College Class vs. Girls State

Still struggling with what to advise DD to do. What would admissions look more favorably on: attendance at girls state or a college trig course over the summer?

(The college trig course will allow DD to take calc 1 and calc 2 her senior year. Otherwise she will take trig first semester senior year and college algebra/pre calc last semester senior year).

Did some checking and doing both (attending class and also attending girls state) is not an option as DD will miss too much class time due to accelerated pace of 8 week college class according to college professor.

Looking for some insight on what admissions would value more.

High level math is very important. Calc on transcript is very helpful and may help w math ACT/SAT. I would do that instead of GS.

Girls state adds to WCS directly. I would do that (it's what my DS did). Try to max ACT/SAT math. He was also able to take the extra math course as a mini-session. Explore online trig possibility but send her to GS.

DS USNA 2018 Appointee

That is a tough one. Girls State/Boys State adds to the Whole Candidate Score. For DS, Boys State really helped him to develop in his thinking about post high school. Could she not figure out a way to do both?

If she is nominated for Girls State and does not go she might regret it. That said, Math courses and ACT Math score is very important.

Tennessee Dad

Both are possible. DD took online math course offered by Northwestern. I would have her go to Girls's State.

both not possible

If it were an online course I might agree with you that both are possible. It is an 8 week college course that meets twice per week for 3 hours each class. She would miss the first 25% of the class time due to NASS and Girls State. She reached out to professor teaching class who said that success in the class is highly unlikely if she is gone for first two weeks. Because class is only 8 weeks long, they are going to move fast.

I understand this problem-DS had it last year. If it doesn't really move her class rank significantly you can get a similar result on the academic Q via test score. Trust me-find a solution so she can go to GS. It does matter. Look into other colleges-maybe she can enroll in northwestern's online class. Maybe State U has a mini term. Expand your search for a way to make it all happen. I would suggest GS would be better than NASS and then request a CVW.

Good luck.

jebdad said:

Still struggling with what to advise DD to do. What would admissions look more favorably on: attendance at girls state or a college trig course over the summer?

(The college trig course will allow DD to take calc 1 and calc 2 her senior year. Otherwise she will take trig first semester senior year and college algebra/pre calc last semester senior year).

Did some checking and doing both (attending class and also attending girls state) is not an option as DD will miss too much class time due to accelerated pace of 8 week college class according to college professor.

Looking for some insight on what admissions would value more.

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Why does she have to take a trig class at all before she takes Calc I? I took Calc I and Calc II at a local university my senior year of HS without having taken a Trig specific class (only had a bit of trig mixed in with my advanced math class) and got A's in both. Mind you, I ended up having to learn a bunch of trig and algebra that wasn't taught at my HS while in Calc I, but it wasn't that hard to learn. Calc I is a totally new subject so the class usually starts out reviewing concepts learned in HS and then later relating them to the new concepts. I don't see any real reason to take pre calc either before Calculus, a lot of people skip over that and go straight to Calc and do fine.

If she is a diligent student, she should be able to go to Girl's State this summer, and jump into Calc I and Calc II her senior year, unless it is a matter of the HS not allowing her to. In which case she could dual enroll during senior year and take the classes at her local university senior year. Calc in college doesn't have a class prereq, you just take a math placement test and it'll tell you the highest level of math class you are able to take. What I did was study with one of my HS Calculus teachers for it and learned the concepts needed to test into Calc I. She could spend the rest of her summer prepping after Girl's State if it's something she really wants to be able to do.

trig class is s pre req

She has to take the trig class at the local college because it is a prereq for the Calc 1 and 2 she will take next year as a senior. The Calc 1&2 class is a dual credit college class through the local community college.