<p>eyemamom… DS12 on his first SAT scored WAY higher on the math than the CR… we were shocked as math was not his strong suit and he is a huge reader and scored high on the PSAT on CR. I was actually jumping up and down with glee over that math score because I knew he would score higher on the CR the next go…that it must have been some sort of fluke, and sure enough his CR went up 100 pts and with a super score he was golden… I am sure your D will be the same.</p>
<p>@lulumama that is a nice problem to have to decide between two fantastic schools. Will he revisit before deciding or is he done with all that? I love @eyemamom decision making methods. I am sure deep down he knows what he wants but either way he can’t go wrong! What is D2’s interests?</p>
<p>Earlier in the week S got elected NHS president for senior year. He already had his first duty and it was to join the other Jr. Leadership to pick out the graduation announcements for the CLASS of 2014. That seems so early but the company was probably at our school doing or delivering something for the senior class.When he got inducted in the fall, he decided that he wanted to be president for senior year. He is the kind of kid that wouldn’t want “vice-anything” and will be so disappointed if he is sal. instead of val.</p>
<p>I think he needs to relax a little.</p>
<p>^ sal vs val…
uh…there will always be others who are better…it just depends on the size of the pond.</p>
<p>Our K1 is at a U where many many were sal, val, etc…and superlative in many areas. Come graduation and in the workplace I doubt anyone will ask K1 what the gpa was in hs or college.</p>
<p>As for my other kid on the couch…</p>
<p>Wow it is already early afternoon. Where has my day flown? Hoping to get things tidier before we hit the new week.</p>
<p>Hope you all are having a great day. We have had some springish weather which is always cheery.</p>
<p>K2 is doing hw. I hope today looks up test dates for a second SAT. The first was a fair start…</p>
<p>Happy weekend.</p>
<p>D14 had SAT CR800 M740 WR650 1st time, her GPA is not that goood 3.6. What she need to do to improve chance to get to Columbia, Cornell, princeton,yale, Upen, Rice, Nortra Dame, Harvard, MIT. Any suggestions appreciated, I am a single mom cut all expense to send her to all girls private hs. I do not know what is the best chance for her to go to a good school, do not have to worry about $$$. Appreciated!!!</p>
<p>xukui, what does your daughter do besides schoolwork? For any of those tippy top schools, she’s going to need something exceptional beyond test scores and GPA. If she goes to a good private school, chances are her guidance counselors can help you figure out what’s realistic and what she can do to make her applications shine.</p>
<p>Xukxi,
You’ve listed 10 very excellent schools that accept a very small percentage of the nations very best students each year. Best to each school is defined by each school differently and is not always perfect stats, although many students applying will have near perfect stats. Many will get denied. </p>
<p>What can your daughter do? Retest and try to pull up the written score if at all possible. She’s not going to change her GPA much at this point but upward trends are always great. End as strong as possible. Essays should be creative, personal, and hers alone. There should be someone at her private school who can advise on this. She should take SAT subject tests this spring. </p>
<p>What can YOU do? The list you have is full of reaches (schools that accept very few students). You need to help your daughter craft a list of schools to apply to that include match schools (she has a reasonable chance of acceptance), as well as safety’s (she knows she’ll be accepted here). She should be deciding if she wants urban vs rural, big vs small, research vs LAC. The list should be big enough that she’ll have good options come April, but not so big that there are any she wouldn’t consider attending one or she’s struggling to complete the applications and supplements. </p>
<p>There should be a college counselor at your daughters school who might give you some help knowing where past students have been successful in admissions and help give you ideas to explore for matches and safety’s. </p>
<p>I hope this helps.</p>
<p>Thank you mathmomvt and blueiguana!!!
She play varsity tennis (school 3 yrs champion), Band/performance as main guita, founder/president of philosighy club, tech person in Theater, robotic, med, … too many clubs, take full load of AP classes. She had two SAT sub. test (last year without take AP classes 700 chemical and 650 world history), will take SAT sub test USH, eng, math, and AP test for USH, ENG, BIO. She will retake SAT this June. She also took ACT last year with 29 and will take it again this sat. She love lib art, but love chemistry (stronge math skill)better than Bio. She love robotic with hands on skills.
