What's the point of honors?

[Anonymous]

The point of honors is looking good to get into college. And, perhaps, being somewhat less bored in school... although my kids who are in honors classes don't particularly regard this as a benefit.

Take as many as the student can handle (get B or above grades without cheating or destroying their health).

Colleges want to see students doing well in the most challenging courses offered at their school, so right away a good student who takes less than the top courses is putting themselves at a disadvantage for their future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point of honors is looking good to get into college. And, perhaps, being somewhat less bored in school... although my kids who are in honors classes don't particularly regard this as a benefit.

Take as many as the student can handle (get B or above grades without cheating or destroying their health).

Colleges want to see students doing well in the most challenging courses offered at their school, so right away a good student who takes less than the top courses is putting themselves at a disadvantage for their future.

+1000

I think many on here think it doesn't matter because their kids isn't taking the courses. They are in for a big surprise.

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of kids in my non-W HS take honors classes. I consider honors just college prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of kids in my non-W HS take honors classes. I consider honors just college prep.

Those aren't really honors classes...and the colleges know that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point of honors is looking good to get into college. And, perhaps, being somewhat less bored in school... although my kids who are in honors classes don't particularly regard this as a benefit.

Take as many as the student can handle (get B or above grades without cheating or destroying their health).

Colleges want to see students doing well in the most challenging courses offered at their school, so right away a good student who takes less than the top courses is putting themselves at a disadvantage for their future.

Actually parents thinking MCPS honors courses are the top classes that colleges are looking for are putting themselves at a delusional disadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of kids in my non-W HS take honors classes. I consider honors just college prep.

Those aren't really honors classes...and the colleges know that too.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The point of honors is looking good to get into college. And, perhaps, being somewhat less bored in school... although my kids who are in honors classes don't particularly regard this as a benefit.

Take as many as the student can handle (get B or above grades without cheating or destroying their health).

Colleges want to see students doing well in the most challenging courses offered at their school, so right away a good student who takes less than the top courses is putting themselves at a disadvantage for their future.

Actually parents thinking MCPS honors courses are the top classes that colleges are looking for are putting themselves at a delusional disadvantage.

I'm the poster you quoted, and during the course of helping my oldest DD with her college planning I have heard from several different universities' admissions officials that one of the things they look for is "a rigorous courseload" which they defined as a student taking challenging courses, although what that meant would vary based on individual high schools based on available course offerings at the school. For freshmen (and sophomores, in most subjects) honors courses are the highest level courses for which students are likely to be eligible. If an honors class is the highest level course offered in a given subject, how is it delusional to suggest that colleges would prefer applicants whose transcripts include more honors classes than general classes?

I'm not suggesting that MCPS honors courses are particularly good or challenging classes (some are, but I would argue that many are not and that in many cases 'honors' is a rather worthless designator), but regardless of the quality of the classes if they are what is generally expected I think there is a pragmatic value to taking them in most cases. Of course, if an AP class is an option -- both offered and a good match for the student -- then that would be the best choice, but if not it certainly makes sense to me to advise students to take as many honors courses as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm completely confused.

This is our first semester in the Montgomery County System. We have a 7th grader (Westland) and a 9th grader (BCC)

So... math the kids are tracked. Any my 9th grader is in AP GOV. The rest of their regular academic classes are all marked honors (except science for the 7th grader b/c I guess there isn't' any). However, all of their classes are mixed on level and honers. AND, there is no differentiation in the class. Even to the extreme where my 9th grader's English teacher (a class of mixed on level and honors students) told them if that if there schedule isn't marked honors they should ask to be switched into honors because then they will get the extra point for their GPAs.

Two questions. Are there classes that are actually honors only? Do I just need to ask for them to be placed elsewhere?

What is even the point of having an honors track? It seems terribly unfair that some students that are supposedly already ahead (as indicated by the honors designation) get a grade boost for the same work as other students. I feel like I must be missing something.

I don't need/want my kids to be in honors classes but I would like them to be challenged. And yes, we come from an equally strong (probably stronger) district, so my kids should be in the more difficult classes in this county.

I hate to say it, but in the W and BCC clusters, GPA is everything. We are in a non-W cluster where there's more of a division between on level and honors b/c the parents won't complain as much. There are general science courses in HS that are all marked honors. So it's a numbers game with the county.

The standards are the same, OP. English 9 - honors and OL - is built around the Common Core Standards, which are very rigorous and complex. Multiple objectives can be embedded into one CC Standard, for example.

The guides are rigorous, as the expectation is that students write and write and write while learning about expository/explanatory & narrative writing and the basic components of argument. Students in honors courses should be challenged with more complex texts, and that might include framing a text by having students research the historical context around it. So while an OL class would have the same assignment, students may end up researching more tertiary sources - like encyclopedia articles - while honors students would be introduced to primary documents, scholarly journals, and newspaper sources.

The end game is the PARCC ELA assessment, which is no joke.