<p>FAP, so he did back-to-back SATs? March and then May? I’ll be curious to see if there’s much of a change.</p>
<p>FYI, there’s a post where kids are talking about the USH test. As the kids say, if I’d have taken it, it would have been an epic fail.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-subject-tests-preparation/707421-sat-ii-u-s-history-official-discussion-may-2009-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-subject-tests-preparation/707421-sat-ii-u-s-history-official-discussion-may-2009-a.html</a></p>
<p>YDS:</p>
<p>Yes, it was back to back because the plan always had the June sitting set aside for the SAT II. They were busy tearing up the parking lot at the front of the HS and occasionally sounds drifted in. He said once it sounded like an owl, odd.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping for a bump up in the CR. He thinks the W will be better, after discussing the essay with his AP English teacher. The prompt today had to do with is it better to use logic or emotion with decision making, so he told a story about a dying cancer patient and made references to “Slaughter House Five.” He might have bumped up M as well, although with a 760 before there’s not much room to the roof.</p>
<p>There are so many discrepancies in answers on that SAT II: USH thread - I’m sure it’s making the kids very nervous. I was going to forward it to my D, but decided against it since I don’t want to maker her crazy.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if there is a variance in comments (and score) from the students who have taken the SAT II US History BEFORE or AFTER the AP exam on same, which is this coming Friday.</p>
<p>D is taking the AP exam Friday, but unfortunately she doesn’t say much about the tests.</p>
<p>Mathmom - I just questioned D about the US History exam and asked her if there were a lot of questions about Native Americans, and she said yes, a whole bunch of them at the beginning of the test. The reason I asked was you said your son had mentioned it, but after reading through that thread on CC, I only noticed one question on Native Americans that kept cropping up. She never liked studying the Native Americans for some reason, but she said she was ok with those questions - I was a little afraid she would have blocked out that information…lol.</p>
<p>Yes she reads the Fiske guide - and nearly daily comes up with another school to add to the list…</p>
<p>So, have you come up with a limit for how many schools she’ll be allowed to apply to this fall? I haven’t, though I know her current list is a little top heavy and will have to be balanced out a bit.</p>
<p>She drops them just as fast as she adds them… :)</p>
<p>I haven’t come up with a total number - I’ll probably simply set a $$ amount and let her decide how to use it. With DS he got a number of free applications so assuming they take the common app my attitude is why not. </p>
<p>We went through her list this afternoon and played reach match safety for the first time. </p>
<p>I think we need to better understand the rules - what is it if her grades are better than the 75% line but her test scores in the middle of the range (say at the 50% point). We called that a light reach - meaning harder than a match but easier than a true reach. Anyway, we ended up with 1 true reach, 6 light reaches, 4 matches and 3 safeties. At least there is some spread at this point in the search - and there is a long way to go.</p>
<p>Oh and there were 2 that don’t do the common data set so we were unable to rate them today. I am a huge fan of the CDS - and of the common app. I think every school should do both… in fact taking the common app is one of the fields on her spreadsheet list…</p>
<p>Two questions I need some help on:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do colleges look at weighted or unweighted gpa? What do they put down on their applications? For some schools, my kids weighted gpa is well within range but his unweighted is not. </p></li>
<li><p>S is considering, among other things, majoring in Religous Studies, Sociology, Chemistry, etc. He lovesNortheastern in terms of location and majors offered plus there is potential merit money especially concerning NMF. However, every thread I can find about NEU is written by/about business or a hard science. What gives? Is it just not a good choice for someone in the humanities/social sciences?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I omitted at least 5 on my January Math IIC and scored 760 (which I’m not retaking, despite the terrible percentile, because why tempt fate?). I’m pretty good at getting questions right, just not finishing the test or knowing how to even begin solving some tricky questions.</p>
