<p>Hi Everyone and Happy New Year,
I’ve been trying hard to catch up with my favorite threads…</p>
<p>Sounds like everyone is getting ready for the second half of junior year! I know my D is anxious and very busy with ecs and homework. I’ve been trying to act nonchalant so as not to add to her anxiety (I do tend to do that…) My challenge is quite the opposite of some of yours. D has pretty much decided on a school. She has been unofficially offered an athletic scholarship and fell in love with the school when we took her to visit. It is not as selective as the other schools she had on her list (not considering sports) but has everything she’s looking for. DH and I don’t want her to stop looking/trying for other schools as she has great stats for most of her choices. The task now will be to keep her studying for APs and SAT/ACT.</p>
<p>This afternoon, she told me that she was 1 of 5 chosen to interview for a leadership program over the summer. I think this a great opportunity but it is on the same week as three of her out of town tournaments. I guess I’ll worry about this when/if she gets in. </p>
<p>Apollo6, I’m so excited for your D. I lived abroad and traveled a lot as a child/adult and I cherished the experience. If my kids told me they wanted to study abroad, so I’d be elated!</p>
<p>Apollo6… our kids could be twins… I have to laugh when I think of my S at 4 researching summer sleep away camps and finding out he had to be 5 to go anywhere… he found a place he could go to a 5 and off he went for 3 WEEKS… never looking back. He is always searching for the next big adventure. He went to Australia and New Zealand at 12 with a group. He is now off to The Mountain School for a semester… he asked me today about going to ALASKA!!! He’s crazy… but I admire his independence to do stuff like this… his plan for now is to take a gap year and hike the appalachian trail and backpack across Europe… BY HIMSELF!!! Oh ya… he also wants to climb some mountain in Nepal… LOL!!</p>
<p>Such exciting adventures that your children are considering. My older D was the child who had no difficulty heading off to summer camp at 7. She wanted to and has gone far away from home to college. </p>
<p>S has been more of a homebody. We’re always nudging him into experiences to expand his independence. </p>
<p>On another note, S finally got his PSAT scores and he will definitely be in the NMSF range. We’re very excited for him. He’ll take the SAT in a couple of weeks and the ACT in February. Hopefully he can be done at that point. We need to start thinking more about what he wants in a college or U. He’s done a few college visits and we hope to do more over spring break. His needs are fairly different than his sister’s, so I think we’re starting over with a new search except for a few overlaps. </p>
<p>I’m carefully noting your college visits for ideas. I’m looking forward to the searching part of the process. The application part was somewhat difficult with D and I’m hoping S will be more amenable to getting his applications out earlier.</p>
<p>In the same boat as northernwoods (sounds like a mixed metaphor). Got PSAT score yesterday and D12 is within range of NM, but no sure thing. SAT in a few weeks, then the ACT. It would be great to get all the testing over with, once and for all.</p>
<p>Also thinking about a college trip to NY and Boston over spring break.</p>
<p>Poor D has had such a tough week. The AP USH final started yesterday, continues today…the teachers held a review session (5 hours on their own time–they are great teachers). Some kid took materials from the room, teachers gave them a chance to turn them in, didn’t happen. So they rewrote the test. D has been in complete stress mode–sure she would fail, there goes the A she’s had all semester. They did get their essay grades last night (she got the top grade in the class–a B), and that does help, but WOW it’s been stressful. I understand the teachers position, but my poor D has done nothing but study and stress. The AP Bio teacher kindly moved her test to Monday, I don’t know how D would have handled both under these circumstances…thanks for reading this pity party. I am so glad it’s Friday!</p>
<p>I love hearing about all these adventurous kids! Bravo! D is so different, and also, to me, so impressive, off on her own to audition and then at the theater hours and hours for rehearsal etc. without letting the schoolwork suffer. Human adventure yes, but she doesn’t even want to go 2 hours away for college! It’s fun to see such different kinds of kids on this thread. </p>
