Is It a Bad Idea to Take All Honors Classes Freshman Year? A Teacher’s Perspective
Last week, during fall parent-teacher conferences, I sat across from a mom picking at the frayed edge of her son’s course registration printout. He’d signed up for seven honors classes as a ninth grader, all at his own insistence, following a group of his best friends from middle school. Now, three months in, he was skipping lunch to finish homework, quitting the cross country team he’d loved since seventh grade, and snapping at his little sister over nothing. “We didn’t want to say no,” she told me, twisting her coffee lid between her fingers. “We thought we were pushing him to succeed. But is this just… bad?”
That question hit close to home. I’m an 11th grade English teacher, but a year ago, I was the one sitting across from my own daughter Lila’s freshman counselor, nodding as she talked about how all the top students were loading up on honors. Lila had been a straight A student in middle school, talked nonstop about wanting to study environmental science in college, and was dead set on taking every honors class offered. My husband and I hesitated, but we didn’t push back. We didn’t want her to think we didn’t believe she could do it.
The first month went fine. Lila came home chattering about her new teachers, stopped for iced coffee on the way to school every morning, and managed to make it to most of her after-school art club meetings. By mid-October, that all fell apart. I found her honors chemistry textbook crumpled behind the passenger seat of my car, half her notes spilling out. She started bailing on our weekly taco dinners with my mom, saying she didn’t have time. One Tuesday, I burned her toast while she was packing her bag, and she just burst into tears leaning against the fridge. It wasn’t about the toast. She told me she’d gotten three hours of sleep the night before finishing a history project, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched an episode of the silly baking show she used to binge on weekends. That night, we sat at the kitchen table for an hour, just listening.
What I’ve learned, both in my classroom and as a parent, is that taking all honors freshman year isn’t inherently bad—it’s just bad for most kids. I’ve had a handful of students over the years who thrive with that load: kids who get bored with the slower pace of regular classes, who love learning for its own sake, who don’t need 10 hours of sleep to function. One student I had a few years back took all eight honors as a freshman, still led his Boy Scout troop and competed on the debate team, and graduated top of his class four years later. It worked for him. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
For most 14-year-olds, freshman year is already a huge transition: new school, new friends, new routines, new social expectations. Piling on five, six, seven of the hardest possible classes on top of that is a recipe for burnout that can last through the rest of high school. The myth that colleges care about every single honors class you take in ninth grade is just that—a myth. Most admissions officers I’ve talked to care a lot more about how you do in harder classes later in high school, and that you challenge yourself at a level you can handle, than they do about a full load of honors your first year. A B in all honors freshman year that leaves you too tired to try harder as a junior won’t help you nearly as much as a mix of honors and regular that leaves you excited to keep pushing.
After that night with Lila, we didn’t force her to drop any classes, but we dusted off a loose agreement we’d made back when she registered: she could drop one class without any penalty to her transcript in the first six weeks, no questions asked. Lila picked to drop honors world history; it was the class she was just cramming dates for to get a B, and she didn’t care about the subject anyway. She switched to the regular section, which was smaller and moved slower. Within two weeks, her grades in her other five honors classes went up a full letter, on average. She started going back to art club, and even started bringing home sketchbooks to draw at the kitchen table while I graded essays after dinner.
The concrete steps I tell parents to try are simple, no big overhauls needed. Before the school year starts, if your kid wants to take all honors, agree on a trial period: four to six weeks, and then you check in together, not just on grades, but on what’s taking time and what’s sucking the joy out of the day. Ask specific questions, not “how’s school going?” Ask “Which assignment last week took you longer than an hour that you didn’t care about?” “When was the last time you did something just for fun that wasn’t homework?” If your kid can’t answer that second question, that’s a red flag. Second, agree to the “no shame drop” rule ahead of time. Let your kid know dropping an honors isn’t quitting, it’s making a good choice for themselves, and there’s no disappointment from you if they decide it’s too much.
Right now, Lila’s a sophomore, and she chose to take four honors this year, plus AP environmental science, which is what she cares about. She still has late nights, and she still complains about homework sometimes, but it doesn’t consume her whole life anymore. I still get that question every conference season, from parents scared their kid will fall behind if they don’t take every hard class offered. I don’t have a yes or no answer that fits every kid, but I know this: burning out at 14 doesn’t set anyone up for success later. It’s okay to test the waters, and it’s okay to pull back if the water’s too deep.
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