<p>PMK - I considered Northeastern for a time due to the NMF merit money. Its humanities seem rather weak, though, and the unique term structure is geared toward pre-professional vs. liberal arts.</p>
<p>Wow, those kids have answered all but 9 of the questions from this a.m.</p>
<p>pugmad, it depends on the school. When H and S visited Univ. of MD, they were specifically told that the grades are taken as is from the high school. At the UDelaware info session, the admissions rep was a little cagey, saying that they do recalculate, but not saying exactly how. </p>
<p>For example, S’s high school adds a point for Honors and AP classes, so GPAs are calculated on a 5.0 scale. They do not include courses like Health, PE, etc. on the transcript, but some high schools do. So ‘re-calculating’ could mean that a college is using only the academic courses but still accepting the weighting, or that they’re unweighting everything. Each school has its own policy.</p>
<p>In any event, S is putting his weighted GPA on the application, since that’s what will appear on his transcript. If the college wants to re-calculate, they can, but he’s not doing it for them!</p>
<p>PMK - as the others are telling you, it really varies by college, and other than asking a rep from the school that question directly, I’m not sure how anyone knows for sure what the schools do. D’s GC said that for the most part, the most competitive schools only count core subjects to determine GPA which means they’ll delete things like PE, health, art, music, computer technology (aka keyboarding), and a variety of other electives. Some schools drop freshman year grades (which isn’t fair to those who took challenging courses that year and excelled at them, and gives a boost to those who got off to a late start) - I’ve heard Princeton is one of those schools, and I know it’s one your S is considering. As far as the weighted vs. un weighted go - I’m guessing that the schools have their own version of weighting grades, and that they take the unweighted grade and figure it out according to their own systems. Otherwise, they’d be comparing GPAs of 8.0 against GPAs of 5.0 against GPAs of 4.0, etc. And every high school seems to have a different weighting system, so I can understand why the colleges reconfigure everything.</p>
<p>^^ I know Stanford also disregards freshman year grades. So if you are apply early action to Stanford they will only be looking at two years of your high school transcript.</p>
<p>Maybe we should cross Princeton off the list. S’s freshman year grades are great, as are his junior year grades. It was his sophomore year that was terrible. </p>
<p>Let’s add that to the list of things making me feel like a fool in helping put together S’s list:
-Brandeis is unofficially changing it’s merit aid to merit + need aid.
-Northeastern is weak for humanities, plus student involvement in politics is low.</p>
<p>I’m also only admitting here that I’m starting to feel like a fool for insisting that S stay in his AP classes his sophomore year. If we’d had him switch, as we considered, his gpa would be stellar. But he wanted to stay in the AP classes and try, so we let him. </p>
<p>As positive as I stay on the outside, I’m not feeling great. Especially now that word of his ACT score is out and everyone from his teachers to his dentist to our neighbor wants him to apply to an Ivy or a simliar school that is A) an uber-uber reach or B) probably a great match but we cannot afford it.</p>
<p>As long as he eventually has a good list of solid matches and safeties (including financial ones) that he’s excited about, there’s no harm in applying to some uber-reaches. A place like Princeton may in fact be able to give you more money than other schools might.</p>
<p>PMK, that’s where I was six months ago. I didn’t understand the whole unweighted recalculated thing and so all of a sudden ds’s 92 in an AP class didn’t look as good as someone else’s 98 in the non-AP class. And I didn’t get how important rank was. I thought adcoms would see his great GPA and recognize him for the serious student he is – committed but not chasing every grade point.</p>
<p>But I’ve adopted a “would I really have changed anything attitdue?” Because 1) what choice do I have? But also, because 2) he’s gotten a great education, he’s a great kid and there’s just too much beyond our control. And what’s the point of living in a world of “what if”'? </p>
<p>What I’m also starting to realize is that after all this time/energy expended on the college search (by me, not him), he’ll probably end up at either his first choice reach or a good state flagsship. And these are the same colleges that were at the top of his list two years ago, before I’d ever heard of cc.</p>