<p>Oh, yes. I’ve mapped it out, and I know we’ll have some long days. But we live far from the Northeast and are hoping to make this one week-long trip to the area, and hopefully see everything we want to check out. And we are used to long road trips, H. loves to drive. He grew up in NJ and went to college in Oregon! 
A few years ago DD and I did two road trips thru the area. One we landed in Burlington, drove across VT (SO pretty!) to Dartmouth (and left in a hurry. Haha), then worked our way down to Brown. Another we started in Philly and saw 4 states in one day before ending up in Boston. We had a blast!</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions of other schools to see in the area. I will definitely research those. The reason we are going all the way to Maine is because DD has a friend attending Bowdoin who absolutely loves it. DS, the 10th grader, loves to ski and might like to go to school in that part of the country. Although they don’t have snow as nice as ours in the Rockies. :)</p>
<p>warriorboy and cnp55 – We will also head south this summer to tour colleges. I’ll post more as I put it together. It’s more to help son define the type of college he wants so we are looking at a range. He wants to see Duke, thus the trip south. We are thinking Lafayette, Washington & Lee (?), Davidson, Wake Forest, Duke, University of Richmond, George Washington, Georgetown (?) & Haverford (?). Other possibilities include Johns Hopkins, American, Villanova, Elon, Lehigh & Gettysburg. He doesn’t really know what he wants yet, except that he doesn’t like the super large state universities.</p>
<p>Without SAT scores yet, I’m not sure what level school would be best to visit with sophomore D this summer. We will definitely hit Dartmouth, her #1 at this time, and they will have a good mass of students during the summer. I would also like to hit Bowdoin, although she “doesn’t want to go to school in Maine, it is too cold” even though it is probably not as cold as Dartmouth being on the coast. We drove through Colby on our way skiing last month (didn’t get out) and it just seemed too isolated. Might also try to get Holy Cross and Clark in one day. She wants psych currently. Think we will leave the more major trips until next summer after we have more standardized scores and the GPA is more or less set. Would like to take a mid-Atlantic trip and a midwest trip once we can more precisely target schools, there are some she is interested in but not sure enough yet. Will also know at that point if she would want to talk to crew coaches or not. Her other sport, nordic skiing, she is just not good enough to worry about other than club level.</p>
<p>Signed up for 1 SAT II the other day and she might add another if she can prep enough. She is the only soph at her school taking an AP test, she took a psych class last summer and so is going to take the exam. They had a meeting of all the kids doing ap tests yesterday to go over some logistics, she drew a lot of stares, why are you here, etc. Her friends think she is stupid and wasting her time. This is at a private school with lots of smart kids, just a very laid back college prep environment.</p>
<p>jackief - I’m having a similar dilemma about choosing which schools to visit without knowing D’s SAT scores. We don’t have a lot of free time, so I would like to put the time available to good use. I was hoping to visit a bunch of schools in Pennsylvania - there are so many schools in different ranges (academically, environmentally) in close proximity to one another, that I thought that might be a good start. </p>
<p>Which SAT II is your D taking? So far, D has taken the SAT II in Bio and this year she will take the one Chem. She’ll also be taking her first AP - in Euro, a fairly common practice for sophs in her high school.</p>
<p>Good luck to your D, and enjoy your first tours.</p>
<p>good luck to you also. She is definitely taking Latin as she has had A+'s through latin III and is the top student in her grade. She may take Chem. She is doing Honors Chem but our school doesn’t follow the SAT curriculum closely, so she is going to have to look over the material, do a practice, see how much she will need to study on her own, and then decide. Her friends who took Bio last year got high 500’s which I would rather skip it then get a score like that. Again, smart kids, but gaining entrance to top colleges is not the school’s focus, and therefore not the focus of the course syllabi.</p>
<p>She got I think a 187 on the PSAT with no prep, I didn’t want her to prep to see what her starting point was. That was better than I expected because when she took the SSAT in 6th grade for entrance to this private school she scored very mediocre, maybe it was 50-60 %tile. So I’m not expecting her to be a strong test taker so we may look at SAT optional schools also. Will think about whether to consider the ACT in the fall, she will study for PSAT over the summer, and probably the score she gets on that will determine if she tries SAT or ACT next.</p>
<p>"She is definitely taking Latin as she has had A+'s through latin III "</p>
<p>My daughter would be green with envy. Her school offers only one year of basic Latin and she hopes to major in classics. NOt great preparation for her.</p>
<p>zoosermom- They start all the 6th graders off in Latin and then they can switch to another language in 7th. A lot stay with Latin, it is almost as popular as Spanish. </p>
