<p>Our experience was that the GPA ultimately could hurt a student at some schools. At one, it didn’t hurt admission, but it did hurt merit $$ – they meant top 10% ranking whether you went to TJ/Stuy or a small HS with no AP exams. At two Ivies, there were enough kids who had the grades that it was GPA that had to be a winnowing factor. On the other hand, at the other schools where he was accepted, there is a culture of academic risk-taking and I think that Bs were OK with them. It probably said to them that he wasn’t afraid of the tough stuff and that Bs did not cause a meltdown.</p>
<p>Hello and thanks for all being here. I think this is going to be great for me to share and get feedback.
My son took the sat in Oct since our school was on strike and he had nothing else to do (video games don’t count) Figured if he did well it was one less thing to do since he is taking 4 ap this year. hooray he did pretty well (i hope) so we’re not re-taking. Iheard some schools don’t look at the writing portion at all and the others only look at it in passing. hope that is correct. he took the euro history subject matter test last spring after the ap exam. Take the subject matter test in june so they still remember the course. so its 4 aps and 2 subject matter this spring.
does anyone know if schools really want geographic diversity. an east coast school wants more kids from washington state
again thanks for this thread</p>
<p>Welcome Northwest Mom. I originally come from the Seattle/Tacoma area myself.</p>
<p>Geographic diversity is a component factor. Many of the college web sites will show the break down of the incoming freshman class, by state. So you or your S could look on the web sites for colleges of interest to see the admit rates from natives of the Great Northwet.</p>
<p>jackief - no, I don’t think D will be NMSF, but maybe commended (according to my friend, CountingDown 
). Her CR & W scores were not quite as outstanding as that 80 M score 
. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the SAT tomorrow.</p>
<p>I was glad to read that my hs is not the only one where they do not give great info regading sat II. Our hs said that the psat will be given back the beginning of jan but I read here that some people are getting them back now. what’s up with that</p>
<p>LIMom,
Clearly I spend far too much time tromping through these forums… Good luck surviving D’s SAT tomorrow!!</p>
<p>So way back on post 978, I mentioned that I was going to let my DD try freeway driving on our trip to LA… Well, yesterday was the trip and I am please to report that there is no bent sheet metal, no tickets and little or no heart damage on the parental unit. There were a couple of moments - but mostly a great teaching experience. She can change lanes now and has a sense of what it is to drive 70 MPH. (The speed limit in that area). </p>
<p>For what it is worth, she drove for about 90 minutes, from just north of Salinas to Paso Robles.</p>
<p>That’s great scualum. That’s probably a good stretch of freeway to practice on.</p>
<p>We’re driving to Tahoe during the winter break and I’ll have S2 do some of the freeway driving. He’s 16 but doesn’t have his 50 hours yet so doesn’t have his license. Kids here get very little experience driving in snow.</p>
<p>Snow??? Heck I don’t even know how to drive in snow!!! You are very brave :)</p>
<p>My DD is also 16 with a permit… Working her way up on the hours - although the real test is me - I don’t care how many hours she has, if she is not ready we will just keep practicing until she is.</p>
<p>A nice light topic, driving with unlicencensed drivers! :eek: I will say that D has done a lot on the highway including some stretches that go through a “big city” (very relative compared to where some of you live) with short on and off ramps and she has done well. She is not going to get up to her number of hours without this kind of driving, the rest is trips that are just too short. I am hoping to get most of the driving in before the weather turns bad. We did our first highway nightime driving last week, that went ok. The driver’s ed teacher took her to the mall parking lot on Black Friday! :eek: didn’t realize! I told D that if she survived that, she has got it made!!</p>
<p>H took her for the test this morning. Thought it was being given at HS A in the city, not HS B. When I told him it was B he said we wasn’t sure how to get there! He was also yelling at D for not being ready on time. I was asking him to please calm down. They got there fine, line of cars to follow into the school area. I told her the score would either be in the good column or it isn’t in any column. There is no bad scorce column. A not-good score just means she needs another good score some other time.</p>
<p>and welcome northwest mom!</p>
<p>As you have seen, the lack of SAT II info is widespread. You’d think for their own benefit, the CB would send info on these tests to their mailing lists of PSAT takers! Even catching kids taking that test in Jr year would reach some before they would otherwise have found out!</p>
