Choosing Classes In High School
What are "credits"?
When you're looking at credits, every class has a value. Usually, classes are set up as year courses. If each semester is five credits, a year course will be 10 credits.
How many credits do I need to graduate?
Every high school has a different set of credits that they require to graduate. The best thing to do is make an appointment with your counsellor, and your school counsellor will set up your courses when you enter the high school so that you will be successful at gaining all your credits by the time your graduation year approaches.
What's the secret to choosing the right classes?
The secret to choosing the right classes is again to prepare yourself for the highest level of education that you may personally wanna achieve. When you're deciding the classes you can also look at some of the stress and you can also sit down and look at some of the schools that you may wanna attend. But you want to gear your schedule to make sure that you have the minimum entrances and requirements met for the highest level of education that there is and then it gives you option later on in the future.
What are "honors classes"?
Honors classes are for students who want to take more of a rigorous schedule. The honors classes tend to be more self-paced. They are often more rigorous. The teachers sometimes require more of their students in honors classes, and a lot of times when students are taking honors classes, it's assumed that they are looking to continue on into higher education, and not stop their education at a high school diploma. So when a student takes honors classes, we assume that they're looking for a more self-paced environment - a rigorous class schedule that is assuming and projecting them onto higher education.
What are "AP classes"?
Honors classes are a little bit different from what we call "advanced placement" (AP) classes. Honors classes can be taken by any student on campus and there aren't any tests or requirements that are mandated that a student take at the completion. With AP classes, if a student elects to take then, and they want to use those courses to achieve college credits, they can take AP classes and then take a test at the end, and if they achieve a certain level or standard they can potentially move on into a higher level class at the college level. This again depends on the different standards for your district and what your school offers.
How do I enroll in honors or AP classes?
What is great about honors and AP classes is that during your ninth grade year or even if you are a very high achieving, highly motivated 7th & 8th grader you can go in and when you make an appointment with your counselor and they're setting up your transcript or your individual education plan for your 4 years of high school you can talk to your counselor about getting into honors courses. These are for students again who have shown academic achievement in the prior grades so it depends where you are, but you can start them as early as ninth grade if you show great academic potential and achievement in your 8th grade classes.
Can I take college classes while I'm a high school student?
When a student is in high school and they do what we call "concurrent enrolment," this allows them to take college classes as well as high school classes. You'd have to check with your high school counselor about concurrent enrollment to see if they offer it, but if they do allow it, you are able to take high school classes and college classes at the same time. This allows you to get high school credit, as well as your first or second year of college out of the way.
What should I do if I'm falling behind in class?
If you're falling behind in class, you should stop and immediately talk to your teacher. You want to ask them for any assignments you may have missed, meaning you have fallen behind. And you want to also talk to them about possibly redoing assignments to get a better grade. Your teacher is the first stop if you fall behind. After you have spoken to your teacher, you may want to talk to your High School counselor if you've completely failed a class, or you think you're going to fail a class, you perhaps want to start getting registered for summer school. Or take a zero period, do something after school, outside of your regular school day. But you want to talk to your student counselor and your teacher first if you're falling behind.