<p>They usually do the Vergil AP Latin in 11th grade and Lit in 12th, but when (thanks to cc! D went into class and announced to the teacher and the class how Lit is being dropped by the college board, the teacher is letting her and one other girl take Lit next year with the seniors and then Vergil after. Others in the class are not happy to not be getting the special treatment, but teacher says the pace of the 2nd class goes quicker since the kids are all used to AP by then.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter, even without a lot of Latin she can still come up to speed with the ancient history, archeology and other aspects of classics. </p>
<p>But to make her more jealous, I’ll copy in the description of one of the English electives, co-taught with the latin teacher-</p>
<p>Women in Antiquity
Despite limited rights, women were extremely prominent in the myths and literature of ancient Greece. This course will examine that disparity - the diminished political status of women vs. their immense cultural importance - and also consider what parallels exist in the modern world.</p>
<p>There is also an elective on the Illiad and The Aeneid, co-taught by the same two (Eng teacher is also a mythology nut) She may take these as a senior, they are only offered alternating years, if she has room in her schedule to double up with AP English (or doesn’t get in schedule-wise)</p>
<p>Wow, jackief, those are pretty amazing classes for a high school - lucky kids!</p>
<p>In D’s school, they recommend that the kids in honors bio take the SAT II on the theory that it is the easiest of the science SAT IIs. Unfortunately, the curriculum does not fully cover the material on the exam and many students hire tutors. D had not tutor, crammed for the exam the night before, and managed a 730. I was content with her score, but she is thinking of re-taking it after she takes AP Bio. </p>
<p>Supposedly, the honors chem class she takes is more in sync with the SAT II than AP Chem, and her teacher highly recommended that she take it this year. Since she is considering engineering as a major, the SAT II for chem or physics is required by most schools, so she figured she’d better give it a shot.</p>
<p>yes, this is the tradeoff we have. There are lots of great classes, the modern euro history class she has this year is wonderful and they are writing several research papers, but the school doesn’t kowtow to the college board and fit their curriculum into the baskets of the APs or SATs. Especially science, we have no AP science classes, but the classes are quite rigorous. The good part is she will not be penalized with only half a dozen APs, as that’s the most that would be possible at the school. We also know she is getting a far better education than the public school, so hope it all works out…</p>
<p>My son is in honors Bio and will probable take ap bio as a senior. Should he take the bio test this year? Is there only 1 date to take the test?</p>
<p>warriorboy, the last date for the tests this year is June 7 with a regular registration date of May 6. He could look over the material covered and decide. Check out this web page [SAT</a> Subject Test in Biology](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools)</p>
<p>warriorboy, I would ask the teacher or dept. chair if the honors bio course covers the material that is on the SAT II. At D’s school, although they do recommend that kids in the honors bio course take the exam, they do not cover all the material that is on the test. Many kids hired private tutors. D did not, and still scored in the 700s.</p>
<p>Hi there. I’d like to join in. </p>
<p>Doug’s in 10th grade and Betsy is in 8th. We’re (really I’m) in the early stages of sorting through the mail and developing a list of possible colleges. Doug’s barely interested. As proof, I offer one of his 9th grade haikus:</p>
<p>Why do they want me
To know my career choice now?
I’m only 14</p>
<p>Cheers, Kelley ;)</p>
<p>Welcome, Kelley! Your son sounds a lot like my 10th grade son. I’m the only one doing any scoping out of colleges. And if I give my S. info. in tiny 30-second snippets very occasionally, I’m ok. Anything more and his eyes glaze over and his mind has flown elsewhere! :)</p>
<p>Cute haiku!</p>
<p>Kelley–might I suggest you not use your kid’s real names online? As you post more and more info, someday, someone might be embarrassed. ;)</p>
<p>Bengalmom–the 30-second snippet is about right. Amazing how they remember stray remarks but ignore the long lectures!</p>
<p>OK. Good point. I won’t use their names. I’ll edit as soon as I figure out how. </p>
<p>(I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I use their names on some different forums. But, in those cases, threads about kitchen countertops and vacation plans hardly lead to matters of rejection or acceptance.)</p>
<p>Jackie, those classes are amazing. My daughter would be beside herself to take classes like that. None of our local colleges have anything similar, either. She’s thinking of going to Hunter next summer to give it a shot. I’m so impressed by your Latin curriculum. Is that a public school?</p>
<p>My D is freaking out this week. She has a performance (she’s a Drama Geek), guitar recital and her first AP test all of next week - in addition to regular school work. Things are not happy at my house. She is hysterical, screaming at her sister and father and crying at me. Of course, she is sure she is never getting into ANY 4 yr. college and will have to go to community college (if even they take her). I am just telling myself (and her) to breathe, breathe…</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom, just think, you have two more years of this – if she is a sophomore.</p>
<p>Yup, two more years (or more-she’s considering a gap year). Give me strength. I sure hope my younger one is easier.</p>