<p>Mom2M that’s a horrible story. But it sounds like your D is doing wonderfully and the teacher knows it, and will factor it into the grade somehow. I am never going to understand all the cheating that goes on in high school–do these kids grow up to be trustworthy adults?</p>
<p>I hate those stressful stretches for our kids. Hopefully M2M’s daughter will have a calmer time once her AP Bio test is finished. </p>
<p>It sounds like we may have a number of us doing college visits on the east coast over spring break. We’re thinking about looking around the Boston area. We’re trying to figure out how much time S can be away and whether it is worth the cost of travel.</p>
<p>Mom2M - sorry your daughter had a stressful week! Here’s hoping the teacher wrote a comparable test to the one they had to trash. pbltttt to the kids who stole the review materials.</p>
<p>I will be asking more questions about the Mountain School as the semester goes on - i looked at it and it really sounds like something my youngest would love, but he’s only in 8th grade now. </p>
<p>Northernwoods - we may be heading to Boston too! </p>
<p>pinkumbrella10 - nice screen name! Can you give us more details about what your son or daughter might be looking for? Maybe someone will have some ideas for you.</p>
<p>AP USH test is over…a lot harder than prior tests, but D did fine, maintained her very high A. Sooo much less stress around here today. Thanks, everyone for the comments, it helped!</p>
<p>Belated happy new year. I just skimmed through 10 pages of new posts since I visited last. Quite a few new parents —welcome! Seems like Sat-2 strategies and midterms are on many a teen’s plate at the moment. </p>
<p>Just when I thought I had a handle on college search criteria my D through me for a loop yesterday --she asked me to check whether the colleges she’s interested in prefer AB or BC Calc (seems the high school needs an early head count to figure out how many sections to offer of each next year). What an eye opening experience it was to look at variability in Colleges’ AP credit policies on the web!!</p>
<p>-Some top colleges do not recognize AP credits (using scores for placement purposes only). </p>
<ul>
<li>Most have a limit or a residency requirement (accepting the equivalent of one semester of courses).</li>
</ul>
<p>-some colleges did not publish info, stating that any AP credit awards woud be made by indiv. departments or programs.</p>
<p>-Most publics and a few privates (like McGill which is on her list) take nearly everything with a score of 4+ – up to a full year of college. D said McGill just reached the top of her list because she could quite possibly graduate from college in 3 years. I had not seriously considered this possibility --it seems to have financial pluses and quality minuses.</p>
<p>Do your kids expect that AP classes will count for college credit or simply help them get into higher-level classes sooner? College in three years…crazy, no?</p>
<p>Then about the calc ab/bc question…I have no idea how to advise her on that choice! She will be a chemistry major -very likely. What are some considerations?</p>
<p>Calc AB is the equivalent of a 1 semester college course (actually, probably just a tad more), spread over a high school year.</p>
<p>Calc BC is the equivalent of a 2 semester college course spread over a high school year.</p>
<p>At our local high school, all the best math students take Calc BC (2-3 sections a year), with only a few people (1 section a year) who are less confident taking Calc AB.</p>
<p>From the Calc BC AP test, she will get an AB subscore, which most schools will recognize as the same as an AP Calc AB exam score. </p>
<p>I’d say go for it.</p>
<p>We’re open to placement or credit for college-level work done in high school. My daughter’s young, so I’d prefer that she not graduate a year early, which can be hard anyway for engineering majors because of the sequences of classes needed. If she gets credit she can use the time to minor in something or just enjoy taking things she wouldn’t normally get to take OR spend a semester abroad. If she gets placement, then she will get to take more interesting upper level classes.</p>
<p>I know some people suggest that engineering majors shouldn’t place out of intro math and science courses, but she will be several years past the intro courses by the time she starts college…</p>
<p>D1 took BC and got credit for AB, but she is a math major. D1´s AP credits gave her more flexibility to do double majors and to do study abroad. I do not believe in doing college in three years, there is no reason to rush. </p>
<p>There have been many threads about kids getting AP credits, move on to higher level courses, and not doing well. I think for science/engineering students, it´s not beneficial to use high school AP credits to move on to higher level courses freshman year.</p>
