<p>Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We’re keeping it low key here although a nearby parade and drunk fest messes up traffic pretty well. S2 has been banned from the roads tonight so he’s having friends over for a Leprachuan marathon. D1 is in St. Petersburg, Russia and tells us that apparently they even celebrate St. Paddy’s day in Russia now. Green vodka, anyone?</p>
<p>Congrats Socialdrama.</p>
<p>We spent the weekend celebrating St Paddy’s day. Parade, family party, and beautiful weather. It is a great time for our family to see long lost cousins and friends. ( Our family is predominantly Irish) I was so happy D opted to hang out at the family party (bringing friends of course) instead of going off with the many teens who make this a big party weekend.</p>
<p>S has been in France for the past 10 days and will return on Thursday. 2 weeks of an empty nest…good prep for life in a year and a half I guess.</p>
<p>Hi All! Mandatory ACT for all TN juniors tomorrow so no homework tonight 
D2 is chill about it, but based on FB posts I’ve seen from some other students there is a lot of stress tonight. I’m not sure if some of them realize they can retake it…</p>
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<p>I’ve visited Wooster, Witt and OWU and live a minute from Denison. Kenyon is very close to Denison, 35 minutes I’d say, also OWU. You could easily do Denison, Kenyon and Wooster in a day or two. Witt is not far from Dayton and Miami, a different day or two.</p>
<p>Wat do you want to know? Some of these are CTCL schools, some are far more selective than others.</p>
<p>Ohiobassmom: Denison is one of “my” backfill schools to bring up to D if she ends up slashing & burning her list after we do our visits in the next 2 weeks. They have a VERY generous NMF scholarship which is unusual for an LAC. If it was just D2 & I doing the last leg of the trip (Oberlin & U of Pitt) I’d suggest that we swing through Denison but that would not sit well with DH 
It had been on her original big list but after doing her book & internet research it got crossed off because it was reported to have “too much partying, drinking & preppiness for a small college in a small town.” Any local insight to confirm or deny that?</p>
<p>Ohiobassmom- What do I want to know? I don’t even know what I want to know! lol </p>
<p>Honestly, to some degree I feel like neither my D nor I know what the hell we are doing.
:-)</p>
<p>I know she wants to see Juniata and Grove City. I added Pitt to the list b/c it has the program she wants and it is academically rigorous. Denison isn’t too far once we’ve driven to Pitt and I think she would like it, so that went on the list. At that point, we’re in Ohio so it seems to make sense to look at a few more.</p>
<p>I have to say, I haven’t felt this clueless and inept since I was parenting my first newborn. Does anyone else feel this way??</p>
<p>Vandygrad, this is my first and only (knock wood) time going through this process. I freak out all.the.time thinking about that. </p>
<p>My son couldn’t care less about visits but I’ve scheduled a couple just so I can say that I did what I could We’re visiting Temple, West Chester, Ursinus, and Lafayette.</p>
<p>vandy, that’s natural. I’ve done this before so I don’t feel clueless, but I did the first time.</p>
<p>That said, will someone raise ds2 for the next 15 months? I’m tired of this gig.</p>
<p>Hey…It sounds like there are going to be some interesting college tours in the next few weeks. Please get back to the forum with your and your student’s impressions. I would love to go north to Penn/Ohio but we have decided to go south through Virginia and NC. My D wants her SAT scores back to finalize our visit list…as another forum pointed out…visiting schools where you are less than very unlikely to be accepted is like looking at houses that are beyond your budget…a little depressing…so Duke and UVA may be cut out of our tour and perhaps include Guilford or UNC Asheville instead. Not to say that she won’t apply to the reach schools, but why waste time touring and risking “falling in love” with something that is unlikely to materialize. If she gets in, then visit. </p>
<p>There are no real urban schools on our tour. D went to VCU when son was applying and said she preferred schools with a clearly defined campus rather than a campus that is located in a downtown area mixing the school buildings with business and government buildings. Each kid is so different about what they want in a school and setting. My son loves urban grit…on his tour he was attracted to VCU, Temple and MICA and was turned off, big time, by the green idyllic setting of Vassar.</p>
<p>I think the only reason my son is somewhat ok with urban colleges (Temple and Drexel specifically) is because he is familiar with them. We live in Philly so the campuses are just another grouping of buildings that he walks by. He has actually said that he will consider Drexel because he knows where it is…lol</p>
<p>But he spent 2 weeks at Kenyon and loved it. It was during the summer so he didn’t get much of a feel for student life, but he lived in the dorms, ate in the cafateria, worked out in their gym, etc. So I’m banking on his liking smaller, defined, typical, more isolated campus settings. He really wants that college experience and I think that a school where campus based activities are popular and plentiful is what he’s looking for.</p>
<p>YDS: want to switch kids? You can have a D for a while and I can have an S…</p>
<p>I’ll be happy to post when we’re back. Tonight’s job is to find rental cars & hotel rooms.</p>
<p>Too funny. I just gave my son a mailing from the community college about summer classes for high school students. He looked it over and his first and only response was “No essay?” He gave me back the form, completely filled out and signed, about 5 minutes later. So I’m guessing he won’t be applying to (m)any schools with lengthy supplemental essays.</p>
<p>Hello,
New member here. Oldest son is Class of '13 also. But I didn’t know about CC until recently so I’ve come to the party late. Nice to have a place to get insight into what others have encountered on their kids college journeys, or just to vent when the stress makes me crack!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses about studying and notes. I bookmarked the how to study website, it looks like a very good guide.</p>
<p>Another question/update - I checked with our high school about D taking a course from an accedited high school correspondence program(Mizzou, UN Lincoln, BYU, North Dakota). D wanted to take at least one to help raise her GPA to above a 3.5. High school said no, that they do not allow transferring of credits. Credits can be earned at the high school, or through a local cc that does College Now dual credit classes in the high school, which completely defeats the purpose of doing a correspondence course! The most frustrating part is that other districs in our county DO allow the transferring of credits, so those students can take as many courses that they can get approval for to raise their GPA. I don’t feel that that is fair to the kids in my district, how can they compete with that? So, tomorrow I will talk to several people in the district to try to find out why, since the person that I spoke to could not tell me. I will start with the Director of Curriculum and go from there.</p>
<p>If, in the end, my D’s hs will not let her transfer this(these) course(s) to her school and factor them into her GPA, is it possible that she would still be able to take them, then send the transcript of her correspondence course to colleges along with her hs transcript, and that they may factor them into her GPA? Any idea how these may work, or how colleges will look at this type of situation?</p>
<p>Welcome 3forMe! </p>
<p>MidwestMom- Your school sounds like it knows what it’s doing. Admission officers want to see the student succeed at the highest level of classes that the student’s school offers. Period. They typically do not want to see GPA’s altered because of correspondence courses that, let’s face it, are typically easier than the student’s other ‘real’ classes at their HS. I would absolutely NOT sign up for a course like this and send the grade “on it’s own” to a college. They are not looking to see how well your D takes a correspondence course. What they are looking for (most of them) is how your D succeeds at her own high school with the courses that it offers.</p>
<p>I am not sure about the difference between correspondence and online classes. Our high school system also does not accept online/correspondence credits. Our D wanted to replace an algebra grade from middle school with an online course and we were told only the summer school class could be used to repeat and raise a grade. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, taking classes at CC even online may indicate a willingness to take on new challenges and demonstrate this to the college. </p>
<p>We had a really good experience with an online class. My son goes to Carnegie Mellon and I was completely shocked that they let him transfer a credit from our local CC that was an online course. He wanted to get out of a core course (global history) and we looked into all of our local universities (we have lots) but 1) they were really expensive --georgetown and GWU 2) the schedule was difficult if he also wanted to work/travel in the summer and 3) global history class was actually a little tough to find–GW and Georgetown had exotic history classes like “women in 17th century russia” or “class struggle in 19th century africa” but good old “intro to world history” was apparently too mundane for the pricey schools. Luckily there was a summer-long online class in world history at our regional CC. Son got approval from his dean at CMU and then suddenly had to deal with the shock that the class was pretty rigorous…all primary source readings, several long essays/short papers and two exams where he had to go to a test center within a specified time period. He did get a good grade but he also said it was a really good class and he learned a lot. In fact it was better than his other core classes at CMU. He said there was good online class discussions and threads and he got a lot of feedback on his papers from the prof. </p>
<p>Would CMU have accepted the CC credits from HS? Apparently CMU would have accepted a limited number of the credits, but the HS would NOT have counted them toward his HS GPA. Only in rare cases can they take a class at CC toward HS credit (when not offered in summer school) because our HS offers even advanced math and sciences.</p>
<p>So…if your kid wants to take something that isn’t offered at HS and show that when it is a course that interests him/her he can take on the challenge, why not allow him/her to take an online class? It may help in college entrance even if it leaves the HS GPA unaffected. Also, like my kid, yours may welcome a bit of a challenge in the summer and get a surprisingly good educational experience out of it.</p>
<p>Just a warning about BYU online courses - depending on the course, it may be mostly a traditional correspondence course. My daughter took human geography online with BYU during the summer after 9th grade in hopes of preparing for the AP human geography exam because the course was not offered at her high school. The course was not very good. It was a real hassle (and expensive) to get a local university to proctor her midterm and final. She had to mail in two papers and wait for them to be mailed back. The online portion was minimal. It also didn’t cover the AP human geography curriculum very well. She ended up scoring a 3. In retrospect, I wish she had just self-studied a prep guide.</p>
<p>Popping in from 2012 HS parents forum to share this FREE summer program with any Texas high school girls who are currently in 10th or 11th grade: </p>
<p>HURRY, the deadline is in two days! Good luck!</p>
<p>This is FREE for TEXAS GIRLS ONLY! They’ve been holding it annually for awhile. Save the info if you know any Texas girls not old enough this year. If the direct link doesn’t work next year, just search for ‘first bytes’ on the college web site. </p>
<p>Computer Science Summer Camp for Girls
[Computer</a> Science Department | The University of Texas at Austin | First Bytes](<a href=“Summer Academies | Department of Computer Science”>Summer Academies | Department of Computer Science) </p>
<p>First Bytes Summer Camp is a one-week residential camp program for high school girls. It is designed to dispel myths about computer science and intrigue young women with the potential of computing and the excitement of problem solving.</p>
<p>Registration opens on January 27th, 2012 and closes on March 23, 2012. </p>
<p>No advanced math or prior programming experience is required. What is required is curiosity about the most powerful artifact the human race has ever built.</p>
<p>Through First Bytes You Can:
- See how computers solve real-world problems in medicine, the arts, and more.
- Use your problem-solving and reasoning skills to explore real computer science.
- Get hands-on programming experience and feel the thrill of getting a computer to do what you tell it to do.
- Visiting research labs and learning abut the newest technology.
- Work in a team.
- Find out about the wide variety of jobs you can have as a computer scientist.
- Enjoy a taste of university life and,
- Have a week of computer science fun!</p>
<p>You are encouraged to apply if:
You are a girl,
You are finishing your sophomore or junior year in high school,
You have done well in math and science classes,
You have a GPA of 3.0 or above (or 80 out of 100)</p>
<p>Sixty (60) applicants will be accepted. Accepted applicants will be housed on campus in the Jester Hall. Counselor to camper ratios will be maintained at 1:10.</p>
<p>Our sponsors will provide for ALL COSTS of the camp except travel to and from the UT Austin campus. Keep in mind parking on campus can be challenging and expensive. Parking expenses will not be covered.</p>
<p>Accepted participants will be required to make a $100 camp deposit to hold their spot. Please note that the deposit is for those who are accepted into the program, not for the initial application. This deposit is FULLY REFUNDABLE upon registration at the camp. (Waivers of the deposit fee requirement will be available if necessary.) A wait list will be developed for no-shows and cancellations.</p>
<p>Eligibility Requirements:
You must be a high school student entering your junior or senior year in fall 2012.
You must maintain a grade point average of 3.0 (80 out of 100) or higher.
You must be a Texas resident.</p>
<p>There are four main steps in the online application process:
- Complete the online entry for your personal and academic information, your personal essay and any additional comments.
- Have your High School Computer Science, Science, or Math Teacher or your Counselor fill out the Teacher/Counselor Recommendation Form. They can mail or scan and email the form.
- Submit your High School Transcript
- Check over your online application and Submit it!</p>
<p>Thanks, woody! I’ll pass it on to friends with dd!</p>