<p>Lol, swizzle. Cheer up, will ya?</p>
<p>Scholarship letter came in the mail for D today! :D. I think it may have kick-started the scholarship application process. D has agreed to solicit LORs starting Monday, so that she can turn in her scholarship app. I’ll start looking at the different honors programs for her and see which ones, if any make sense for her. We are rolling on now! I think she’s motivated.</p>
<p>Just in case anyone else would need to know, I called College Board about my SAT question. If you are signed up to take an SAT test or subject test and you don’t take it, they do not go ahead and send your previous scores. So if you picked four free schools to receive scores, even previous scores-- nothing gets sent!</p>
<p>I know this question was asked a couple of days ago- I called SAT bc DD decided she was done with testing & is not taking SAT again. They do not send any scores from previous tests if you do not take the test. With deadlines looming I paid to have them sent. I’m going crazy checking the websites to make sure everything was sent. Transcripts requested 3 months ago are still not showing up! It is very interesting how different colleges handle scores. The ones DD is applying to seem to prefer both tests. One college only counts composite ACT & M& V of SAT. Science portion of ACT is often ignored except as part of composite score. On top of everything else DD has All State auditions next week & she is attending an all day choral bootcamp at our flagship. This will be a great way to get to see if she likes the music department.</p>
<p>GreekMana- Because we are already losing the registration fee you would think that CollegeBoard would go ahead & send scores but no. More money for them!</p>
<p>CollegeBoard has to be a very lucrative business - they have no incentive to give your money back or send four old scores - they essentially have a monopoly - and there is nothing we can do about it :(</p>
<p>Cromette congrats on scholarship letter. Yay!</p>
<p>Social: good luck with auditions. That’s exciting!</p>
<p>Ordered transcripts for about half of D’s schools and I got an email that her Sept ACT scores haven’t been received by the school yet. I wonder if it’s delayed due to the writing scores. She hasn’t received her mailed copy of ACT scores yet either. Admin at HS says she received a batch of scores but not my D’s. </p>
<p>All of her schools allow us to submit the scores on the transcript so I don’t have to pay ACT. !!!</p>
<p>Help. Who are my other college applications self-help book readers? I need to find something… Which book had the advice about not writing your essay over the heads of the admissions rep? There was an example of an essay that was a parallel from a famous book/author. It was given to four different admission reps to evaluate. 3 reps didn’t get it and had no idea what the essay was trying to achieve. Only one rep realized that it was an insightful analogy to a famous style of writing. </p>
<p>Can anyone tell me which book this came from? Thanks.</p>
<p>I love this board as it saves me so much time looking up info. It seems someone always has the same questions I do!</p>
<p>Things are crazy here, but moving ahead and not back. Just like all of you, we are knee deep in applications, and just like all of you the school demands are full steam ahead.</p>
<p>In addition to my Bedrest pregnancy, I’ve been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. It was unexpected, (I was an exercise nut prior to this pregnancy) no weight issue. I’ve had an aversion to sweets the whole time. I don’t drink juice, soda, junk.I have no weight issue now.I am however immobile so no way to process carbs. I’m now having to check my blood sugar several times a day in addition to diet changes. I have 6 more weeks to go! It’s been a long 10 weeks of this!</p>
<p>My D13 takes the SAT tomorrow so she’ll go stay with my parents to have some peace and quiet to do last minute prep. There is no way she’ll get it here, with my 5 year old demanding her attention, and my 8 year old Aspie doing his thing. </p>
<p>Does`anyone else have a child on the spectrum here? My 8 year old was diagnosed with Aspergers at 5. He wears the same outfit everyday here. Since I’ve been on bedrest and school started, he’s trying to do the same at school. I finally told him today, that he could wear the same thing at home everyday, but not at school. He retorted “Is that a school rule?” Meanwhile my 5 year old is in love with a little girl in his kindergarten class. He says she looks like “Dora” I can’t wait till I’m off of bedrest and can spy on my possible future Daughter in law lol!</p>
<p>I was reading the class rank issue upthread. My D13 is our oldest, so we didn’t know much about the tricks and trades at her school others knew about to tweek rank. We were shocked when the first ranks came out after the conclusion of her Freshman year and her 4.0 with all honors and advanced Math classes landed her at No 34 behind kids without straight As with similar classes. Kids were taking summer classes before Freshman year. Summer school is not free ,in addition, because of Ds music studies she couldn’t take Summer school. She is top 3% of over 600, but if one doesn’t take Summer classes, there is no way you can be Val. The school downplays Val because of this. They don’t even introduce them at Graduation. The ranks do go to the colleges, but if a holistic approach is applied hopefully things will even out.</p>
<p>I asked this question before ,but the board moves so fast. For those with kids in IB, does TOK count as a Core course when colleges calculate unweighted GPA?</p>
<p>TVenee–I can’t imagine trying to do all of this while on BEDREST, YIKES!!! Hang in there. I can’t help with the class rank thing either. I wonder if our oldest has Aspergers–he wore the same outfit for about 15 years :D.</p>
<p>TVenee- I can’t answer any of your questions, but I have you and your family in my prayers. Thanks for your posts. I think its a good reminder for me that I need to button up and stop complaining. Big problems, small problems. I’m stressing over small problems. I need to keep reminding myself of that.
