<p>“I know I shouldn’t pout and make excuses but D’s paper had a definite liberal feel related to xenophobia, nationalism, American heritage and disturbing trends in legislation related to immigration and foreigners…you get the picture.” MSPEARL</p>
<p>Yeah - I got the picture.</p>
<p>Glido. You don’t have to use a word repeatedly to intensify its meaning. And obviously her commentary on the last page could easily offend a segment of American society. And yes she did talk about nationalism in her commentary and how its pervasive nature could be a detriment to developing a bilingual society. Just because I wrote that paragraph doesn’t mean it was an outline of her entire paper. Go ahead and quote away. Whatever. And you brought in border security. I guess you thought the paper was about immigration. I can get that, it is cool. what I can also get is your nuance, snark and light jabs. You are so sneaky. Hehe.</p>
<p>Officially. Done. Discussing. This. Topic.</p>
<p>Prom tonight at DDs school. Unfortunately since it is a BS there are no pre-prom parties otherwise known as parent picture-taking opportunities. I will have to wait for the shots to show up on FB. Hope she has fun. Tomorrow is New Englands in her spring sport so she was doing physics right up to the hair appointment. Oh the complicated lives they lead…</p>
<p>In the future, if we have a particular issue that we are concerned about, maybe it’s best to start a separate thread.</p>
<p>I particularly like the friendly tone we’ve had on this thread.</p>
<p>1012mom - Complicated life is so true. These girls don’t get to have their day. My D couldn’t get excused from the orchestra rehearsal on the day of her prom. She got her hair done in the morning, went to the rehearsal, rushed over to the pre-prom. Funf was delayed but not any less.</p>
<p>Sorry; my advice for CPU about keeping an open mind was not meant to dissuade her from Wellesley, it was in regards to deciding right now about her major. I think college should be a time to explore new areas and disciplines and learn new things, and fulfilling distribution requirements is a great opportunity for that.</p>
<p>Last week of school here for S - was supposed to be done already; snow days have extended it through next Wednesday. Seniors graduated a week ago!</p>
<p>I also can’t wait to say that school is done! Finals still loom ahead for DD2012, and she typically struggles with tests…esp. finals. Her grades so far are quite good for the quarter, but her finals could doom her for all eternity. LOL! 
Well, they could impact her future, so there’s that. I keep reminding her to study, and she keeps assuring me she is and will. : ohm :</p>
<p>JenPam - Same situation here, finals still loom and they are critical to the semester grade. DS has history of not studying well for finals…he better learn to overcome this one before college. Just learned that one of his most important finals, AP Calculus, is being given two weeks early (this Friday) because the teacher wants the entire class to take it together and the senior’s have finals this coming week. DS has a split grade in that class (B, A) so needs an A on the final to get an A for the .5 credit semester grade (ON TRANSCRIPT). Had planned to have him brush up on the third quarter (his B quarter) with a tutor for a few weeks and now…very little time. Sigh. </p>
<p>The silver lining is that he will finish school a day earlier, since that was to be his last final and the other final given that day he is exempting. Our kids can exempt up to 3 of their 7 finals (provided they have a B or better in the class but they get whatever grade they have…so A, A gets the A…B,B gets the B, split grade A, B gets a B+.) </p>
<p>DS has SAT tutor today and again, has not done the HW yet. </p>
<p>Loving that kid on the couch…</p>
<p>D studied 4 hours today for last civil war test. Grade is 92.67% Barely an A.(93-100 scale) she has to rock this test. Hopefully she is ready. Thank God this is THE LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL! Whoohoo!!!</p>
<p>Well, DS did it again! We had all-night Relay for Life event, then Saturday night get together with friends home from college, then final play perfromance of the year. he came home at 8:00 then says that he has homework! GRRR! he has to read Farenheit 451 tonight. He is upstairs sipping coffee and taking notes. </p>
<p>On a positive note, he has figured out his essay topic and I think it is a great one. It is very personal, and I think he will be able to put a unique spin on things. He also just snagged an internship this summer through networking at the Relay event.</p>
<p>Went to the Columbia/U Chicago/Rice/Cornell/Brown presentation tonight and realized that I have hit the wall. After four kids, countless college tours and countless presentation, I just cannot take another presentation in a hotel. If one comes up, DH can take DS or I will take him and go to a Starbucks. I know this makes me a terrible CC parent and maybe it’s because I only slept about three hours last night, but I think I’ve overdosed. I do think I will be able to visits schools he gets into, but that’s a different story.</p>
<p>seiclan, neat to hear about the final exemptions! I wish DD’s school had that option. When I say she has a tough time on finals, I mean she has a D & F tough time on finals, though she never scores like that during the rest of the year (she’s a mostly A & occasional B student). It confounds me, and frankly I think a lot of it now is a self-fulfilling prophecy on her part re: how she expects to perform.</p>
<p>Mizzbee: your son and my daughter sound like kindred spirits!!</p>
<p>I have a question about sat/act. D has a math problem. It is not good. She gets an A in class no problem but when it comes to standardized tests it is like her brain shuts down. We find out her sat score but I am not holding out any hope for math. She said it was harder than act math and that score wasn’t very pretty. </p>
<p>Here is the kicker. Act reading is 36, English is 35, science is 33. If I would write the math score people wouldn’t believe it based on those other scores. She is working with math tutor. I feel like literally this is going to hold her back from kenyon her dream school for the moment. I am praying this next sat and act in June give her a better math score. I hope the tutor works! Anyone else deal with this and were you able to see significant improvement after the first test??? </p>
