Reply to What’s it like at St. John’s in DC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am the poster above who said I thought the open house was terrific!  But one question for SJC parents -- I know the Scholars program is supposedly great -- and there was alot of talk about it at the open house -- but that is only for 50 kids per grade. I have a DS who is very bright, gets great grades, but he loves sports and definitely does not want to take all honors classes.  His pre-HSPT score is within the Scholars requirements, but he does not want to apply.

So long way to ask -- how is SJC for bright, motivated boys who want to have a more balanced high school experience?  [b]Can SJC be a great education for those outside of the Scholars program? [/b] Maybe he would take 3 honors classes?[/quote]

I think some of the pp mentioned some of the benefits of the scholars program include enrichment (field trips), merit scholarship, and having their own college counselor.  Apart from 9th honors religion, your child can take the same classes as the SJC scholars.

As you look as coursework, in the back of your mind don’t forget some colleges really favor the weighted GPA.  We knew going in that UMDCP was something like 3.8 unweighted/4.2 weighed average GPA for accepted students.  So while you don’t want your child to overdo things, you also don’t want to make the college application road harder than it has to be by not taking the honors classes and showing the rigor if your child could take those classes and do well.  SJC has some guardrails built in to help make sure kids are prepared and not overloading their schedule so I think you do see a lot of kids living that balanced high school experience.[/quote]

Yes, thank you for this perspective.  It is very helpful.  If my DS does not apply to the Scholars Program but is accepted to SJC, I need to make sure that he is taking rigorous classes so that he can hopefully have a great weighted GPA.  It is great to know that this can still be achieved even if a student is not in the Scholars Program.   [/quote]

Doesn’t matter if there’s a weighted GPA or not.  Most colleges recalibrate them.  [/quote]

Yep. How your HS weights grades is practically irrelevant to colleges.  Most every college admission office has their own weighting system.  They ignore certain kinds of classes or diminish their weight by a lot (e.g., required religion classes at Catholic HS are often adjusted by colleges to count for way less than the HS weighed them). PE grades are thrown out.  AP Calc or Physics is weighed more than AP Psychology.  I don’t know how they view AP Stats, but for the vast majority of college majors (and for life in general), Stats is more useful than AP Calc BC.  Rocket scientists and engineers may use Calc BC, but most social science and even hard  sciences use data science much, much more.[/quote]

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