didn’t want to commit her summers to a nuisance class.

[Anonymous]

Any kid take Health senior year and realized not a good plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a pretty insufferable class for most underclassmen and I think it would be even more tedious and insufferable for a senior to take. But it would be "easier" but that ease might be outweighed by the fact that your kid is near the finish line and might be tempted to skip class, blow off assignments or release their foot off the pedal and since this a graduation requirement, there's no room to recover in the senior year.

There no NEED to recover in senior year. College apps done. Kid isn't going to fail the whole class while passing the others.

I was screaming exactly this in my head