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<p>That’s nice introducing kids to rally like that. I always want to take mine to a rally by the Democrats and one by the Republicans, but not yet completely done.</p>
<p>My kid is to take this Saturday’s SAT but without a single full-length practice/assessment. The blue book has been sitting there for months, opened from time to time, only briefly, rarely more than two hours at a time. There’s not much that I can do, except for wishing good luck, to everyone also.</p>
<p>ds took the recent PSAT and studied on his own for it prior to taking it. he’ll take the SAT this Saturday and we agreed that he won’t do any test prep for it. It’s kind of a no stress strategy. He can again take the SAT and test prep for it next spring if necessary. ACT is scheduled for December.
Chrissyblue - congrats on your d’s success on the SAT. what a big relief for her.</p>
<p>We had a great time at the rally this weekend! I couldn’t believe there were so many people - and everyone was calm, happy, friendly, and having fun. We saw some great signs too and regretted not having made any. We rode the metro in and back - it was crowded, but we had no problems. They actually had metro employees standing at every single ticket machine at our station guiding each person through the process, which was brilliant. Without that, every one of us out-of-towners would have had to stare at the machine trying to figure out what ticket to buy.</p>
<p>After the rally, we walked around and looked at the Capitol Bldg, went into the Library of Congress, and sat on the steps of the Supreme Court Bldg for a while. All in all, it was just a great day and a great weekend!</p>
<p>PinotNoir - Glad you had such a great time! It was a lot of fun wasn’t it! Of course, yesterday, it was back to normal. Bummer.</p>
<p>I am so proud of DS! DS has been volunteering for our Congressman’s re-election campaign for 6 months. He has logged over 400 volunteer hours, including an all nighter the night before the election. He has knocked on doors, made calls and organized volunteers. He earned the title “Super Intern” from the campaign staff. Yesterday, our Congressman won his seat in Congress by a small margin. We, of course, think it was in no small part due to DS’s efforts!! Of course, now he has to go back to school after missing 2 days and try and catch up before the end of the marking period next week. However, we are just so proud of how hard DS worked and how engaged he was in the process. Way to go DS!!!</p>
<p>geogirl1 - what an experience for your son, to feel he has made a difference. You should be proud. Yes, the bad part is to make up 2 days worth of work.</p>
<p>Kudos to your son, geogirl!!! That is an immense thing for anyone, let alone a High School student! Congratulations!</p>
<p>Way to go, geoson! :)</p>
<p>Nice going, geoson! You should be sooooo proud geogirl1! I hope the school will work with him on the ‘make up’ work!</p>
<p>geogirl1, a big kudo your son! He is a bigger person after this experience. What a thrill!</p>
<p>D12 attended her first college rep meeting at the high school yesterday. College rep visits are posted at the GC’s office and the kids have to sign up. It was at 7:00 am (she is not a morning gal). She was a little nervous, but we wanted her to get one under her belt, so we “encouraged” her to go. (This rep came all the way across the country to be at our h.s. - someone should be there, right?) I printed out the collegedata.com info sheet plus a few pages from the college website and told her to “have at least two questions.” This afternoon she talked about it a lot. The rep was young (2010 alum) and was very approachable. It was a very positive experience and makes the prospect of choosing a college a lot more real. (More real than taking the PSAT). Another step forward in getting D engaged in the process. Any of your 2012s started attending any of these college rep visits yet?</p>
<p>My D was signed-up to attend the Gettysburg College visit at her HS. The rep would be there during a Chem lab, so the teacher asked her not to attend the meeting. 
Ironically, the teacher is a Gburg alum. :rolleyes: You’d think she’s be a little more supportive of kids who want to step out of class for 20 mins to learn about her alma mater. </p>
<p>And then, to add injury to insult 
D ended up getting burned in the lab and spending the class period with the nurse.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! I’ll let you know how the homework makeup goes. Hopefully the GPA doesn’t take a hit. However, sitting down to dinner with our Congressman and his staff was a pretty great experience to add to the already killer time he had. Probably worth a few points…</p>
<p>DB - Oh no! I hope DD burn heals well. </p>
<p>No college rep meeting for us yet. I’m giving DS a week or two, and then we can start chatting about all that again.</p>
<p>D had a similar experience, DougBetsy (though she did not end up in the nurse’s office!) Almost all the reps visit first period, which is chemistry for D, and the teacher makes it clear grades will suffer if you miss the class. </p>
<p>But we went to a college fair (performing arts) last night-- and D had a chance to speak with a number of reps-- a huge confidence boost, made everything much more real and changed her opinions on a number of things. She’s definitely getting a handle on the process now.</p>
<p>My DS has been to a couple of these rep. visits at his HS so far… he kind of went begrudgingly because he thinks they are for Seniors… although it specifically says they are for Juniors and Seniors. At his school Juniors can only go if they have a free period, you can’t miss a class. Anyway, went to hear about Hamilton and St. Lawrence I think. He really came home excited about Hamilton and amazingly he even asked questions… said their med school admit rate was VERY high and that they had an amazing volunteer EMT program run through the school. He can hardly wait to visit. It definitely made him start to get more into the college search, and to see that there are going to be some great schools for him out there.</p>
<p>There have been lots of rep visits at my daughter’s school. The visits are scheduled for breakfast, lunch, or in the evening as no students are allowed to miss class for them.</p>
<p>The only problem we’ve had is if the visit is scheduled at lunch on the same day as her math class she usually misses the rep’s visit because her math teacher runs long.</p>
<p>No visits with reps for my D so far. Last year, I encouraged S to meet with them WHEN I found out they were coming. Communication with parents at this school is very poor. </p>
<p>D has benefitted from college fairs. She’s attended at least 6 by now (being dragged along with big brother for the first few years.) The last one was more relevant to her because she was finally thinking about where she’d like to go. We’ve also made some campus visits (she’s an athlete) and plan more from now until fall.</p>
<p>Those of you who have college reps visit your schools are very lucky. Those whose schools keep parents informed about those visits are doubly lucky. Not so here on either score.</p>
<p>The daughter did visit a couple of schools in Philadelphia this past June, just to get a feel for campus tours, information sessions and the like. We’ll be making our first fall visit to a possible safety school on Veteran’s Day, then begin planning visits for the February and April breaks. Hopefully those visits will yield a few likely applications and we can begin thinking about scheduling interviews where appropriate during the summer/fall of 2011.</p>
<p>Finally got Oct. SAT scores today. They were very, very good, so D is looking at “one and done”. That’s one thing to cross off the list!</p>
<p>^IJD Congratulations! I’m so jealous!</p>
<p>GREAT news IJustDrive! You both must be very happy. Good, good news (even if it was a few days late!).</p>