<p>D checked her scores this morning. She is happy. Ended up with 3 out of 4 sections hitting their highest from previous test taking, 1 was a point less but still 99% and it wouldn’t have bumped her composite up. So her superscore is now a one sitting score. Send them off to the 3 schools that already have her SAT’s (her ACT is 2 pts higher than her SAT scores are on the concordance table.) </p>
<p>Ladies and gentleman, that completes our households foray into standardized testing. Good luck to all who got results today and who are planning another take in the next few months!</p>
<p>I started working on the yearbook ad for D2 yesterday. By that I mean that I looked at D1’s yearbook to see what we did for her, and to see what the “norms” were.</p>
<p>mailing off the proofs for DD yearbook (and other pictures “we” liked for grandparents)
No looking at ACT scores at this house…I really think she does not know! She’ll find out soon enough, in school, I imagine.
does anyone have any idea how to determine schools with good pre-med advising?</p>
<p>Congrats to all who saw improved scores!
Y’all are making me wish D had retaken them…a 1 pt bump would improve merit aid chances, and admissions for her 2 reaches. D is not interested in retaking though, and wont do any prep, so she is probably a 1 and done.</p>
<p>Glimmer of hope last night when D asked me to print out the college list with deadlines… but given the quick glance it received, I think in her mind, she has plenty of time. Is it too early for a Mimosa Monday?</p>
<p>Oh Happy Day! I stopped bugging DD about her essays, and she wrote them behind my back She just called from school to say that she showed her CA essay her college advisor who “LOVED IT” </p>
<p>I should have forbidden her to work on the essays this summer. She would be done by now!</p>
<p>Carla - That is very funny - I think I might use that strategy with S15! </p>
<p>Frustrated here because dd’s LOR had one typo on it and she is still waiting for the teacher to fix it - school won’t sent transcripts or LOR without both - so we are waiting! She has friends getting acceptances and would like to have one under her belt (or at least I would!)</p>
<p>Going to Vanderbilt on Friday - anyone have experience with touring there - thoughts?</p>
<p>drmom123–we’ve been able to get a lot of information on the various college websites for premed advising. Some websites have no information, some have a lot. It’s a good place to start. We also look at stats for kids getting into med school, which tells a lot. Most visits we have met with the pre-med adviser and you can get a lot of information that way as well (obviously). One school DD loved, but crossed off the list because the pre-med adviser was kind of a dolt and really couldn’t answer questions.</p>
<p>SteveMA: Thanks. I have gone on some of the websites. Some of the schools are pretty upfront about their advising. Others seem to say “we have a comitte…it is up to you to use it…” one even said “once you decide to apply to Med School we will help you…(of course) we cannot recommend everyone equally…” I thought that was a little offputting. I would prefer to know that once you enter as a freshman, there is an adviser that ALL kids meet with from day one, to get them on the right track. I guess that doesn’t happen in all places.</p>
<p>I wasn’t able to check this site over the weekend and when I get on today I was 13 pages behind! In my brief skimming I see that there was a LOT accomplished. Congratulations to all the acceptances, scholarship offers and ACT scores! What a great bunch of kids we have!</p>
<p>DS16 lost freshman football game again, but at least they weren’t shut out this week. DS13 won varsity 41-7! It was a great team game but DS had a bad kicking game: 3 for 5 extra pt. kicks and missed his field goal. The consolation is that it was raining. His stats are taking a huge hit, as a sophomore and freshman he had 90% average (he only missed 3 kicks the whole season as a freshman). I think any hope of walking-on in college may be pretty bleak as of right now. :(</p>
<p>On the bright side CA and NMSF app are done! Yay!!! He used the same essay for both and the final draft was really good! Now on to all of the supplements and 8 more essays. Uggg.</p>
<p>So I have a kid that will be happy with her one point single sitting improvement and a kid that will be disappointed by her one point drop. Her super score did go up though so I’m hoping that she will at least be heartened by that. She will be sad and probably a little upset because she really did study hard and her sister NEVER even looked at anything review-wise. The written isn’t back yet of course, but I think both will have great results with that. Sometimes it really sucks having twins. Sigh. It’s hard to be happy for one and sad for the other all at the same time. I told my DH that we need to stop the madness. We are worried because one of our spawn is ONLY in the 90th percentile. Good grief, my one kid is really smart and tests well but that doesn’t make her sister a crack baby! No offense to crack babies…</p>
<p>I got kicked out of the middle school where I was subbing. I just can’t handle these kids that are just there for babysitting services. That’s okay, I got called to sub in second grade which I like so much better. I also applied for jobs in my field today. I feel like my soul is stifled.</p>
