<p>hi Cherryhillmom, my D got her scores back last week, actually they don’t give the scores but they give the booklets and the right/wrong info and the analysis. She hasn’t shown them to me and I didn’t have a chance over the weekend. We can look at it over break.</p>
<p>You can look at the areas where they say need improvement and in the case of math for example, see if it is areas like Alg II which might not have been covered yet in class. You can also look for anecdotes on improvements between Soph PSAT and Jr PSAT. I think a more useful number to focus on, if that’s what you want to do, is what his percentile is.</p>
<p>You can have him sign up for the SAT question of the day, you can buy old PSAT books really cheaply (I think they are around $3 apiece) and think about areas to improve, but it is a long way from next year and you don’t want to burn out so you’ll want to plan any prep for what will give the best payback for your kid.</p>
<p>My D said she requested to NOT get any mail. She has gotten two anyway. One from an all female school that my H thought was interesting. My D informed us that she has absolutely not interest in all female schools.</p>
<p>We haven’t received the PSAT scores back yet. I am curious as to whether son did worse than freshman year (as he felt he did). I have a math/science kid who is currently taking precalculus in tenth grade so I expect his math score to be high but his reading and writing scores to hover around the national average. :P</p>
<p>pullinghair - the way I understand it is that coaches can only give general information on their program to your kid prior to the end of junior year. My DD has a more unique sport as she wants to join an NCAA team for horseback riding (she jumps horses). I am lucky in that we have several girls from DD’s barn that have gotten on NCAA teams and the parents have been great about giving advice. We are working on a DVD for DD to submit to schools next summer that show her riding and showing as well as inform coaches of her show results for the season. Then she hopes that the coaches will follow her (show results are online) as she competes during her junior year and will hopefully get some interest from schools she is interested in.</p>
<p>Thanks Showmom858 for the explanation. I think your DD will do very well. She sounds very committed to her sport.
My nephew played football in HS. His school did not want him to talk to any coaches, until the end of his junior year.</p>
<p>since it has been a month since the last update. I was surprised with the inactivity since PSAT scores have been coming in for a while now. Son did well, was above the NMSF cutoff for our state for the last few years. So I am just hoping that he can produce to the same level next year.</p>
<p>MemphisGuy, congrats to your son! My D did not take the PSAT this year, I’ll make sure she gets some practice tests before the real one next year. She is starting on a required project for her AP Bio class. I like her idea, but it seems very difficult to me to pull it off. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. These days, the young minds are a lot more resourceful than me…</p>
<p>PaperChasePop - Don’t worry too much about the BIO project. Kids today atudy and understand things that we had never even heard of back in our day. I expect that you will find that her abilities will surprise you…I hope :-)</p>
<p>Mathinokc - Congrats on the good scores!! I am impressed that your daughter has established target scores for the SAT. I can’t even get my son to think about it. Standard reply is “things have gone OK until now, why change anything??”. Trying to tie him down to think about the future or even discuss can be very frustrating. I guess at 15 I still expected things to just “work out” too. Not sure when I crossed over the line from happy-go-lucky to “I don’t have the time to not have a list and a plan” :-)</p>
<p>Thanks MG. D changed her bio research topic. She surprised me with a change form for me to sign yesterday while dropping her off to school in the morning! Anyway, I was happy to see that she was flexible. Her bio teacher neglected to file certain forms and many of her classmates had to make last minute change to their research topics this week!</p>
<p>My son will be graduating in 2012 too. He is in the “pre-IB” program at his HS. Now that he’s almost done with soph year, he must commit to the real IB prg w/in the next couple of weeks. His big sister did the IB diploma several years ago at the same school. Although she earned her diploma and got in to a good college w/a merit scholarship, she says that she regrets the massive amount of time that she spent on busy work in IB. My DS is just not interested in continuing IB and wants to do AP instead. He is already self-studying for a few AP tests this spring and will sign up for as many AP classes as possible his junior year. He has all honors classes so far and all A’s (except for 1 B in honors geo/trig as a frosh). He is in a varsity (and club) sport mostly year round, tutors and is on the debate team so his schedule is packed. My question for all of you seasoned parents is this: will switching to AP hurt him in his quest for an elite college?</p>
<p>I don’t see a problem switching to AP. I believe elite colleges in the US treat AP tracks the same as IB tracks. These colleges want to see challenging curriculum and AP is challenging enough. My son’s school doesn’t even offer IB and it sent dozens of kids to elite colleges, including HYPM, every year.</p>
<p>On a different note. S2 signed up for the upcoming AMC 10, and if he does well, AMC 12. Anyone else doing this? If so, how do you prepare your kid?</p>
<p>Mine does the AMC-10 and AMC-12 and got invited to the AIME last year. </p>
