COURSE SELECTION OVERVIEW

Counselor’s Role

School counselors act as a compass in your son’s scheduling process. They utilize a planning grid which will enable you to ‘see the system’ that is high school academics, and ensure he is simultaneously meeting graduation requirements and exploring passions. As you should expect at an Augustinian school, these meetings are done face-to-face with an ability for follow-up as needed. A counselor’s goal in the scheduling process is to help guide a student’s journey during their years in the Upper School.

Requirements & Courseload

All Malvern Prep students are expected to take a minimum of (6) courses per academic year. Doing so ensures students have not only met graduation requirements, but have placed themselves in a strong position from a transcript standpoint.

Prerequisites and Departmental Approval

You’ll note that certain courses have prerequisites. These exist for a variety of reasons, but in general, they are established to ensure that a student has acquired an appropriate level of proficiency before advancing in the topic of study. Specific information regarding prerequisites are listed with courses in this catalog.

Advanced Placement Courses

Advanced Placement (AP) courses serve as the capstone experience in many of our Academic Departments. As a result, they often come with very specific prerequisites and summer work demands. Students should expect a significant workload in and out of the classroom in all AP courses. AP courses require an in-house final exam to be taken before National AP Exams in May. AP Exams themselves are optional. The reward for this investment is the fact that AP courses signal a student’s desire to wrestle with the highest level coursework we currently offer in many Academic Departments and earns an additional GPA bump on their transcript.

EXCEPTIONS/ALTERNATIVES TO REQUIREMENTS: Students must work directly with counselors to outline possible exceptions/alternatives to stated requirements.