<p>Glido - what does/doesn’t count as an academic class? Specifically, I’m wondering how that overlaps with the UC a-g requirements.</p>
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<p>Oldfort, what does the photography course cover? It’s seems everyone is using digital cameras now.</p>
<p>Glido, in some of those 25 cases his interaction consisted of, “Can you tell me if you offer a major in linguistics?” (his interest). “No? Thank you.” (some schools we already knew the answer, but there were a few we weren’t sure of and he wanted to check out). So…don’t be that impressed. He did have longer conversations with a few.</p>
<p>PghMom2: I am still impressed.</p>
<p>Mihcal1: I varies from college to college, you will have to check the websites. The UC system is very specific. Generally, the academic courses are English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Foreign Language.</p>
<p>D2´s current school is very humanities oriented. They have a great Arts department. The photography class doesn´t use digital, they develop their pictures in the dark room, they also study history of photography. The final was a written test. I call it elective because it´s not an honors course. </p>
<p>D2 is very into photographer now. She took a course at Putney this past summer. She likes black and white. It is amazing how much films and papers cost now (since they don´t produce as many films now).</p>
<p>^^ I thought a photography course is on how to use pictures to tell a story. I didn’t realize that people still use dark room nowadays.</p>
<p>My DS is taking Art - AP prep. Basically, they start working on their portfolio for next year’s AP art. First semester he did all drawing, and he did a great job. He just got a nice camera for his birthday and he is now switching to photography. All digital though, no dark room anything. He and his are teacher are very excited, however, he has never done any photography. I guess it will be a learning expereince for him. This is his fun class and he likes it even more that it will be an AP next and be a GPA boost.</p>
<p>D plans to turn in an all photography portfolio for the 2D design AP this year. She has learned the principles of design as well as much about the history of photography, and the various photographic techniques, in her AP Photography course. Loves it.</p>
<p>You know all those college emails that just started pouring in? My DD 2012 has decided that she will respond to ALL of them to see how many might come up with offers. Our college of choice is known to match other school offers if they really want you. This is the only way to a merit-full ride at this school. Anyway, she is giving them all MY email so now I am getting the parent’s version of recruiting. Basically, they congratulate me on my excellent parenting skills that produced such a student, LOL! Not really in those words, but it’s still slightly thrilling…</p>
<p>Woohoo!! DS’s team won their regional ocean sciences bowl on Saturday! The went undefeated out of 16 teams. They’ve won $1000 each and a free trip to Galveston for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl in April. Yeah!!! Of course, the competition is one week before the SAT2 bio test he plans on taking and one week before his 3 AP tests. Talk about bad timing. However, it will be a great experience for him and the team! We are so proud of him!</p>
<p>Congrats, geogirl1!</p>
<p>Congrats. You should be proud.</p>
<p>Nice to meet everyone.</p>
<p>Hi chorokgreen, nice to meet you! </p>
<p>Geogirl-- way to go!! That’s wonderful!</p>
<p>Debbie, do you mean she’s going to apply to every college that solicits her, or just that she’s going to ask for more info? Sounds like an immense task!</p>
<p>Geogirl: That is VERY cool! Congrats.</p>
<p>Good news, geogirl!</p>
<p>Welcome, chorokgreen! Do you have a son or daughter graduating in 2012? </p>
<p>I’m impressed by the kids putting together art portfolios - both for the talent they have and for all the work I’m sure it takes to put together a portfolio!</p>
<p>Everything’s chugging along for us. We talked about the college spam coming in now due to PSAT scores being released. A couple of us have kids smart enough to use OUR email instead of their own. I’ve noticed not just college spam, but all kinds of spam all of a sudden. I think either college board or the schools themselves must sell the info to lots of entities, to just colleges. That ticks me off. I had managed to keep my main email pretty spam free (I have a yahoo account that I use for things that I think may lead to spam), so It’s been very noticeable to suddenly be getting spam on my good email account.</p>
<p>We are also moving forward, jumping hurdles and trying to dodge a few bullets. My daughter hit maximum stress level in the last month and is trying to catch her breath from being overloaded with 6 AP’s and everything else she is doing. She decided not to take a dual enrollment college class this semester. Too much on top of everything else. She has already taken 6 classes at the local community college for dual enrollment credit and finished differential equations over the summer and Physics with Calc I this past semester. Current plans are for 2 more college classes this summer and 2 more first semester next year along with 4 AP’s and one honors class senior year in high school. </p>
<p>We are starting our college visits. U of Maryland this week and Rice next week.</p>
<p>Congrats, geogirl! Timing for these contests always seems problematic. DS is in quiz bowl, and the nationals are the week before finals - ugh. He was in another competition last week and I confess I was relieved they placed 2nd by 2 points - otherwise it would have been a spring trip to DC.</p>
<p>Just a quick reminder to lurkers that this is the Parents of the HS Class of 2012 thread, not the Parents of Gifted and Talented Children thread. Don’t be intimidated about joining in if your son or daughter doesn’t have a 4.0 GPA, a 220 PSAT or is a State Math Olympiad champion. </p>
<p>My '12 D is none of the above, will be lucky if her Envirothon team places in the top third of regionals and won’t have 6 APs by the time she finishes high school let alone accomplish that in one year! More than likely she’ll be joining the hunt armed with a 3.3+ GPA in a challenging (but not MOST challenging) curriculum, SATs in the 1750-1900 range, and a wide range of ECs centering around music, film and theater. She doesn’t attend a prestigious high school; in fact fewer than half of her class will attend a 4-year college. Nonetheless, I’m sure she’ll have a choice of good colleges to attend and I know contributions from CC posters will help us to help her make the wisest choice, just as was the case with her high stats overachieving sister 4 years ago.</p>
<p>Junior year has been a tough one for D2 but she’s holding her own. She finally hit the wall in math and asked to be transferred out of Honors Trig into college prep trig, and this did help restore her self-confidence as her grade went from barely passing to a low A. The rest of her courses are all Honors, college dual credit or AP level and she is working hard to receive the grades she is getting.</p>
<p>Later this month we’ll be taking our first extended college tour in Maryland and Pennsylvania. She’ll be looking at Goucher, Johns Hopkins, McDaniel, Franklin & Marshall and Ursinus. In March we’ll be taking a look at Clark and Wheaton in Massachusetts, then off to Ohio and western Pennsylvania in April. March also brings her first stab at the SATs, which she also plans to take in June and next fall if necessary. College is suddenly looking us straight in the eye and it should be an exciting, sometimes frustrating and – we hope – ultimately rewarding year.</p>
<p>Nice post, hudsonvalley! I toured Goucher & Clark with my older son and he ended up applying to Clark. Enjoy your college visit later this month! I’m looking forward to ours in April.</p>