<p>While I’m on the topic of AP Calc, I told D that she shouldn’t bother taking the AP exam. She wants to do pre-med and I’m pretty sure she will actually have to take college calculus in college - am I correct? What do you all think? She doesn’t think she would do very well on the AP test anyway.</p>
<p>OMG - I worked at American Express from 1979-1986 when I moved to Florida. I worked in Card, TRS, CFS, Corporate and the Int’l Bank - always in Acctg/Finance. I worked on Broad Street and then a few months in the World Financial Ctr. I was at NYU Stern from 1980-85 or so.</p>
<p>Holliesue - You are a baby. I graduated Albany in 1976.</p>
<p>Omom: I’m sorry for your daughter’s disapointment, but I agree that taking the class was more important than the grade. When my older daughter was applying, we checked at a few selective schools, and they all said that they expect to see AP courses in every major subject senior year.</p>
<p>I hate to see the pressure kids in the val race deal with senior year. My nephew was completely stressed about this right until graduation. He ended up just missing out, and was disapointed that he couldn’t make the speech, but it hasn’t had any other impact on his life. Congratulations to those of you whose kids are even in the running.</p>
<p>Omom: I agree about the AP exam. Your daughter is better off taking calc 1 in college, and then I believe she will also need to take calc 2 if she is premed. The second calc course seems to be a big weed-out course at many schools. It’s a tought course to start with.</p>
<p>A wild working day and I have come here in search of stress relief and find one of my favorite topics–class rank/valedictorian Our son is 3rd of 408 students. He has had three A- grades, all in non-honors, non-required classes–keyboarding (LOL), sociology and personal finance. (Oops that is required, by the state.) The second two grades dropped to A- when he missed one assignment in each while out of school for speech and debate. (His fault–he should have turned in the assignment a day late, but whatever. Neither teacher could move that 93 to a 94.)</p>
<p>The school weights Honors, AP and IB all the same, so one of the two girls tied for 1 & 2 may be valedictorian without taking a single AP or IB class. A committee of parents tried to get that changed but the school board won’t budge because the other two high schools don’t have AP and IB and it would give our students “special treatment.” So, no reward for taking the most rigorous classes.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the valedictorian does not speak at graduation. The class president does and that election was a joke, so the speach should be interesting. The Top 10 are called to the stage for special recognition and their individual pictures appear in the local paper. There is also a special luncheon, giving by a group of civic organizations, for the top 10 percent of all the HS classes. It’s a very nice tradition.</p>
<p>Personal note: thanks for your thoughts and prayers for my mom. She had a good follow-up at the plastic surgeon today. Grafts are healing really well.</p>
<p>Oregionianmom my D1 got a B+ in AP calc her Senior year. Since it was her first B she ever made in her life it was hard. It also knocked her out of the race for Val. I think she ended up #3 with nine AP courses. She was a little bummed but it now it never crosses her mind. She is a sophomore in college,</p>
<p>Our school only ranks deciles so all I know is ds is in the top 10% but that’s 43 kids. With weighting, I understand the top few kids are around 4.8 gpa. If your school doesn’t weight AP/honors, that doesn’t seem at all reasonable! If a kid is in A-level classes, I don’t think they’ve seen homework since 8th grade in our school (maybe exaggerating, but that is what I hear from other parents).
