<p>mhc you are right. S knows the theme of his personal statement and will start actually writing the moment school ends. we are hoping elon keeps one of their questions about starting a business. S has already written that essay for a contest and would just have to tweak it. </p>
<p>I think your idea is great to start the file. just have to get through AP tests next week and then finals.</p>
<p>Welcome Sgaynes and congratulations on the Elon decision. Elon is very popular on this thread. (It’s probably responsible for the increase in Jewish students!)</p>
<p>MHC has a good suggestion about trying to get your kids to start thinking about essay ideas. However, if they’re not ready, I wouldn’t push too hard. Some kids work better under pressure, and you might want to save your nagging until later. If they do start writing now, make sure that their essays actually answer the exact essay prompt once they
begin their applications. They may need some tweaking later on.</p>
<p>I second MHC’s suggestion. I think the best thing my current senior did for himself was to get strong drafts of all of his essays (7 for 3 schools) done over the summer and into college counseling for review. It made September so much easier for him compared to his friends who were all stressing over their essays. He told me at the beginning of the summer that he would need me to nag him, and w/ his permission granted, that’s what I did.</p>
<p>Saw this topic being discussed on another thread and wanted to mention it here as well. Please tell your senior to let their high school know which college they will be attending in the fall. The appropriate person will vary from one hs to the next - might be someone in the main office - might be the registrar or GC - but just keep in mind to let this person know where to send the final transcript - this typically goes out in July. Some colleges have a form they will send you requesting the final transcript - just turn this in to the hs. But most send you nothing - but you will see in the acceptance letter that the acceptance is conditional on a satisfactory final transcript.</p>
<p>In the other thread - some parents mentioned that you did not need to do anything as the college would request the transcript from the hs. This is not accurate info. Some colleges may do this - but most do not - and how would you know if your college had done so or not? Be proactive and make the request.</p>
<p>sgaynes, congratulations on the decision! Elon is a great school and one of 3 that my D is deciding between…yes, I know it’s April 25! Tick tock my dear D, lol. Can’t wait til she makes a final decision–she’s having a tough time as all three offer really wonderful opportunities.</p>
<p>Thanks Rockville! I added it to my master to do list 
It’s like a wedding planning list now :)</p>
<p>ACT scores came back and once again so thankful for this thread. It is what it is. We will still do the next two sittings of the SAT and one more ACT. Not expecting much improvement. We will end up with a B+/A-, top 30%, Calculus, Physics boy from a competitive high school. 1 AP and 3 Honor level classes. His SAT as of now is 1240 CR/MATH and 27 ACT. </p>
<p>Not complaining. Proud and happy Mama but I feel like we are just on the line and will be biting nails until decisions are made. I really need to find some safeties. Big rah rah safeties! That ideally are under the 30,000 price tag :)</p>
<p>I wonder if its better to use ACT scores over SAT scores? Our naviance shows very little on the ACT graphs, but his score and his weighted GPA looks like an easier admit than the weighted GPA and SAT graphs on many of the potential schools he is looking at. Any viewpoints on this?</p>
<p>Collage1: Still no decision? I’d be really stressed. I can see that this is a hard decision for your daughter because she has three great, but really different choices. I hope she makes up her mind soon.</p>
<p>Cherryhill: I checked and a 27 ACT is equivlant to a 1220 SAT score, so both scores are pretty close. I guess you should wait until he retakes the test to decide. If the scores are still close, but the individual scores are higher in some areas on the SAT and others on the ACT, I’d spend the $$ and send both.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how far from home your son is interested in going. Some possible big rah-rah safeties on the east coast are WVU, UMass and South Carolina. If you’re willing to consider farther away, you can look at Indiana, Colorado, Arizona and Kansas. I think that JMU and UMDCP Freshman Connection would be a match.</p>
<p>Collage1, If I can help with your D’s decision, and let you know what tipped the scales for her, I would be glad to do so. You can email me directly or ask on this Forum. Good luck. My D is a different person now that she has decided. She already ordered two Elon t-shirts, and had them shipped overnight so that she could wear one to “college t-shirt” day on Thursday. Good luck!</p>
<p>collage1: yea, was thinking about you guys yesterday…I can sympathize; she has some tough choices…</p>
<p>sgaynes: your daughter is adorable…glad she is happy…we got the housing packet yesterday; this is VERY real…</p>
<p>I think it’s finally hitting my daughter that these are the last few weeks of HS: she is getting very emotional…and the more mail that comes from Elon the more emotional she gets…</p>
<p>Cherryhill, I think your son is in good shape for many schools. How far would he be willing to travel. My daughter’s school, UCF in Orlando would be a good safety for your son and the price tag is right. There are many NJ kids at UCF…it seems to be the most represented OOS. Florida State U in Tallahasee is also a big rah rah school with a public univ. price tag. It really is an excellent school and although it would not be a “safety”, I think that your son would get in there. My daughter was admitted to both with a 1140/1600 SAT and a 3.4 unweighted/3.7 weighted GPA (1 AP, few honors).</p>