I will say, I think its ok not to be Val. There are some schools out there that take pride in turning down Vals. And they must know that people play tricks to manipulate the system. Your D got great grades with tough classes. Isn’t that what all colleges say that they are looking for?</p>
<p>Good morning!
Greekmana, I think thatMs in the Hernandez book.</p>
<p>Sorry, no help on the rank thing… D 's rank has suffered because she was ill and had to drop back on the number of courses and out of the highest (weighted) level for 2. I’m hoping that the ad coms see past the number, which is why she has mostly the “holistiic admissions” schools on her list.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>Good morning!</p>
<p>Greekmana: I think you are referring to the college essay book by Harry Bauld. </p>
<p>TVenee: Good luck with all you have on your plate! We are rooting for you! When my daughter (now 22) was in preschool, despite having a closet full of clothes, insisted on wearing the same dress with the same shirt over it every day to school. Being a working mom of 3, I picked my battles with her and just washed the dress every day so she could wear it. The teachers at the preschool were always asking if we were having money problems and if we needed to borrow money!!</p>
<p>Rank: I am glad that the school doesn’t rank, because S3 takes the hardest classes available, but in addition he takes a lot of extra classes (production drama, student government, Youth and Government, Journalism etc…). Our school is on a block schedule with 8 periods. You only need to take 5 periods of classes, but with Journalism S3 takes 6 (and then ASB is zero period and Youth and Government (like Production Drama last year) is “9th” period. So he has 5 APs that are “watered down” by all of his other classes, therefore a kid with the same 5 APs, with no extra classes, even if they had the same grades, would be ranked higher. The only time they do rank is for valedictorian which is the top 2%.</p>
<p>DD13b got accepted academically to Ball State today. They offered her a Presidential Scholarship. It’s all nice, but it’s sort of a meh moment since if she doesn’t get an offer from the MT department, it doesn’t really matter and that won’t be known until March or April. The BSU MT dept also offers 7-10 Presidential Talent Scholarships a year… what I don’t know is if the two scholarships will stack or you just take the larger of the two offered. The other talent scholarships are pretty pithy at $500-$1k.</p>
<p>TVenee - I have a 17yo Aspie. He wasn’t diagnosed until the summer before 8th grade. I suppose he has a very subtle/mild case and we’re still adjusting to it. Today was a textbook aspie moment though. He normally takes the dog out when he wakes up at 6. Today, there was another dog in the dogwalk so he came back inside. He did his usual morning routine and was leaving for school but had never taken the dog back out. He about lost it when I insisted that he still needed to take the dog out. Not because he didn’t want to, but because now his schedule was interrupted. It wasn’t until later that I realized that’s what it was so I ended up calling him to apologize for yelling at him.</p>
<p>I also have a 17 yr old Aspie. He was diagnosed at 3 with PDD-NOS and then at 6 with Aspergers. Although now only exhibits OCD symptoms. He had lots of therapies for his communication and social skills and is now, as he puts it, “the most popular kid in school.” We had several difficult years before he began to communicate well (tantrums, meltdowns, etc) but now things are relatively smooth. We’ve learned to role play and rehearse new situations and anti-anxiety medications help. He’s really very laid back - as long as he can follow some sort of a schedule. Like Reeinaz’ son, changes in schedule don’t go very well.</p>
<p>Walker …Congradts!!!..I think even an acceptance at any school relaxes them a lot…
with all her auditions coming up that will be a blessing in disguise… :)</p>
<p>Congratulations to your D, Walker!</p>
<p>Reeinaz: I have had so many of those moments when later I realize “what was really going on” and then I have to call and eat crow. Thank God for moments of reflection, because those phone calls are so good for everyone in the end! :)</p>
<p>Megpmom: 
Glad he’s doing so well. “the most popular kid in school”! I have a severly ADHD adult child - and looking back, I can see so many instances that I handled improperly because I didn’t understand that CHANGE was traumatic for her - even changes that seemed small to me. They were really hard for her. If I could go back and do anything in my whole life over, it would be raising her - even though it was the most difficult thing - I wish I could try again. She should probably have therapy to make up for my ignorance. I’ll get my checkbook. :/</p>
<p>Congrats cromette and Walker</p>
<p>S has finally submitted his transcript request. Those 11/1 EA deadlines are really creeping up quickly. I just told him to send his LOR writer a reminder. I’m thinking his school’s college schedule didn’t really start until 10/1, so all those promises of a 2 week turnaround won’t be fulfilled until the 15th or so.</p>
<p>Omg…my poor son…lmao. He got a take home test today. When he came home, I asked him if it looks hard and he said he didn’t know because he didn’t look at it yet. I asked him why not and he said because he wasn’t at home.</p>