Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top tier schools want to see Rigor and activities. People who take multiple PE classes will still get into colleges, but not the outstanding ones AND certainly your kid will not be the one getting merit $$.

You could take PE or ceramics every year alongside your six very rigorous academic classes and be fine for a top college. That’s the beauty of having seven classes in MCPS.

I agree with this. I think top colleges are turned off by the competition to self-study every AP course along side a full academic load. Show that you have another side to your personality!

Might depend on the school and what your DCs college aspirations are. At DCs W school the kids aiming for top colleges not only didn't take "cake" classes, but a lot of them tried to take some of the required cake classes in the summer. DC usually did end up with 1 cake class a semester - the required PE, tech ed, music, etc. Also did some semesters tutoring in the special ed programs (which was not a career interest but ended up being a formative experience for DC). Also took 11-12 APs so not an overall easy schedule.

Anonymous wrote:Top tier schools want to see Rigor and activities. People who take multiple PE classes will still get into colleges, but not the outstanding ones AND certainly your kid will not be the one getting merit $$.

You could take PE or ceramics every year alongside your six very rigorous academic classes and be fine for a top college. That’s the beauty of having seven classes in MCPS.

Top tier schools want to see Rigor and activities. People who take multiple PE classes will still get into colleges, but not the outstanding ones AND certainly your kid will not be the one getting merit $$.

Anonymous wrote:If you your child has aspirations of attending a top 50 college, they have to show rigor. You demonstratrle rigor by taking hard courses, not cake courses. Although they do need an art class (photography or ceramics are the 2 popular ones at our HS), and a tech course (essentially woodworking). They are competing against thousands of other MoCo grads who will have rigorous classes.

Or you have to show something unique because those colleges will only accept so many students with identical transcripts and resumes. If you think getting into a top college is based on rigor alone you would be sadly mistaken.

My kid found his art and tech classes to be two of his hardest classes but he did have an elective or two senior year that weren’t demanding (plus health).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you your child has aspirations of attending a top 50 college, they have to show rigor. You demonstratrle rigor by taking hard courses, not cake courses. Although they do need an art class (photography or ceramics are the 2 popular ones at our HS), and a tech course (essentially woodworking). They are competing against thousands of other MoCo grads who will have rigorous classes.

Tech is not woodworking. It's computer science we or engineering for the Tech credit.

They actually don't study computer science for tech credit. It's more like basic computer skills. I wouldn't even classify it as IT work let alone CS.

This is not true. The intro comp sci lass might be not be advanced topics, but it does cover more than basic computer skills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you your child has aspirations of attending a top 50 college, they have to show rigor. You demonstratrle rigor by taking hard courses, not cake courses. Although they do need an art class (photography or ceramics are the 2 popular ones at our HS), and a tech course (essentially woodworking). They are competing against thousands of other MoCo grads who will have rigorous classes.

Tech is not woodworking. It's computer science we or engineering for the Tech credit.

They actually don't study computer science for tech credit. It's more like basic computer skills. I wouldn't even classify it as IT work let alone CS.

Anonymous wrote:If you your child has aspirations of attending a top 50 college, they have to show rigor. You demonstratrle rigor by taking hard courses, not cake courses. Although they do need an art class (photography or ceramics are the 2 popular ones at our HS), and a tech course (essentially woodworking). They are competing against thousands of other MoCo grads who will have rigorous classes.

Tech is not woodworking. It's computer science we or engineering for the Tech credit.

If you your child has aspirations of attending a top 50 college, they have to show rigor. You demonstratrle rigor by taking hard courses, not cake courses. Although they do need an art class (photography or ceramics are the 2 popular ones at our HS), and a tech course (essentially woodworking). They are competing against thousands of other MoCo grads who will have rigorous classes.

My son took a class that put out the morning announcements from. ra TV station. The basic requirement was showing up for first period every day. I forget the name but it sounded like something real on the trans ript.

Anonymous wrote:At the W school my kids attended, they didn’t offer the fun classes I remember taking like cooking, seeing, typing, or wood shop. AP Human Geography (AP Coloring) was considered a fluff class as was AP Psych.

*sewing

At the W school my kids attended, they didn’t offer the fun classes I remember taking like cooking, seeing, typing, or wood shop. AP Human Geography (AP Coloring) was considered a fluff class as was AP Psych.

I don't know if these are viewed as Cake classes by colleges but yearbook and school newspaper are HS electives now. In my day, they were after school extracurriculars. Now they appear to be study halls, hanging out time....with a bit of a mad rush of work before deadlines.

Do MCPS high school students take cake classes or is it strictly hard classes that will look good on transcripts. Back in the 80's, I took PE every year, and classes like typing, auto tech and highway safety.