<p>Ah thanks! Yet another disadvantage/glitch of being at a Canadian school I suppose. </p>
<p>Do you think it would be worthwhile to take a pretend PSAT at home!? It sure would be nice just to have a sense of where she might fall. </p>
<p>I think the kids at her school do well in general, but I honestly don’t have anyting to compare it to. Looking at naviance, the mean SAT is about 2040. What is a typical average at a good US public or private school?</p>
<p>starbright, you are able to get old PSAT tests and scoresheets from the collegeboard for some low price, I think $3 per test. If she isn’t getting the experience of taking it in a real test environment, it might not be worth the effort.</p>
<p>Thanks NJSue - I agree with you that that the states tinkering makes it hard to realize a pattern. However even with all of the tinkering, there are still many who make the advanced proficient and proficient levels. I am concerned that he is not making the proficient levels. </p>
<p>I have an appointment with a private Dr. for later this week for some advice.</p>
<p>Have any of you started college tours yet with your kids? We live in South Florida so the majority of the OOS colleges that my son would consider will take much planning to visit (since each is a plane ride to different states). He cannot miss school (he missed one day due to illness last week and it took a full week for him to get back on track) so we really will need to plan trips wisely. Naturally, we have no real idea as to which “level” of college will be in his target or match zone yet. If I had to guess, based upon the study habits of my newly balky adolescent, I think he will be in the 3.7 GPA/1900-2000 SAT range. Next June we have to come to New Jersey for two Bar Mitzvahs, a week apart from each other so we could rent a car and do Sunday-Friday college tours. I suppose we could check out Conn/Mass/NYC/and Penn schools. Is it even worth it to look after sophomore year? Should we only look at schools that he would probably get into or should we look at all the reaches too? </p>
<p>It will just be very tough to do college visits during Junior year. We will be limited to his winter and spring breaks. Any thoughts guys?</p>
<p>D2’s school has 2 weeks off in March. We are planning to use one of those weeks next spring to visit a few schools. I think D2’s stats are going to be fairly close’s D1’s, so she probably will be looking at similar schools. In discussing with her over the weekend, I think Duke is probably going to be as south as we go. We are in the NE, so it’s not going to be as big of a deal to visit schools. I am also not a big believer of school visits because I think most of those schools are about the same, and most kids would be happy at those schools. We are not going to visit any schools that do not require visits, but visit some schools that we didn’t consider before and schools where D2 could “audition” with a dance teacher (where it may help with her application).</p>
<p>Our strategy with D2 will be not to apply to any safeties she wouldn’t go. D1 applied to Rutgers as her safety, but in hind sight I think it was a waste of time. I would rather look into a few more LACs for D2 where she would be happy to go. She doesn’t want urban (no NYC, not really a fan of Boston, but would consider a visit to Northwestern).</p>
<p>At D2’s school it is not that big of a deal to miss school. I happened to look at D1’s report cards in HS, she missed 7 days in 11th and 13 days in 12th. They also get a lot of long weekends and Jewish holidays off. We probably would most of college visits Junior year.</p>
<p>seiclan- I think it is fine to look at schools when the opportunity arises before having official test scores. Just don’t confine it to reachy reach schools. Did your S take the PSAT? In that case, he’ll have somewhat of an idea of a SAT score. Even our very laid back school says that sophomores visiting schools during other trips is a good idea.</p>
<p>We’ve been looking at schools with our older one so D has been tagging along for a couple of years now. Yes, we will be looking more at schools for her starting this spring. DH and I have been planning our vacations around colleges visits for the last 3 yrs. We spent the last two summers on the east coast. This time, we’ll be going to Oregon and Washington St. She took the PSAT last yr and didn’t do too well. We project that she’ll have an excellent GPA and perhaps an avg or slightly above avg. SAT (w/prep) and that’s what we’re using when considering schools. Of course, what D can consider now is geographic location and the size and “feel” of the schools. she loves the east coast (of course, we’re on the west) and thinks she’d like to really go away to school. Hopefully, these trips will help her understand all that entails!</p>
<p>My soph D thought the reading was easy and some of the math hard. She is a fast reader and is not a strong math student.She did not pick up the booklet till the day before the test. (on the drive to school that morning she did say that she didn’t know till I told her that this was an important test. In her mind that meant it was a test she should put her best effort. In our Ca public schools the mindset of the kids with standardized testing is they don’t have to try hard since they don’t count for anything. Frustrates the heck out of me)</p>
<p>We decided to skip the PSAT for our D, but it turned out she had a conflict anyway. D has a program on Saturdays and it started on the day of the PSAT. I’m not a big fan of taking PSAT or SAT early or often. It is much better to aggressively prepare for them until the student is comfortable with the content/format and confident that s/he will make the target scores before taking the these tests for the first time.</p>