FIMath - I was in card (I managed the Be My Guest product) and the E/S for the rest. I miss having a title and an office but the commute to NJ was too much.</p>
<p>At our school there is NO weighting of any kind and it drives us crazy because many students without honors or IB are ranked above the IB students with a b on their record. Like another poster our school board won’t look at this because we are the only school with IB. For my S, though, the thought of a possible “c” is making him crazy. He has a b going into the calc final tomorrow, but the final is a true IB exam - not teacher created, and they have all heard it’s a bear. I will be SO happy when finals are over! and even happier after April when the news is all in and the angst can subside.</p>
<p>On the distance thing – I went to college across the country but I REALLY hope S doesn’t choose that route. He has a few choices multiple thousands of miles away, and every day I find myself hoping for a big $$ package to come through from somewhere closer to home! Of course that’s purely because I want to see him - he would do fine!</p>
<p>Hi everyone. Just quickly read through some of the recent posts. It’s so hard to catch up when i’ve been away for too long. My mom is being checked out for cognitive issues – she’s experienced a few memory loss moments – and so far, she’s done pretty well on the tests and the CTscan didn’t show anything to be concerned about. Thankfully, my brother has been a big help w/ all of this. He doesn’t have any children but does have a stressful job. Yet, he’s rearranged stuff to come through for the both of us.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the home front, S1 just finished his midterms last Fri and S2, my freshman, is in the midst of them this week. Have to say, I can sense the pressure is off of S1’s back. He’s still studying this week as he always has but the edge is off. Like some of your kids, he did really well in all his classes/midterm but for one – Advanced Physics. He got a B but no one in the class received more than a B+. (It’s the first B on his high school transcript.) I’m hoping that his GC notes that in the mid-year report that goes out to his colleges. I’m thinking that either he or I should email her w/ this request because that grade should have some context. He also heard back from one of his merit scholarships today and didn’t get it. He’s not too bummed because the school isn’t among his top few choices. Still, had the $ come through, it would have received more serious consideration and could easily have been bumped up.</p>
<p>As of now, one of his top choices is a two hour plane trip from home. I’ll miss him for sure. thankfully, there’s a plane shuttle from all of NYC’s airports, but it will add to our costs such that it’s unlikely that we’ll see him as much as we would if he were a 2 hr. car drive away.</p>
<p>I liked two ideas proposed by you guys: the t-shirt, which I think is a hoot; and a volunteer point-mom in proximity to our kids list. I volunteer to be a point mom in my neck of the woods – I live just north of NYC – could easily help anyone who’s in Southern CT, any NYC school or schools like SUNY-Purchase, Sarah Lawrence (15 mins. from my house!), Bard, Vassar, Wesleyan – all w/in an hour and half drive. If your kid ends up anywhere near me, just PM me.</p>
<p>My S is nowhere near the tippy top regarding class rank. How stressful it has to be for kids so close with rank depending on one grade in a very difficult class. Good luck to all those kids. </p>
<p>I live right outside of Boston and would be more than happy to step in to help any kid who ends up going to school in the Boston area. It is a great idea and we will have to get a list together once we all know where our kids will end up.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your thoughts on sending your S/D 3000 mi away…it was helpful. Fortunately/unfortunately the best program/fit/opportunity for what she wants to do is seems to be right here in Boston. I knew the moment she met the Dean of the program that there was an instant connection as well as an instant connection with the students. I wish it was at least 3-4 hours away but it is only 30 miles away. She feels that it is too close to home and I get that. I keep telling her if she chooses it that we will pretend she is far away and wait for her to contact us! I understand that she wants to spread her wings but at a minimum she is going to spend at least one semester abroad, possibly two and maybe an internship as well…oh well, we will just have to play it out and see what she decides.</p>
<p>I too would be happy to help any kid that ends up in the Boston area.</p>
<p>Finals week here and all the local scholarship stuff is due. Very stressful. D is fighting to maintain her GPA and is in the run for valedictorian. Thankfully, the school weights GPA. I cannot believe some districts don’t! Schools should be encouraging students to push themselves, not penalizing them for doing so.</p>
<p>I volunteer to be the Twin Cities mom!</p>
<p>Boston is close for us too but it’s another planet as far as S is concerned. He is a country boy who has grown up on three acres and hates cities. However, he is becoming more enamored of a school that is the very definition of urban. He hated it on the visit but I made him apply anyway for a few reasons and now it is in his top three.</p>
<p>He spun out driving into school yesterday-thankfully no damage to him, D or the vehicle. I think now he understands the danger of driving on snow and ice covered roads more than any talk could accomplish. </p>
<p>He isn’t in the running for V but he is for S and he so wants to make a speech. His school does both weighted and UW but awards rank by UW although reports both to the colleges. He has a higher unweighted rank by one spot because of band-I hope if he finishes second it’s in both categories since I think it should be done by weight as well-but as he tells me why should he be penalized for doing Band and getting his lowest grades in that-and the person next to him in rank is one of his best friends and she’s good with it too.</p>