<p>Our problem is that the science tests don’t correlate well to the the curriculum. I am struggling with this now with younger D who is not as humanities focused as Jr D1.</p>
<p>Don’t even want to think about dd driving in snow - but it’s going to happen sooner or later. I just don’t want to be in the car when it happens - I’d probably make her a nervous wreck.</p>
<p>D left to take her SAT about 40 minutes ago. She’s still not feeling 100%, but seems better than she has all week. While she didn’t take any practice tests, she did review the Direct Hits vocab books, so hopefully some of those words will appear.</p>
<p>I get the honor of picking D & her friend up from this test - and at the same time, 7th grade DS has to get ready for a fancy party and be ready for his ride. Must get better at coordinating my carpool schedule!</p>
<p>jackief - not sure if any of the science curriculums cover all the material on the SAT IIs. So frustrating.</p>
<p>Last night at the banquet, I was reminded why I like the water polo coach. It’s his 28th year. He coaches what’s the equivalent of a football team in a pool. With true sincerity, he spoke about how he is so proud that 26 of 30 of his athletes received the scholar athlete award for having a 3.0 GPA or higher, and many are higher. It’s not unusual to find the year’s val/sal was on the boys or girls water polo/swim team.</p>
<p>Good luck to all the SAT takers today. My DS will push through his take home linear algebra test this weekend.</p>
<p>S took Driver’s Ed last spring. There was a heavy snow storm on his first day in the car with the instructor, and his driving time was at 5:30am, so the plows hadn’t even been out yet! :eek:</p>
<p>Bengal, I’d be thankful the first experience was with the instructor. Just like parallel parking with real cars on either ends, D wants more practice, I am going to put the trash cans out on the curb :eek: (yay, got to use my eek again)</p>
<p>D thought her test went well. 2 of her classmates were taking the chem SAT2 a second time after not doing so well last June. Thanks for the consolation LIMOM, but it is hard to swallow sometimes when the tests have an impact and aren’t a true indication of the mastery of what their course covered.</p>
<p>Too true, jackief. D felt that way a bit on her chem sat II last year as well - but her score was fine, and I wouldn’t have let her retake that one if she had wanted to (she doesn’t ). </p>
<p>Glad your D thought her test went well today. Mine said she thought the math part was easy, but didn’t have much to say about the CR or W. Her friend that I drove home agreed with her about the math and said she wasn’t sure about the CR. She didn’t seem too worried about the writing. </p>
<p>BTW, smart thinking to use your trash cans to teach parallel parking - better than cars, just in case.</p>
<p>My D came back from her tournament last night at 11.30pm. I tried to convince her to go to sleep right away so she could be rested for the SAT this morning. But no, she said she was too wired up (from her tournament) to sleep. So she stayed up for about an hour reading stuff for the Math SAT2. She was up at 6.30 am this morning, feeling a bit tired. I was really worried. She had registered for 3 subject tests! I reminded her that you are allowed to leave after just one or two tests with no penalty, that it would be OK to just postpone (or retake) her tests until Jan, May, June or Oct. I worried all the time she was taking the test, but she emerged after 3+ hrs, and says she thinks she did fine in all three- Math2, English Lit, and Spanish. What a relief! Hopefully she catches up on sleep over the weekend!</p>
<p>good news vp. What was her tournament in? D had an event last night where the select choir performed at a museum for some sort of event. She and one other member had ski practice before the event, so the choir director forgot to get dinner for them. Most kids in the choir do not do a winter sport as they are doing the musical. So she didn’t eat dinner until around 10pm when she got home. I shoo-ed her off facebook and got her to bed at a fairly decent hour.</p>
<p>Winter semi-formal dance tonight. It is so fun having two girls, they are both doing their toenails now before their respective groups of friends come over, one of the rare times they are getting along. Of course tomorrow is homework and ACT prep day, no sleeping in.</p>
<p>Son took the SAT II USHistory this morning. When I asked how it went, he shrugged, took a bite of sandwich, and said, “OK.” Aren’t 16yo boys beautifully eloquent? 
Now we wait for Dec 23.</p>
<p>I’m thinking about advising him to drop one of his future subject tests. But, which one? French, World History, or Math (I or II, tbd). </p>
<p>Math would be January; the others in June. </p>
<p>Then I say to myself he should take them all to show breadth of knowledge. But no school wants 4! Ah, but he could pick his best 2 or 3 to send…2010’s have that option, right? </p>
<p>I’ll sleep on it for a while. </p>
<p>Driver’s road test on Monday. DH is taking him, not me. (Thank goodness.) Stay tuned.</p>