<p>D had been looking at joining a town play that she auditioned for, but gave up because she didn’t like her assigned role. I was a little worried that she might not be able to juggle her schedule if she had continued with the play. At least now she can focus on her Saturday program.</p>
<p>Since hubby and I are both professors, our D has been on campus her whole life and visited tons of campuses over the years (especially in recent years), so has a good set of reference points. </p>
<p>She cares a lot about the student body and culture, but could not care less about the physical appearance of the campus or its location or the weather etc. And she says she can’t tell if she’d be happy to live on a campus for four years from a single visit of a place. And the reality is she’d be happy in most environments. It’s just her personality. </p>
<p>I imagine we’ll look much more closely and maybe visit schools once she has offers in hand. By then she will also be more confident about what she will major in and can visit with depth (learn about and ask specific questions of the particular school and department relevant to her, maybe meet with faculty and students of that major and so on).</p>
<p>So it begins…the arrival of college brochures. DS has received 4 this week and PSAT scores are not even out. I know it’s really meaningless, but he was a little bit excited to get some college mail after watching it pour in for his sister the past couple of years. I’m still enjoying being the parent of a HS sophomore and a college freshman. I’m quite willing to wait a bit before beginning the college search with DS. </p>
<p>Anyone else getting the mail yet? I’m not surprised by three of the colleges as we learned the first time around they are heavy mailers.</p>
<p>I have a D 2010 and a S 2012 - I noticed quite a few of the same on the thread. My S said his PSATs should be in next week. He’s been doing SAT prep here and there - sort of following behind his sister to see if he can “beat” her on any of the practice questions. He thought that the PSAT math was a little different than the SAT - not as difficult, more more nit picky. We’re interested to see his scores.</p>
<p>We’re curious to see PSAT scores, too. </p>
<p>PLAN scores (we’re in flyover country, where the ACT is king) came in last week. They didn’t provide much information for us (but the test was mandatory at school), as my daughter had to take the ACT this fall as part of her admissions package for our state math & science school for next year.</p>
<p>No college mail yet in our house. I think my daughter would only be excited to get college mail if she were interested in the school.</p>
<p>College mail arriving, doesn’t seem to excite DD. PSAT scores are not in, likely next week. I’m probably more interested than DD.</p>
<p>Lots of college mail, but it is for my senior - I just look at the school name and throw almost all of it away unopened. What a waste of paper and postage! There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to the assortment of schools. For some reason, she gets loads of information about engineering schools and programs, yet she has never had any interest in engineering. How do students end up on certain lists?</p>
<p>No college mail here although one of DS’s friends has been getting some for about a week. I am thinking that my son didn’t check the “interested in getting info” box on the PSAT form. No matter, we don’t need the extra paper. DS is plugging away, almost halfway through 2nd quarter. Hope he dosen’t have too much to do over the holiday weekend. Happy Thanksgiving all.</p>
<p>My D did not check the box, so no college mail addressed to her yet. I have saved a smattering of brochures from D1, and we actually had a college conversation in which she had a tiny interest, so we are slowly starting on the right track.</p>
<p>Got her first term grades today and although there were some classes where she was not meeting her potential, overall we were very happy with what she accomplished and she brought one grade up quite a bit from midterm which even surprised her.</p>
<p>No college mail here either - not sure if D2 checked the box or not. She is not thinking much about college at this point; maybe like the rest of us she needs a breather after watching D1 go through the process last year. She’s also recovering from mono and her focus is on getting her work caught up so her grades don’t suffer.</p>
<p>I’m definitely more curious about her PSAT scores than she is. D1 was a NMF with so-so grades and this D will have much better grades, but she is not a strong standardized test taker.</p>
<p>This summer will be a busy one for D. We’ll be contacting college coaches where she might be able to play her sport. A friend of mine has a D her age and we’ve talked about taking a short tour around SoCal schools starting in San Diego. We did this for S and D tagged along but I told her that this time the focus will be on her interests. My only concern is the state of the California state universities and UCs. What a mess! S is applying to mostly state schools and I’ve had to encouraged him to look OOS.</p>
<p>I was surprised at how wide range the scores were (kids compared at lunch). Now comes the hard part - what is the best way to encourage growth on the scores? We added the zero to the scores and while he did much better than the majorit, his expected SAT score appears to be lower than what we thought for an honor roll student.</p>