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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What are their experiences like? I have one at one of these schools and she has been extremely busy with assignments and stuff. She was a self-driven, top student in high school with excellent academic records. She hasn't decided on her major yet. This semester she selected a course in philosophy, economics, environmental studies, and a seminar course. What she didn't expect is the amount of reading and writing required for each class.  She sleeps maybe 6 hours a night or less during the week. She studies on weekends. She reads while doing laundry. She made quite a few friends, likes many of her teachers, enjoys campus events and a campus job. Her grades are fine, but she has to work so very, very hard I have to watch out for burnout. What are your kids' experience like? Any thoughts or advice? Thanks. [/quote]

I think if you were to s private high school these SLAC are no big deal and actually easier. [/quote]

lol. According to previous posters it’s “toxic” to admit this. You have to pretend there’s zero difference in the workload between public and private schools, lest you be accused of being elitest scum, by people who [i]definitely[/i] don’t have a chip on their shoulders. [/quote]

All the top private school people I meet are…mediocre at best. College is full of Lakeside, Harvard Westlake, Choate, Philips Academy, yada yada. So many of them struggle more than those of us who went to Public magnet schools. Private elites are great if you want to slack your way into an elite school through school recognition, but,

I had the experience of being the near bottom middle of my high school class with 19 APs and a 3.8. Private school kids’ jaws drop when they hear about the workload at top magnet schools, because it’s not a paradise for your elite kids to stress about whether they’re going to take up lacrosse or  join an extra seminar- magnet schools are an abysmal grind and take real work to get through. Sure, I wasn’t reading 300 pages of Faulkner every night, but college is 12x easier than balancing 9 Ap classes and 2 jobs with school clubs. Overall, college challenges all of us, but it has nice enough amenities everywhere that it doesn’t feel like you do much at all.[/quote]

How and why do you take 19 AP classes?  Is this the Magnet school's approach (similar to Basis)?
[/quote]
Not trying to go into too many details, but yes a lot of magnet schools have very AP-rigorous courseloads, and mine happened to have students who did that many APs very often (nearly that many on average). None of my classes were actual AP classes however- many teachers with masters and PhDs in their subject, so it’s just a familiar course description for colleges to look at.[/quote]

Just trying to understand how you get there without taking the nonsense AP classes like Psych or Human Geography.

Assuming you can take AP Science starting Frosh…that’s 4, plus 2 English, plus language, plus I assume you just take AP BC and Stats, 5 History/Gov…that’s still only 14.

Maybe AP art and music?

[/quote]
We had a lot of those “nonsense” required classes, but they’re fine for freshman. Here’s how I did it:

Freshman: ApHug

Sophomore: French Lang, Spanish Lang, World History, CS-Applications

Junior: Physics 1/2, Calc Ab, Spanish Lit, Stats, APUSH, English Lang, Chem (never took the exam)

Senior: Bio, Calc BC, European History, Government, Macro/Micro (never took the exam for micro), Physics C:Mech/E&M, English Lit, Art History(didn’t take exam for this one)

The not taking exam part is just me being tired of taking many exams in a row or getting sick.[/quote]

But nonsense APs like HUG, Art History and CS Principles aren’t hard and I can’t imagine were required by your school.
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