<p>I think he told me after this semester they close the books for ranking for class placement. I don’t know why they can’t wait until at least the 3rd quarter though.</p>
<p>Another storm on the way-if school is out again tomorrow that will push midterms back but he so wants another snow day-if it was me I would want to get these exams over with.</p>
<p>momofboston - There is a Top 10 LAC (please don’t think that is why we like it!) 30 minutes from us and I was so hoping that S would not rule it out for that reason. Fortunately, he talked to enough kids that are from here and realized it was not a negative. He’s applying to schools all over and part of me would like for him to have the adventure of some place different, but I do not want him to discount a great fit because it is so close. He also knows that we rarely go near the school and I assured him we would not be dropping by ;). If your D likes the school and feels it is the best place, I’m sure she can find kids from around you to assure her that she can create some distance. I honesty feel I will see him about the same amount of time whether he is 30, 250, 600, or 2000 miles away; it is the travel time and $$ that will be different.</p>
<p>Today is the first day of the new semester. Whew!</p>
<p>Our school doesn’t rank, weight classes or count an A+ any differently than an A-. As of last year the V “race” was determined after first semester - didn’t even count second semester grades. One of last year’s V’s managed to earn two C’s second semester and still received V recognition at graduation. Needless to say the rules have been changed for the Class of 2011. V won’t be decided till end of 4th quarter and there will probably be several of them; at least there’s some accountability for February through May. Next year’s class will start having the minus/plus grades differentiated.</p>
<p>Those whose kids are in the running for top honors - best of luck. I know it means a lot. Having had a top kid 4 years ago, I’ll echo Tessa that it is a fleeting experience - important, but fleeting. </p>
<p>It’s funny being in Wisconsin but hearing about snow and ice everywhere else … of course last week we got 8 inches but it was just same-old, same-old. Japanese D is getting used to it, but she occasionally says, “It’s snowing AGAIN?” Yeah, for two more months, at least, kid!</p>
<p>D was nervous about the first day yesterday, but she had a ball. She started her Advanced Art class and has all kinds of wonderful plans for drawing and painting this semester (way better than Econ class! Although she actually really enjoyed that). Lots of exciting things going on. </p>
<p>She did very well last semester, but as I’ve said cannot numerically change her GPA more than a few hundredths, so some kids will have to have dropped for her rank to have gone up (she was at 25%). They don’t weight at all at our school, and definitely lots of kids take easier classes to get higher grades. She’s proud to have taken always the most rigorous option possible, and colleges will see that. They’ll just have to make their decisions.</p>
<p>When D1 was considering UW-Madison I felt bad because it is only 15 miles away, and H works across the street from their newest dorm. I promised I would try to stay out of her way as much as possible if she went there, but it would have been very difficult for us all to “pretend” she wasn’t right in town. If it had been 2 hours away she would have been much more enthusiastic, because it was in many ways a great school for her (she’s strongly considering it for grad school). D2 hasn’t considered it for a minute; way too familiar, not to her taste, and doesn’t have the programs she wants. Luckily we have lots of other instate options, including the reciprocity with MN.</p>
<p>So new columns for my spreadsheet: music education program? ease of changing majors? Today he wants to be a motivational speaker, or maybe a music teacher or a music conductor, but aerospace engineering sounds so cool (eg way to “impress the ladies”)…anyone else have a charismatic (if-not-flighty) young peter pan on their hands?</p>
<p>Forecast cut down from 9.5" to a mere 6" today. If tommorow’s a snow day, then Pres. weekend gets cut short.</p>
<p>Our school (and district) ranks by weighted. Fortunately the val has remained unchanged since 9th grade. She accelerated some classes in middle school and took college classes in the summer to maximize her APs and college credits. She also self-studied a few AP classes. No one can comes close to her. She deserves it 100%.</p>
<p>The number 2-6 spots have moved around over the years. I believe all the students have unweighted 4.0s. Their weighted GPAs change depending on the # of AP or college classes taken in a particular semester. The top 20 or so students in his school are not competitive with each other. They are actually a great group of friends. Only one of the student’s parents is “into” the the sal spot for their child. The rest know it really makes no difference (altho some scholarships might ride on it). Since the val and sal both make speeches at graduation, it is actually a disincentive for some.</p>
<p>Our school only gives out As, Bs, and Cs. No +s or -s. Much less pressure and MUCH easier to get a 4.0. Downside…if you have an 88%, you get a B. They don’t give out Ds or Fs. You get an I instead and they work with you until you understand and master the material. We have a 96% graduation rate in a Title 1 school.</p>
<p>emmybet - would love to hear impressions of UW Madison since it is unlikely that we will get to visit before decisions. I looked on youtube, found a bunch of videos but I think I might be getting a slightly unbalanced impression.</p>
<p>Our district not only weights grades, but our kids have number grades from 1st grade on. It can sort of bring out the worst in parents…back in the day, an A was an A. But with number grades, you find youself asking your 7 year old, “Why did you get a 98 last time and only a 95 this time?”</p>