<p>MizzBee, now we’re talking! Those are some useful criteria. :)</p>
<p>There must be something in the air. We sat down over the weekend and tried to make a “broadest possible” list with the only real restrictions being appropriate academic fit for one of her 3 potential majors and someplace either she’d rather be or we’d rather her be (money-wise) than our state flagship, which is a definite match for her. (Yes, there’s an admission/financial safety aside from the state flagship as well.) We came to 18 schools, and I think it’s going to be really easy to knock 5-8 off of that list. Her GC may add one or two that we haven’t considered, but we won’t have that meeting until June.</p>
<p>DD had thought about the October SAT, but that weekend has become way too complicated, so I think I’ll register her for the Nov. I think everyone is on board with that. GCs told the kids they should wait until they get their PSATs back so they would know how to prepare for SATs, but I don’t see dd’s getting stronger between now and spring, and spring gets WAY too busy. Is anyone else hearing this advice? It sounds like most kids of parents here are taking SATs in fall.</p>
<p>The focus at my daughter’s school right now is PSAT preparation. The kids have done practice runs of the math and the writing sections so far. The CR section will be done on the 25th.</p>
<p>The school sets a schedule of required testing.
Juniors are required to take
- PSAT in October
- SAT in January
- ACT in February
- ACT in April </p>
<p>Seniors are required to take
- SAT in October
- ACT in October</p>
<p>You can request permission to not re-take the ACT once you have a 34 or above. I don’t know what they require to not re-take the SAT. Since the kids had to take the ACT in 10th grade for school admission, some juniors are already exempt from further ACT testing.</p>
<p>^^ Wow. That’s an intense testing schedule. I would think that for kids with very high score, they might want to let kids opt out of retesting, since the scores could only disadvantage them.</p>
<p>At dd’s school, they had their first PSAT meeting on Friday. They offer (optional) review sessions the first week in October. OT1H, they want kids to take it seriously; OTOH they don’t want testing to take over their lives. DD ran through a practice PSAT (the test book that comes with registration) this weekend and was pleased with her scores, so I’m not worried about her prepping.</p>
<p>DD is thinking that if her SAT scores are good, she won’t take the ACT. In the past she’s liked the SAT format/style better than the ACT, which feels more time pressured to her. I see no problem with that strategy if the scores are high enough. </p>
<p>I know some kids take the other approach (ACT only). Does this seem right?</p>
<p>I don’t see any problem with SAT only.</p>
<p>The only reason to not be ACT only is that I think you must have a confirming SAT score for National Merit, if National Merit is a possibility. Of the kids who aren’t in National Merit range, many around here are ACT only.</p>
<p>We are not expecting D2 to test as high as the kids in mathinokc’s school, but we do want to give her adequate time to build a competitive score for the schools she is looking at, and we want to avoid the high stress senior year test periods if at all possible. She will, of course, be taking the PSAT in October. She will then take the SAT in January. January is a great time to take the test in our district because the test date falls after Regents exam/mid-term exam week, which, along with winter break, will give her plenty of time to study and take practice tests.</p>
<p>Our older D did not take the ACT because she was happy about her January SAT scores, but I think D2 will probably take the ACT. Whether in April or October of her senior year I don’t know. D2 does plan to take the SAT I a second time in May, leaving June for SAT II subject tests and Regents exams.</p>
<p>DD is taking the October 9 SAT as a vehicle to focus for the PSAT. She only gets to take the PSAT once, she can takethe SAT as much as she wants. I told her to practice as much as she can now because her reward for doing well now is 100 hours of time she will not have to prep for the SAT overthe next year.</p>
<p>We have resisted the temptation to sit down and bang out a list of prospective college (though we have discussed and visited a few). We figure that we want her to focus on her grades, PSAT and enjoying her friendships now, we will have plenty of time to build a list of schools in the spring and summer.</p>
<p>S will take the fall PSAT, hopefully he’ll do as well as he did on last year’s test. I’m thinking to have him do the January SAT and based on his scores on that, decide what else he needs to take. It would be great if he could be done with the tests before the AP barrage in May. </p>
<p>Older D took both ACT and SAT during the May/June testing period of her Junior year. She did well but it was pretty stressful and she then had to put off the SAT II tests until the fall of senior year. </p>
<p>I’m planning on giving S an overall intro to a few different types and locations of colleges over this year. I hope he’ll start coming up with a more specific list of ideas this summer.</p>
<p>D1 is taking the PSAT in a month. She’s been doing pratice tests on and off for couple months. Her results seem to have plateaued after her second practice test - they hovered just shy of our state’s cutoff for NMSF! Mounting work from school and a college class is not giving her much time to study for PSAT. Need to quickly figure out a way to put in some margin with 4 weeks to go…</p>
