[dorchadas]

This was basically my experience as well. I had to fight against our idiotic guidance counselor to do so. This lady told, and is still telling (she's still there and is the one I've complained about in my other posts) to take whatever class is easiest, there's no need to push yourself, etc. She also actively discourages AP for dual credit, which is beyond useless if you actually want to study a subject in university; she also told 17 year old me that taking out 250k in debt is worth it for my dream school...Like wtf! There were three things that saved me, and pushed me more in high school

(1) My mom was a teacher there, so she knew what classes were offered better than I did, and was able to help me plan stuff early on without the counselor.

(2) The curriculum director used to teach beside my mom and got hired the same year (and they retired the same year even), and had known me my entire life. She often just went over the counselor's head to make sure my schedule lined up like I needed it to

(3) I had an uncle who worked over at the central administration for the school. He got sent lots of information about summer camps, etc, and passed them on both to my mom and the curriculum director to advocate for them.

All three of them are, sadly, retired now (though my mom keeps coming out of retirement because they can't find biology teachers) and there's not many at the school who advocate for the kids in the same way. The old principal (left at the end of the 2021 school year) was horrible too. I've heard the new one is better, and is slowly trying to re-rigourise the curriculum, but he's fighting against a lot of lazy teachers and our guidance office. It's a mess, but I truly hope he succeeds. It's almost made me want to go back to help push for that and for academically gifted kids, so they actually realise what's available.