<p>Oh. And is there a learning disorder where your brain for some reason can’t keep math facts straight, yet be exceptional in reading/writing? I am serious…</p>
<p>My daughter was also not a math kid. She was able to get her SAT up about 70 points with a private SAT math tutor. Her best math score, after three tries, was 650. They say that math is the easiest score to raise.</p>
<p>MizzBee - congrats on your S getting an internship opportunity for the summer! That’s great!</p>
<p>Seiclan - I assume your S is taking the June SAT? Good luck to him. I can’t remember if he wanted a big improvement over his 1st time scores or just a little bump, but best of luck to him. I think often times kids do better the second time even if they don’t practice much. </p>
<p>mimk6 - OK, confession time? I can relate to your being tired of college presentations after 4 kids. I’m not there with college stuff (I’m just on my second go-round!), but I do remember being pregnant with my 3rd baby and being surprised to realize I wasn’t really in the mood to teach the ABC’s and reading all over again. Luckily it kicked in by the time he was ready to do all that!</p>
<p>JenPam - wow, I can see why finals week is stressful for your daughter! Have you tried relaxation techniques or anything? If she’s doing well on tests but not finals, it does seem that anxiety may be a factor. Best of luck to her in the upcoming testing!</p>
<p>mspearl - your D has great scores on her ACT! I don’t know what her math score is, but I don’t think having really high scores in some areas and lower scores in math is the kiss of death at all. It looks like Kenyon’s middle 50% in math on the ACT is 26-31, so if she can be in that range, I’d chalk it up to being in their average for math and then knocking their middle 50% out of the park in her areas of strength - not a bad scenario! And yes, there are learning disabilities that show up as a big discrepancy between different testing areas. And it’s also possible that she hasn’t had great math instruction throughout her schooling and it’s left her trying to rely on memorizing formulas and not quite grasping how it all fits together and makes sense. Is her math score really that bad or does it just stand out next to her stratospheric scores in other areas?</p>
<p>We’re in our last week of school - I’m so glad!</p>
<p>Your D has impressive scores, mspearl. Even a very low math score (bottom 20%) wouldn’t hurt her that much, but a higher one will help her a lot. Her tutor should find out a way to improve that score if possible.</p>
<p>Good luck to seiclan’s S on the AP Cal test. A little more prep might do the trick.</p>
<p>PinotNoir - Yes, DS is taking the June test, for his second attempt. I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t give it his all? He is doing the very minimum of prep (which is more than last time but still, not much). Next weekend he will meet with the SAT prep tutor for the third and final time. I hope that this gives him what he needs but, IDK. We always have said that what holds him back from the upper tier schools are his test scores and not his grades and he seems determined to prove us right. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with his going to our state school (U of Florida) for practically no new costs (we did the prepaid college plan back in 1995)!!!</p>
<p>Seiclan - That is some unbelievable forward planning!</p>
<p>What happens if he does nt go to U of F? What can you get back for other colleges? Texas was providing a good return on the investment initially but recently they amended the rules where they were giving only what you put in and nothing more (or may be it was a really small return).</p>
<p>After sitting around watching TV and playing SIMS most of Saturday and Sunday daughter says to me Sunday at 10PM that she has so much work to do!!! She has a two hour math problem set due Tuesday, she has to finish a book for AP Eng by Monday (today), an outline for her term paper in AP Eng by Tuesday, a 6-8 page paper for History Through Film due Monday and an 8-10 page paper for US History due Wednesday. </p>
<p>As of this morning the only thing completed was her reading which she listened to while taking a bath and curling her hair on Saturday and finished listening to last night while getting ready for bed. She’s almost done with her History Through Film paper, she’ll finish it during school today, proof it at home and then email it before midnight so it will still be on time. I had to download a book onto her Kindle for her AP English paper as there’s no other way to get that book so now at least she will have the three sources she needs for that. She’ll probably spend about 1/2 hour doing the Math and then give up saying she doesn’t understand it and doesn’t belong in the class. </p>
<p>Okay, if she just doesn’t have temper tantrums, I don’t really care what she completes and what she doesn’t complete. There comes a time when you have to pay the price for procrastination. Venting over.</p>
<p>When we originally purchased the plans for each of my 3 kids back in 1995, we had just come off of a really frightening downturn in our family finances. We bought the plans as “insurance” after we had recovered somewhat, so that if it ever happened again our kids could still afford to attend college. For the record, DH was against it saying that he could make more with investments than the plan was worth but I persisted and insisted. DH is really glad that we did this now. Two of our other children ended up choosing Florida schools and our investment paid off…big time! </p>
<p>The FPP can be applied to any Florida school and covers full tuition and one year of dorm but no extra fees. Florida private colleges also will take it but at face value. If you don’t use it, you can get it back with some very minimal interest added (so you don’t lose your money but you don’t make as much as you could have investing it on your own). It really is an amazing deal if your kid goes to a state school (and we have 11 to choose from). The plan cost us about 5600$ back in 1995 (today it costs 5 times that) and covers all the tuition costs!!! This definitely makes the U of Florida even more attractive. ;)</p>