<p>I just got back from Barnes and Noble to pick up the AP summer reading books. Great, now I get to start nagging about reading AND find a place to put the material so it doesn’t get spread around the house. </p>
<p>I am setting aside my anxiety over Monday’s ACT results so I can worry about the 20 mile drive S2 will be taking tonight to attend a party. Kids go to a private Catholic school which means their friends are spread all over the place. This drive involves freeways and country roads. Thank goodness for the navigation system, but still…yikes!</p>
<p>Hey Greta, appreciate you caught the irony, relax mom is what my kids tell me all the time, not what I do. And for what it’s worth I took no offense whatever.</p>
<p>I do think AP scores are important for college admissions especially since in my kids school there are no grades. If these come in hIgh I will not worry so much about safeties for the college list,</p>
<p>Thanks for the validation, mayhew. And you have totally won my heart with your correct spelling of “barre” in that phrase. No one else does it right…or even seems to know the origin of the phrase. Brava (or bravo as the case may be)!</p>
<p>AP summer reading… This could be interesting. What is your student reading for AP Lit this year? My son is reading The Bible, well a large portion, designated by chapters (lets face it, Numbers would be pretty boring ).</p>
Greta, it’s the same reason anybody wants their (or their beloved child’s) results on ANY performance thing…we’re curious and hopeful about whether they did well.</p>
<p>When a kid does the high-jump, his parents don’t want to wait minutes, days or weeks to see how high he cleared.</p>
<p>Same with a tennis match, vocal competition, football game, you name it.</p>
<p>These tests are some of the few times in life when one (or one’s parents) has a protracted period during which to wonder/worry/ponder (uncomfortably for some of us), the age-old question: HOW’D I DO???</p>
<p>And to echo blueiguana, we’re just havin’ fun here, at least on this particular topic. Glad to have you join in. But it’s a pretty light-hearted and empathetic bunch. Welcome!</p>
<p>in the hs profile–
what exactly–are they comparing</p>
<p>For example–on this hs profile–it tells us </p>
<p>the # of APs taken, in what subjects, scores etc. According to the GC–that box is important and tells an AdCom the level of preparation–that a student isn’t just taking the AP curse and not passing the exam…</p>
<p>It shows deciles–and ranges of GPA and ranges of SAT /ACT score…
The HS doesn’t range–however I am guessing that AdComs can figure out where kiddo sits (approx) and still–wont know the out come since next yr kiddo takes 6 APs…</p>
<p>It tells where kids were accepted and where they are attending–
The one in front of me is 2009–and I know that the GC said that MANY kids opted for finances this yr and turned down higher/more selective schools for schools offering better financial packages elsewhere…</p>
<p>There s a block with subject tests–the top 5 choices kids take…</p>
<p>Sooo-- looking at the hs profile–
what should we be looking at and what is the AdCom looking for…</p>
<p>I wondered because for a pre-read–our student has provided full transcripts, ECs, test scores, etc etc and the coach also wanted a school profile…</p>
<p>got me thinking…</p>
<p>Any help??</p>
<p>Oh–on AP Lit reading
Frankenstein
Robinson Crusoe
Brave New World
The Loved One </p>
<p>Our student read Brave New World for fun at some point…so we now have 2 copies–as I bought them via Amazon and didn’t realize we had a copy…oh well</p>
<p>Incoming hs freshman has to read</p>
<p>Lord of the Flies
The Old Man and the Sea
Tales from Ovid
The Good Earth</p>
<p>Our school has backed off considerably on summer reading. It used to be much more. Incoming Freshman S3 only has to read Oedipus Rex. There is a bit of essay questions that go with it, but the reading assignment is lighter.</p>
<p>S1 read Frankenstein, Robinson Crusoe, & Brave New World for pre Sr reading, however he was not AP. Those may have been the AP choices and he read those instead of the others. He likes to read a lot. At 19 he reads more than anyone I know… besides me :).</p>
<p>I think for a homeschooler or a school with no grades, every comparable counts a lot, which is relaxmom’s situation, I think. But, I wonder if AP scores can hurt more than they can help for kids in conventional situations. If you get a 4 or 5, that’s expected but if you don’t, the almighty adcom says that your course is no good (you got an A but a bad AP score) and thus your grade or school is devalued. This is sort of like grading in lots of my son’s public HS classes. The tests weren’t that hard so that they didn’t separate out the kids who diligently plugged away and the kids who had really grasped and mastered the concepts, so a careless error could push you to a B. In general, HS grade appreciation and SAT score compression (from the recentering they did a few years ago) have made it very hard to distinguish kids at the top, which means that scores can hurt but not help.</p>
<p>2blue, good to know about the drop from 3 to 2 back a couple of pages of posts. ShawD will not apply to Princeton or Harvard so my knowledge was a couple of years old.</p>
<p>Kajon, we were quite proud but even more so impressed. ShawSon was relieved and very pleased when scores came in. He has great confidence in his underlying intelligence but his self-narrative is that of overcoming adversity and this was part of his internal drama.</p>
<p>Back to tests, ShawD returned from a trip Sunday night and has worked on ACTs every morning starting Monday, including today (Saturday). And, she’s planning to work tomorrow for half a day as well, taking a practice test of the Science part. Never would have happened a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Songbird’s AP (Eng Lit) summer reading list:</p>
<p>Frankenstein,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Jane Eyre. She’s excited! LOVES JE and the chance to re-read it, and has always wanted to read the other 2. We are fairly fanatical readers at our house, so there’s always a whole lot of summer reading going on, by choice.</p>
S took AP Lit last year and I don’t remember what he read, but know it wasn’t this, I don’t remember buying these books which are required reading this year.
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton Critical Edition) and Charlotte Bronte‟s Jane Eyre excerpt – Jean Rhys
Gilead – Marilynne Robinson Fathers and Sons (alternate title: Fathers and Children), by Ivan Turgenev – Katz or Garnet translation only</p>
<p>He does have to read this book for AP Eco
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
and some chapters in his textbook.</p>
<p>He loves to read and after a quick glance at the Undercover Economist I think he will enjoy it.</p>
<p>AP English summer Reading - A Farewell to Arms, Jude the Obscure, The Awakening, Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment. Only seniors can take AP English at our HS. Kids take a test on one of these books the first week of school and won’t know which book it is until the test is passed out. They do that for the honors English’s classes too starting in 9th grade so the kids are sure to read all the books.</p>
).</p>