<p>Ahsmuoh…if it works for your schedule, I suggest hitting The Pancake Pantry for breakfast…it’s a classic Vandy tradition…last time I was there the place had doubled in space, but on a weekend morning still had a few minutes wait…well worth it imho</p>
<p>Our DD’13 went up a point since her highest ACT to date for composite on the September ACT!!! :D</p>
<p>We are excited and she is disappointed …she wanted to go up two points. However, this definitely puts her in the top 25% of ACT scores for all five of her schools, which I hope bodes very well for merit aid. I tried showing her some statistics to encourage her, and so on, to no avail…but I’ll let it rest awhile and hopefully she will appreciate her composite. Interestingly enough, this top score matches her superscore, so even if her schools superscored we would only need to send this one. Whew! I was not looking forward to selecting which to send if her composite did not go up this last time.</p>
<p>SO!! Taken from RobD: Ladies and gentleman, that completes our households foray into standardized testing. Woot woot!! :D</p>
<p>Congrats to the kids that earned better scores, and hugs to those who didn’t quite get what they wanted. Our kids are so on the ball – all of them – swizzle and napalm too (don’t we have one more student that posts??) – that we need to remember that this is just one part of their application. As swizzle said, she (they) are more than just a test score.</p>
<p>PS – vandyeyes – when we tried to get to the Pancake Pantry during our last college visit to a school in Nashville the restaurant had a HUGE line! Looked like more than a few minutes wait We hope to eat there next time we are in Nashville.</p>
<p>Hi peeps, I need some advise. How are your kids handling the activities in CA? I read somewhere that you should make your own chart, similar to the format in CA, that allows you to give more detailed explanations of your leadership & activities. Is anyone doing that? If so, do you just leave the activities section blank and then attach the list somewhere else? I haven’t looked at it yet, is there a place to upload external documents? </p>
<p>Vandyeyes - thanks for the Pancake Pantry suggestion - dd loves breakfast food so we may give it a try!</p>
<p>As far as the CA activities - it says you can attach a “resume” but you still have to fill out the activites area on the application. It is more confusing to most kids (I think most of our kids make a bigger deal out of it than necessary) because some activities can’t be measure in hrs/wk and wk/yr. Stressed my dd out - until I convinced her that it wasn’t a big deal.</p>
<p>A good tutor sure seems to help for AP Calc AB…son has always been an OK math student, mix of A’s and B’s. He was pretty worried about AP calc and warned us to have low expectations for the class grade. After 3 weeks of class we decided to hire a tutor…</p>
<p>84 exam 1
80 exam 2
2 meetings with the tutor and…
98 exam 3 !!!</p>
<p>Walker1194
LOL at the crack baby joke. It must be tough with twins. </p>
<p>BTW I sub teach also. Only elementary school for me as I firmly believe all middle school kids should be tied up and locked in a closet until they are old enough for high school.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the acceptances and good ACT news people! Walker, I am close to feeling your pain. D is a brilliant student, S one year behind does not do as well (nor does he try as hard) but its tough with two fabulous kids to be sure they always know they are awesome, even with “only 90th percentile crack baby scores”. God I love that line.
Haystack, does the tutor have a clone in Virginia? D is still freaking over calc. Got her ACTs back today… up one in all but reading, where she dropped two. No idea which (if any) to send since the “up” points are good, but I hate a drop in reading and the composite is the same in both. D is not going to be writing Silverturtle Jr’s guide to test taking, that much is sure. Why can’t colleges superscore ACTs? I’d be almost ok with her scores if they would… Not that she ever studied for them, so I suppose I can’t whine too much. She did a ton of homework this weekend… no college stuff. I’m enforcing my “skip practice for her club team one night each week” rule. I feel horrible about it but the 5 hours of time devoted to getting to and from and the actual session is doing more harm than good. Looks like its going to become College Saturdays in our house too. Her English teacher didn’t like the one essay she has done… she needs to figure out where she is going to make time for this stuff.
But amazingly, S '14 has a B in AP chem. Not sure what is up there, because he has been in a panic about that class and it takes quite a lot to get him to feel school panic but hey- no complaints here. For now. Regarding him.</p>
She just called from school to say that she showed her CA essay her college advisor who “LOVED IT” </p>
…she wanted to go up two points. However, this definitely puts her in the top 25% of ACT scores for all five of her schools, which I hope bodes very well for merit aid. I tried showing her some statistics to encourage her, and so on, to no avail…but I’ll let it rest awhile and hopefully she will appreciate her composite. Interestingly enough, this top score matches her superscore, so even if her schools superscored we would only need to send this one. Whew! I was not looking forward to selecting which to send if her composite did not go up this last time.</p>
We hope to eat there next time we are in Nashville.</p>