<p>Here are the costs of attendance for both FSU (which is about 10% Jewish) and UCF (about 16% Jewish):</p>
<p>[fsu.edu</a> | Office of Financial Aid](<a href=“http://financialaid.fsu.edu/apply/cost_ungrad.html]fsu.edu”>http://financialaid.fsu.edu/apply/cost_ungrad.html)</p>
<p>[Student</a> Financial Assistance, UCF](<a href=“http://finaid.ucf.edu/applying/app_costs.html]Student”>http://finaid.ucf.edu/applying/app_costs.html)</p>
<p>cherryhill - congrats to your S on the ACT score. If this is his first time taking it, I think he can improve his score. If I remember correctly Rockvillemom’s S went from a 27 to a 30. D just took the ACT in April for the first time. She did one week of prep work (If you want to call it that…LOL) and scored a little higher than the SAT. She had private tutoring for the math part of the SAT and did raise her score on that. </p>
<p>So, I think all things being equal, I think the ACT seems to be a test that it is easier to improve on. You don’t need to learn strategies so you aren’t tricked like on the SAT, you just need to do practice tests to figure out the best way to complete the sections.</p>
<p>collage1 - I don’t recall - what are the other 2 schools in the running with Elon? I always find these decisions fascinating.</p>
<p>cherryhill - mdmom has it right - S2 went from a 27 to a 30 on the ACT. Most importantly - his reading went from a 24 to a 31 - which shocked me. I do agree that the ACT seems to be easier to improve upon. Some schools will mix and match between tests - so sending both can be wise. In other words - they would take the math SAT score and the reading ACT score if those were the best ones - kind of a super super scoring system. CofC does this - they discussed it when we were at the info session there last week.</p>
<p>S’s ACT 28 first time taking. 32 on reading which is more than he got on SAT, but math same drag as the SAT. english section also much higher than on SAT. i think he is good for admissions, but i really want him to get a better math score. S seems to think he will do better prepping the math on the SAT and liked the shorter sections. I still think the ACT was better laid out. AP test is on Monday, so i will give him a few weeks to decide what he will prep over the summer. at this point we don’t care how he scores on reading and writing; the scores are great, so he doesn’t have to prep anything else.</p>
<p>on another note, we got two letters after our visit at elon. one was handwritten from the admissions rep that led our session and the other from the provost. very impressive follow up.</p>
<p>sgaynes, my son bought two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, baseball cap and tees for me and my daughter! he better get accepted :)</p>
<p>University of Delaware will superscore across the SAT and ACT. Taking the best section of each. My question for the schools that do this, what happens to science?</p>
<p>Also, do you think that the colleges look at the ACT individual score sections or just the composite. Without science my D would have a 33, with science a 31. Big swing…gives you an idea what happened with science! She is going to really prep for the science section for the next go round. At this point, I think we will just submit the ACT since the Reading and English sections were higher and the math was about the same as the SAT.</p>
<p>mdmom: good question; It depends; if they convert the ACT scores to SAT scores (the way Elon does) they do not count the science but they do record the composite for college board purposes…</p>
<p>I have no idea what other schools do but from what I remember from my older daughter, the only top school that superscores the ACT is Wash U…</p>
<p>Whether they look at the individual score sections v composites is another very good question (and one that each school may have a different answer to)…we got a diff answer everywhere we went</p>
<p>Schools seem to really vary on their superscoring policies. Some will superscore the SAT but not the ACT others will only take the highest ACT composite score. With D1, I kept that info in the master spreadsheet, and I had to call admissions offices in some cases because the info wasn’t on the website. It also looks like schools change their policies over time–rodney, I know that WashU wasn’t alone in superscoring the ACT last year.</p>
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<p>My DD’s GC had us send schools both of her ACT score sets. At the first sitting, she did better in two sections; at the second sitting, the other two sections went up (the two she did better on the first time did not). Composite was the exact same both time (26).</p>
<p>I think JHU said they superscore (not sure if just SAT or both SAT and ACT). Then there are the schools that will superscore, but they want all the scores from each sitting. The example I heard from one info session - they don’t like to see that you only studied for math for one SAT sitting and blew off verbal. I guess there are kids that actually do that!</p>
<p>^^that’s why you really have to ask; a couple of the schools we visited last year said they could care less if a kid blew off a section they already had a good score on since they superscored…</p>
<p>Here’s the rundown for SAT.</p>
<p>SAT Score-Use Practices by Participating Institution
<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf</a></p>