<p>D2 had all of her finals before the winter break. It was stressful right before the break, but she had a nice long 2 weeks off. We are slowly getting her finals back now. She did well in most of her classes, except for Spanish where she got a B+ on her final (but still got a high A for the semester). I asked her what was up with that. She said, “Hey, hey…it´s still the highest grade in the class, before you mock me.”</p>
<p>She is finished with her essays, ready to be sent on Mon, if her school could get her transcript ready. We will keep our fingers crossed. If she is fortunate to make it to the next round, wé´ll need to fly her back to be interviewed in Mar. She also has her ballet recital in Mar, I hope there won´t a conflict. I guess it would be a high class problem.</p>
<p>Junior year is a tough year. All I could say is it´s half over.</p>
<p>We visited friends in Boston over New Year. It was the first time my So.CA kids had experienced New England winter. We seriously lucked out – arrived just after the big storm and then had 4 days of bright blue skies, perfect for playing in the snow.<br>
Highlights:
finding 17th-century gravestones of people in D’s APUSH textbook
First Night parade and fireworks
huge snowball fight on Bunker’s Hill</p>
<p>I suspect that there will be some East Coast schools on D’s list.</p>
<p>We didn’t do any college visits while we were there because everything was shut down for the holidays. But an old classmate of my husband’s who is a professor at MIT gave us a tour of the Infinite Corridor – fun! D was impressed, but I don’t know if MIT (or any hard-core technical program) is really a good match for her. She will probably end up in a STEM field, but also enjoys her humanities.</p>
<p>D’s school distributed PSATs just before school break. D did well enough for NMSF, as did about a dozen of her classmates. She was signed up to take SAT in Dec, but decided to defer to June. She feels that, with all the schoolwork, there isn’t time to prep until after the APs. She has a good track record of one-and-done with standardized testing (e.g., SAT IIs as a sophomore), so I’m cautiously optimistic. She is one of those kids for whom a few extra months of maturity won’t hurt, either.</p>
<p>This is the home-stretch for 1st semester, with projects being assigned fast-and-furious and finals the last week of January.</p>
<p>What fun! Glad your California girl enjoyed the snow. I was grateful for all the snow we had here during my kids’ first week off. It kept my younger kids busy until Christmas - then we headed for Florida and got unseasonably cold temperatures - boo! Enjoyed Universal anyway. D’12 and S’14 had to try the butter beer. They said it tasted like cream soda. I didn’t try it because I’m not a cream soda fan.</p>
<p>Hello, all. Back from New Years. First good news is that D has FINALLY caught up from her pneumonia last term and now has no incompletes! Yeah! She managed all A’s after all that…
She got her PSAT as well. She is many points over last years California cut-off, so I think she made the NMSQT. But, like I said before, I don’t think PSAT scores necessarily correspond to SAT scores. D did better on the PSAT than she did on the SAT, by what would be about 60 points.<br>
We are gearing up for softball season now. I’m SOOOOO glad she can drive herself now. I don’t have to pick her up late after practice, drive her to the batting cages. What a relief.
We are going to see Northwestern and Univ. of Chicago in April.</p>
<p>Great that everybody’s kids are doing well. My D had a first week of school after the break. New adjustment all over again, thankfully in a smaller scale. </p>
<p>chrissyblu, Congrats on your D’s accomplishment and catching up all. My D got a B+ in Latin, Catullus. Otherwise good for a tough load. Scheduling the first meeting with her school GC soon. Suddenly, it feels real.</p>
<p>chrissyblu - check the dates for the admitted students program at Northwestern in April. When we took my daughter there (after USC and UCLA) as a junior it was great that we accidentally wound up visiting at that time. It was the most in-depth and informative info session we had. If you can arrange to be there then it would be beneficial I think.</p>
My daughter’s young, so I’d prefer that she not graduate a year early, which can be hard anyway for engineering majors because of the sequences of classes needed. If she gets credit she can use the time to minor in something or just enjoy taking things she wouldn’t normally get to take OR spend a semester abroad. If she gets placement, then she will get to take more interesting upper level classes.</p>