<p>She prepares by looking at old tests. They’re available from the contest site – google AMC-10 and on the AMC website, look at Publications. There are 2 tests of each every year. So, there’s a 10A and a 10B and a 12A and a 12B each year. There’s some overlap between the 10A and the 12A and again some between the 12A and the 12B (which is why you can’t take both on the same day). The individual practice set is all you need and they’re only $2 each.</p>
<p>Note that there was a change 2 years ago to not allowing calculators on the AMCs, so any tests before 2008 allowed calculators and you have to look at the problems with that in mind. For $25, you can get the math club package which includes a CD of contests for the past 10 years.</p>
<p>In addition, my daughter reviews things from Art of Problem Solving textbooks, mainly the Intro Number Theory and Intro/Intermed Prob & Counting books.</p>
<p>Art of Problem Solving has courses (AMC 10 Problem Series and AMC 12 Problem Series) to prepare, but they were offered in the fall and won’t be offered again until Summer.</p>
<p>mathinokc, thanks for the detailed response!</p>
<p>We have books on the old MAA tests - the 30 questions format ones. I’ll looking into getting the more recent tests. The math club deal sounds good.</p>
<p>Paperchase-Thanks for your response-sounds like your S is doing very well. My ds’ school offers IB and limited AP classes. That concerns me because most of the smart kids take IB at his school. Anyone have a kid in a school with both IB and AP?</p>
<p>Our school offers AP and IB…it works well. The kids take a mix of both classes, we have a very successful pass rate on the IB (among the top nationally according to the Principal, I am just back from a PTO meeting) and very successful AP test scores. The one thing I have learned, mostly from CC, is how AP and IB interact is unique to each school, so you might want to ask around. The high school offers many AP classes and a good selection of IB each year–the IB choices are somewhat geared to the particular interests/levels (especially math) of the students each year.</p>
<p>How is everyone doing here? My sophomore did finally get his PSAT’s back and did exactly like he thought (went down from freshman year in reading). I am not overly concerned though since I saw that he left 22 questions blank this year! We can work on that! He got through midterms and started semester 2 this past week. He is very happy that he somehow managed to pull up one of his AP grades last semester by getting an A on the midterm. </p>
<p>We are looking at what to do this summer for him. His perfect summer idea is to sleep until 1 or 2 pm, then play xbox live for the next 10 hours before bed. I envision his time to be used somewhat… differently. He will definitely need to take a summer SAT prep class of some sort (probably privately) since he is too busy during the school year to prep. Plan is to take the SAT in October for first time, then January, then May for the last time if needed. June will be for the SAT 2 in whichever AP science class he takes next year. He is planning to take the SAT 2 in math 2 this june since he is currently in his second semester of precalculus. Does he need a third SAT 2? </p>
<p>We have quite a few family commitments this summer that would interfere with many of the summer programs and/or teen tours that I have found for him. We are still up in the air about those. Has anyone ever done one of the 3 week precollege experiences at a college where they do a Princeton Review SAT prep class in the am and spend the afternoons touring colleges in the vincinity? That is another idea. Another is possibly a 2 or 3 week language immersion program in Costa Rica (though, after the earthquake in Haiti, I am a bit nervous to send anywhere…my anxiety issues). How many colleges are most kids applying to these days? My girls applied to about 5 or 6 but this child may need to cast a wider net. He really dosen’t know if he wants instate or out of state, public or private, city or country etc… This is why I think it may be a good idea to work in some college visits this summer. Maybe this would focus him a bit…or not.</p>
<p>D2 finally got her PSATs back also. Good scores, but as we expected, her slow reading speed was a factor. She will definitely take a prep course, most likely in the fall. Haven’t thought much beyond that in terms of testing - seems I just went through that with D1 (class of 09) and I’m not quite ready to gear up again ;)</p>
<p>In answer to your how many college applications question, seiclan, I can only answer based on our experience last year. D1 was poised to apply to about 8, but after applying to 2 with early, rolling admissions, she decided to apply ED at a third, was accepted and it was over. </p>
<p>This summer, D2 will go to tennis camp, spend 4 weeks in Israel and get her wisdom teeth out. I’d love to make a couple of casual colleges visits as well, but we’ll see.</p>
<p>My soph. son is also scheduled for the AMC 10 “A” and the AMC 12 “B.” He’s using the Art of Problem Solving books and old tests. He recently started working with a mathematics grad student at a nearby Ivy who has experience with the tests. I didn’t realize that the change to “no calculator” was so recent. He’s already gone through last year’s tests (he qualified for the AIME as well), so he’s left with only old tests that were “calculator” tests. </p>
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<p>What do you think is the main difference between the “calculator” and “no calculator” tests? How should they approach the problems differently? My son is working through the AMC VII Contest Problem Solving Book (1995-2000), which is all “calculator.”</p>