Reply to Highschool Course Selection

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Highschool Course Selection"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The order doesn't matter BUT my kids have all said that AP Bio is a lot easier than AP Chem and that at our school, it's really hard to get an A in AP Chem.  (They worked in AP Bio but I don't think they were ever in danger of not getting an A.).

From a college admissions perspective, then, I'd prefer to complete AP Bio junior year (and get A on transcript).  Senior year, at most they'll report first semester grades and not the full year and for early admission, they wouldn't even report that.[/quote]

This is good intel. So it sounds like for most kids, AP Bio may be better junior year choice. But if your kid is a chemistry ace, it might be more of an admissions flex to ace AP Chem than Bio junior year. [/quote]
If you plan to take AP Chemistry, it is better to take it the year after Honors Chemistry when the basics are still fresh.[/quote]

Possibly, but my kids have found Honors Chem to be a joke (98% score and I never ever see studying).  I don't know that it's doing much to prepare them for AP Chem.[/quote]

Honors chem is a long slow version of a summer prep packet, plus intro to chem lab equipment, plus avoiding mathematical chemistry because students aren’t assumed to know algebra 2 yet. A large part of the brokenness of HS science curriculum is that it’s grade level aligned for students who take Algebra 1 in 9th, instead of being math level aligned. [/quote]

I have been pretty happy with my kids' experience with MCPS, but one of the things that kills me is how my HS-aged kid has wasted two years of science on "Honors" Bio and "Honors" Chemistry. I wish they would have just let motivated kids complete an abbreviated version over the summer, complete the pre-req and enroll in AP becuase "Honors" Science for 9th and 10th graders is an absolute joke. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics