<p>mamabear, my D will have 7 year long math classes on her high school transcript. She began taking high school math in the 7th grade with algebra I and then took geometry in the 8th grade. The other 5 math classes she has taken/will take in grades 9-12. Like Perraziman’s S, she will have exhausted her school’s math offerings.</p>
<p>I just got back from a visit to a college fair with DD! She’s been wanting to go on visits, but she’s missed too much school already for her ECs so those will have to wait. The fair went well, at first she wasn’t sure how to approach the booths but after a couple she had it figured out. We were particularly impressed with Rensselaer, she had taken it off her list but decided to add it back after talking to their rep. There weren’t too many schools from her list there, but it was a good experience for her to get comfortable talking to admissions counselors.</p>
<p>Her senior year schedule is shaping up to be more rigorous than junior year, but hopefully less time consuming and more fun. 
At this point she has 4 classes lined up at her high school, and 2 online classes. Her school has a policy that requires seniors to take the full 8 courses, but they’ve been very helpful working with us to accommodate the online classes. She’s also decided not to take her fifth year of Spanish, which I’m forced to agree with although she truly wanted to learn the language. Unfortunately she has had a teacher who is a bit “too nice” the past two years in spanish 3 and then AP spanish language, so she and her classmates aren’t in a good position for the AP test, let alone the next course (which is taught by a different teacher).</p>
<p>S2 just got back from his visit to his sister at American. Got the true college experience - ate in the cafeteria, hung out at the dorm, went to a couple parties, etc. Surprisingly they did make it to church on Easter morning! Did not go to any classes with her - he’s not interested in American anyway. But he definitely can’t wait for college life.</p>
<p>Our school is having a geometry review day for all of the juniors. Since most of these kids had geometry 3 years ago, none of them remember any of it :D. With the ACT this weekend and state testing next week for math, they have this info session, along with some work packets to do at home this week. </p>
<p>For those that have kids with no math choices as seniors, do your schools have college level classes as an option? I’m not sure exactly how much of the kids’ middle school transcripts get sent to colleges. If they send those, our kids will have 8 years of high school math because of the way they structure geometry here-kids can take it in the summer and actually earn 2 credits for that class, but they have plenty of math choices that they can’t take them all if they are in music and a foreign language.</p>
<p>DD did better on her practice tests yesterday for the ACT. She has been getting headaches doing the practice stuff online. I had her use a different computer as her screen has more glare and that helped.</p>
<p>Good luck to all the kids taking the ACT next weekend! DD is taking it in June (after softball season is over.) I should have had her take it months ago, but we screwed up and didn’t register then, so… June is going to be a big slogging mess, but hopefully she’ll get through all the tests and finals etc.</p>
<p>Can I jump in about senior year classes? </p>
<p>So many of you have schools with much more accelerated classes! Our school actually went the other way and backed up the math curriculum (over many of our objections) so AP Calc senior year is as advanced as it gets.</p>
<p>DD is adamant that she doesn’t want to take another year of language, so she is taking a second year of woodworking instead. I’ve told her over and over that it’s not a good idea, but her guidance counselor is backing her up that she’ll be fine. She’ll be taking AP Calc, AP World History, AP Bio, Honors Eng, woodworking and Art. (the art is to fulfill a requirement.)
Given that most of the schools she is looking at have a foreign language requirement, I think this makes no sense, and I’m worried. The adcom’s that I’ve asked have said it’s fine, but I don’t know…</p>
<p>Our kids will have AP Psych (considered an easy class at our school), AP Econ (econ is a required class for graduation), AP calc BC (obviously hard), CIS Spanish, CIS Lit (college classes given at their high school through the state flagship U), band and PE/Study Hall. On paper it looks like a tough schedule but according to the kids, Calc, Spanish and Lit are the only “real” classes, whatever that means :D. The only hard part is they can only miss 5 classes for the CIS classes, which makes it REALLY hard with sports that they have to get out early for. The school tries to get the kids in spring sports into 1st and 2nd hour for those but it doesn’t always work.</p>
<p>They could take a few different math classes senior year, AP Stats, AP Computer Programming, a trig class (I think) and something else I can’t remember without looking it up. They also have the option to take a CIS math class or take classes at the U if they want.</p>
<p>anniezz–her schedule looks fine. Is she looking at highly selective, HYP, schools? If not, her woodworking might actually make her stand out?</p>
<p>blueshoe, that makes more sense now! Mine did the same, but I haven’t been thinking in terms of her having 6 years of math. I was only thinking of her actual HS courses. I have an unofficial transcript, and it does not list MS courses.</p>
<p>AP Psych, Econ, and Gov are all fairly easy at our HS too, because they are all given as year-long classes.</p>
<p>We heard psych was easy too- to the point I didn’t really want my D to take it. It has been a ton of work and is consistently the toughest of her AP classes in that sense. Not knocking taking it or saying its the same in every school but it is no cake walk. The kids are all thinking the teacher heard his was an easy class and decided he didn’t want it to have that reputation. The only class getting more complaints is AP chem right now ( she’s not taking that). I think the classes vary from school to school, to a degree. Even within the school the teacher a kid gets can make a huge difference. I can safely cross psych off her list of potential majors! ��</p>
<p>The seniors at D’s school wore their college t-shirts yesterday. That generated some good discussion at the dinner table last night. “This guy had on a Tulane t-shirt, he is really cool, thus Tulane must be cool.” “This girl did not get accepted to her #1 school, but she has these three other great options.” “Why does everybody want to go pre-med?” “I only saw one U. of State X t-shirt, but there were lots of State Y University t-shirts.” She said there must be lots of undecideds, lots of kids were wearing regular clothes. Maybe they were just trying to keep their “College Confidential”.</p>
<p>I think that made it all pretty real for the juniors. I know lots of schools do the map with the pins for each college selected. Great free advertising for the colleges to a very interested audience (the juniors).</p>
<p>^^^Interesting Bernese! Lots of chatter here as well, based on everyone recounting their spring visit college visits. It’s definitely getting real; D mentioned that she asked a friend if a particular school was still her favorite & she replied “yes, but it’s $52,000! We can’t afford that so I have to start looking at other options.” Which I was glad to hear. Also hearing about senior siblings of friends making choices; D knows them all & knows where they fall on the “smart” scale, so hearing their decisions is making her say hmmmm.</p>
<p>anniezzz: if adcoms and GC’s are telling you that no language next year is OK, then your D should be fine. Most schools have a 2 year foreign language requirement, some have 3; but if she’s not into the foreign language, and that extra year is the things that keeps her out of school X, well is that the school that’s right for her anyway? How many years has she already taken? D1 took 2 years of French (1 year in 8th grade) then was asked to pilot an online Latin class. That only lasted 1 year, so while she had three years of FL, 1 year was in MS and only 2 years were the same language. She did fine. I think taking 2 years of woodworking in HS is excellent, especially for a girl. It’s a useful life skill. When she can miter the corners of the crown molding in her first house, she’ll be happy she took it.</p>
<p>I told D we have to do a post trip debrief. We have to figure out if she’ll take SAT II’s, if she wants to visit the remaining 4 schools on her list & if she wants to add any other schools. </p>
<p>Good luck on the ACTs! D got her state required ACT scores back and she jumped up in math & science (yay!) but due to a timing issue dropped 6 pts on reading. I am not knowledgeable about superscoring; this new ACT shows her as more well rounded but doesn’t have writing, so I figure she’d have to send both anyway and the 1st ACT has 36’s on reading & english. Any words of wisdom? Is it still OK to send 2 sets of scores even if a school says they don’t superscore?</p>
<p>One things I did last week, when we had some downtime, was to mention to D the 3 seasonal April refrains on CC and read some snipets from a few threads. They were the a) I didn’t get into HYP & my parents are disappointed (D was horrified & felt so bad for the kids) b) I didn’t get into any schools because I reached too high & didn’t think a safety was necessary and c) I got into all my schools & never had the money talk with my parents and now I find out they can’t afford to send me there threads. </p>
<p>As insane as things seem with this years admissions, I am (currently) calm knowing that even if the list stands as is, she has 2 admission safeties & 1 financial safety. She’s been brutal about crossing schools off the list, so I know she’d be OK with attending both those schools.</p>
<p>89wahoo–our other kids took the AP Psych, same teacher, and according to this year’s senior class, it hasn’t changed any. The kids still end up doing well on the AP exams (about 80% with 4 or 5) so they must learn stuff along the way:D. I think easy is relative too. It’s more discussion, interactive material, etc. vs something like AP Calc with a lot of homework so it appears easier to the kids.</p>
<p>BerneseMtn-our school puts up college pennants up near the guidance office when students send in their final acceptances and then leaves those up until the next class goes through the process.</p>
<p>I noticed some new car window deals on various cars in the school parking lot yesterday too.</p>
<p>RobD–we haven’t run into a lot of schools that superscore the ACT for admissions but several that do for merit scholarships. I agree though, even if they don’t officially superscore, they do see that yes, they did have this score on a previous test and even subconsciously it has to make a difference.</p>
<p>Want to call everyone’s attention to this article in another thread … interesting stuff.</p>
<p>[New</a> research on how elite colleges make admissions decisions | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“New research on how elite colleges make admissions decisions”>New research on how elite colleges make admissions decisions)</p>
<p>Thanks for the article!
Thanks for the reassurance about DD’s schedule. We’re looking mostly at schools in the 30-45% admit range, higher for our state school safety.
Woodworking is her favorite class… I think that’s why she wants to be a surgeon these days! Lol.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>annie, great essay topic! Would-be surgeon who practies in the woodworking shop!</p>
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<p>I had a similar conversation with my D last week. But added one more: d) I applied to lots of reach schools and one safety that I didn’t really like or put much effort into selecting, and only got into the dreaded safety. </p>
<p>I told her about the CC mantra to start building the college list from the safeties up. It is really easy to find reach schools that everybody loves, so finding safeties and matches that you really like is the most important.</p>
<p>Good morning! Lot’s of activity here lately! </p>
<p>S3 is on day 2 of his Spring Break. He had tennis in the morning and drama in the evening and spent the rest of the day at the beach. We had great weather last weekend and yesterday, but it is supposed to be cold (well, California cold which means highs in the low 60’s) and rainy the rest of the week. The forecast is for rain tomorrow when he goes with Grandma to see Claremont McKenna. I was going to try and have them go on a tour at Pomona as well, but I think I will just have them walk around and we can go on a tour another time. I don’t want overdo it. </p>
<p>Language: I always heard 2 years is required, 3 years is recommended, BUT, if they take 4 years, they don’t have to take a language in college (if it is required). Both D1 and S2 took 3 years and ended up having to take a language in college. I think most Bachelor of Arts majors require a language, but most Bachelor of Science majors do not. </p>
<p>Great article YDS!!</p>
<p>No ACT for us on Saturday. Ends up it would have been a good day for it. Oh well. He will take it in June.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, interesting article. Apparently, some schools start with fit and others start with academics. The ones that start with fit end the process by discussing academics. Those that start with academics end with discussing fit. I would love to know which colleges practice which method.</p>
<p>My guess is the best of the best start with fit.</p>
<p>Every college could have a different language requirement, no one size fits all for the BA/BS.</p>
<p>For example, at my university, 4 years of HS foreign language means you do not have to take it at the U as that meets their requirement. 3 years of HS foreign language means that you will have to typically take 1-2 semesters at the U (depends on where you can place into). 2 years in HS likely means 1-2 years at the U.</p>
<p>Another school that we are looking at does not care how many years you had in HS. They require (for the BA/BS) you to be at level 2 foreign language (basically, 4 semesters worth of college level work) as taught at that school. You have to take the placement test and hope to meet the level 2 standards. If you do, no foreign language needed. If not, you get placed into the approriate level course. You may have had 4 years in HS but may only be able to place out of level 1 meaning you have another year of the language.</p>
<p>Hello, everyone - fun to hear about school visits. Also interesting how different “strength of schedule” can be. DS’ (private) school only ALLOWS 5 classes - but the colleges seem to be able to sort it out relatively well if they know the school (and most of them do - there are 3 FT college GC’s). His senior schedule isn’t particularly rigorous, although he does have some pretty advanced classes (post-calculus math, AP French). Maybe he’s just getting better at handling it. His gym class this term is a hoot, though - he signed up for cricket (a British teacher offers it). This year he was the only one to sign up, so he and the teacher are doing “independent study cricket”: he watches matches online, writes up reports, they get together and talk cricket, and he exercises independently!</p>