<p>D is also taking the PSAT in October. We thought about having her take the SAT also, but will wait until November or January for that. D is not getting in much study time for PSAT since school started.</p>
<p>The good news is that D now has independent study PE for competing her horse so now she has a study period at the end of the day.</p>
<p>D is taking the SAT on Oct 9 then the PSAT on the 13th. There’s no school tomorrow due to the Maryland primaries so I’ve asked her to do the free, full, online SAT practice test. She’s been doing small sections out of the blue book little by little for about 5 weeks. But doing the whole thing at once is gonna take her by surprise. I can feel the resistance already. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>@DougBetsy: We definitely got resistance to taking the full PSAT practice test at one sitting, but I told her that if her scores were high enough, I would stop nagging her about prepping. It’s all about the motivation :-)</p>
<p>Paperchaser: She will boost up a bit on the actual test because she will be more focused on the actual test.</p>
<p>Hi everyone!</p>
<p>I’m a long time lurker and first time poster…</p>
<p>DH and I have two daughters. D1 is the one who will graduate from the high school class of 2012 and D2 will complete high school in 2016. School started for D1 at the end of August. Her course load includes the following: </p>
<p>AP Lang
AP Bio (two period class, with one period being the lab for the course)
Honors Precalc
Honors Chinese 4
Honors Symphonic Orchestra
Honors Modern World History</p>
<p>With an eye toward a possible college major in biology, D1 doubled up on her science classes last year (took both Honors Biology and Honors Chemistry last year) and was happily anticipating taking AP Bio this fall. Unfortunately, she’s been assigned an AP Bio instructor who is known to be one of the toughest graders in the science department at her school. She came home in tears from receiving the lowest grades she had ever received in a class assignment. The teacher expected a more detailed response (at least half page) to every question out of the first chapter in the AP Biology textbook. The other problem is that the first 5 chapters of the book required being exposed to a lot of biochemistry concepts.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear from other parents whose kids also had to make an adjustment from Honors science classes at the high school level to the AP level. How did your kids adjust?</p>
<p>Many thanks in advance for your feedback here!</p>
<p>Hi ldwendy. Welcome. :)</p>
<p>I’m sorry I don’t have a science example to convey. But, my D had a similar experience with APUSH last year. She had never in her life gotten anything lower than an A. So imagine her shock and horror to see she was really struggling in this class. She had to take a C for the first quarter, and a B for the second quarter. By the third and fourth quarters she had found her rhythm and was finally getting A’s again. But it was a tremendous shock to her system. Not only the depth of the info, but the mountains of work. In the end, she was glad to stick it out, buckle down, and realize that even though her answers were technically correct, the teacher has the descretion to give credit in way she wants. (as long as she’s consistent)</p>
<p>The AP classes can be a shock to any student. I’d try and focus in on the problem area–is it that she doesn’t understand the material? Doesn’t go into detail/depth when writing her answers? Vocab? Each problem has it’s own solution, so narrowing in will help. And the best way to do that is to ask the teacher.</p>
<p>Currently, D is highlighting her AP USH text in 4 or 5 different colors. It drives me nuts, but works for her (people, places, battles, etc). Each of her books seems to have a system… I buy her books so she can write in them, color code them, whatever helps. Her schedule is brutal and we want to make it more manageable if possible. Your daughter may just need time to find the system that works for her.</p>
<p>If she hasn’t done so already, she should (calmly and without tears) go talk to the teacher about the assignment so she can understand the expectations. It’s a positive to get this rude awakening early in the year so she can adjust. It’s not a reflection on her and her abilities, its an opportunity to learn how to kick it up a notch, particularly since she’s considering biology as a long-term field of study.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly second what IJustDrive said. This is a great time for your daughter to learn that it’s a good thing to approach a teacher and ask for clarification on concepts, writing expectations, test formats - anything. if she learns that now while she’s in highschool, she will do great in college! I would look at it as a teachable moment regarding interacting with teachers and jumping in early seeking help in tough classes.</p>
<p>^^ What they said-- could turn this from negative to positive in two minutes flat.</p>
<p>I agree with all the advice given on how much more difficult the AP classes are and that your D should approach her teacher to understand where she needs to focus her studies.</p>
<p>D got her APUSH test back yesterday that was on the first four chapters they read over the summer. It was not pretty for most everyone. D ended up with a C+ and said she had one of the highest scores in any of the classes. The teacher went over the tests and told them what they need to do to get their grades back up. He is letting them do extra credit this week to increase their test scores. D said she feels like she will do better on future exams when she only has one chapter she is being tested on.</p>