Small school with both lib art and engineering will be best for her, but $$$ is important. Tuffs, Tuland, UT, GT,Purdure, UM, A&M, UVA, baylor. SHe is Streched too thin, and with little/no communication with me. Any other school that can fit her. THank you very much!</p>
<p>Sounds like she’s narrowed down the type of school she wants. That’s great. You might try checking out Lehigh, Bucknell, and Lafayette. As possible match schools. </p>
<p>This is hard for us to tell you reach/match/safety as GPAs mean different things at different schools. Is the 3.6 weighted or UW? Is your D in the top 10% of her class, or do they rank (many schools do not)?</p>
<p>Most schools are asking for three subject tests maximum unless you are homeschooled or have attended an unaccredited high school. This isn’t the case with your DD. She should check with schools she’s interested in to see if they have specific test requirements for engineering, but otherwise she should pick her strongest subjects, although math2 is good if possible. She also needs to check all schools test reporting requirements. Some are score choice, some are best single sitting, and others want every test ever taken (you can’t suppress a low test score). This is important to think about when you’re debating adding an extra subject test just to see how she’ll do. Know how many she needs and which ones. She may not need that extra test. She already has two from last year. More is not always better. </p>
<p>Your DD does sound like she has many activities. All schools we have looked at, not ivy but several 25-30 rank, all want to see just a few ECs or activities the kids are really committed to and involved in. A dozen things with several that she just doesn’t have time to give her full passion and involvement isn’t going to garner more attention, and as you’ve seen will really stretch your student very thin. Are there a select few, maybe 3-4 at the most, that she really cares about, is really involved in, maybe holds leadership positions in that she would be sad to give up?? I would have her keep those and give her permission to drop the others. If its NHS, sure you want to stay in, but the ecology club (example)? Unless that’s her passion you have to cull the weekly meetings somehow. </p>
<p>Also, one post states do not have to worry about money, the next states money is important. Could you clarify? </p>
<p>Perhaps other parents could weigh in, but that’s my thought.</p>
<p>Arrrgh! The high school cancelled one of d’s classes for nest year. It was a one semester course, one of the handful of weighted classes offered, and there is no replacement, at least none that we can find. Great, just great . . .</p>
<p>ordinarylives: online or independent study?</p>
<p>Seattle Mom beat me to it, but those are our high school’s (kinda crappy but better than nothing) answers to courses that they cancel or don’t fit into the student’s schedule. Another option may be taking something for dual credit at a local college.</p>
<p>thank you!!</p>
<p>If I knew the class times, I could find something for her at my employer, but we register next week. She won’t get a s heddle with class times until August, and by then lots of stuff will be full.</p>
<p>OL, explain your dilemma to the guidance counselor, and ask if there’s any way you can get a “draft” of her schedule for next year. If they are canceling classes, they are probably also laying out the schedule now. They might officially say you can’t have a schedule until August, but they might actually know it now. Although honestly I can’t imagine a daytime class off the highschool campus working out – I would think it would need to be late afternoon or evening anyhow (or I guess possibly very early if she had an empty first period, which as you say may be hard to find out).</p>
<p>eyemamom, thank you for your advice. When I first read it, I thought it might be a little too zen for this tiger mom. But I’ve reconsidered and I’m going to take your suggestions to heart. My sincere thanks to you!</p>
<p>Ognopgod, S13 will not be revisiting his schools before making his decision. We live far away and it’s not very easy (or cheap) to do. However, I bit the bullet and offered to fly him out if he thought he needed it. To my relief, he turned me down. 
Btw, I am amazed at how much contact his schools are making with him and how they are trying to help him decide. Almost daily phone calls from one school or another for a while. Also, most of them are having local receptions put on by alumni clubs–and they’re not just meet and greets. They seem like extensions of the admissions office. For instance, at Penn’s reception this Sunday, they’ll have a distinguished alum speak about her experience plus they’ve organized a skype convo with several current students who are from our home state. Also, they’re serving lunch. Just yesterday, S13 received a handwritten note from his Columbia admissions officer. I thought that was the stuff of legend and didn’t think he would get one. It was surprisingly persuasive to know that this stranger in NYC knows who my son is and wants him at Columbia. It feels kinda nice to be the pursued instead of the pursuer for a change!</p>
<p>To answer your question, S14’s interests are very different from his bro’s. Our school is k-12 and he is a camp counselor to grades 4 and 6 when they do their annual trips. He’s also a Student Director for the local TEDx event. I think that will be his best EC because he’s learning so much by working with the corporate world/adults. He was even on the local news last week to publicize the event. That’s it, other than a couple of JV sports teams. What is your son into?</p>
<p>Had an interesting chat with our college counselor the other day, and wanted to share what she told me. All year long, she receives scholarship information from local businesses, etc. Many scholarships are $500 to $1000. Some are as much as $20,000 over four years. Given the state of the economy and high cost of college, you’d think our students would flock to her office in search of help. The opposite has happened. Only a handful of students have turned in apps for scholarships. This is free money!!! She told me that she had to tell one business that gives out seven, $1,000 scholarships that no one applied. No essay, either. Just fill out the form and say where you plan to go to school, what you plan to study and how the money will be used. Just a one or two-line statement. Hopefully, that business is not turned off by other seniors. My son said he plans to apply for the money next year … if it’s there.</p>
<p>lulu - glad anything I could say would help. I’m not really a hippie type, I just know that most people usually know what they want deep down. I’d mention to pray about it, but that seems more inflammatory to people than just being still. “Be still and know I’m god”, lots of references in the bible about being still and quiet and reflective. In the end, there doesn’t seem like there is any bad choice.</p>
<p>And in brighter news - d took her last practice test for her act tutoring and her scores went up dramatically since the first one. She has two tutoring sessions this week before the test Saturday. It seems to be clicking a bit more now for her. Should she score as well on the real deal, she should be okay and in that middle 50% range for her schools. We even got to have a little self esteem boost - she has been feeling like she was really dumb over all of this. We got to talk about how her iq didn’t suddenly go up over the last couple of months, she figured out how to take the test better. And the test measures how well you take that test. </p>
<p>I think after this test we’re going to have her stop testing until the fall and have her try again. I agree that just maturing and growing up, and some brush up sessions beforehand could help as well.</p>
<p>You have a very insightful DD. I’ve shared before, but quickly…S2 bombed the CR on the PSAT. Well over 70 for math and written but just tanked CR. I was glad as it showed my very math/science brain kid didn’t get how they were presenting the information. He needed to learn their language, approach, how to take the test. He ended up with over a 700 on the CR (idk, it’s been a long time, maybe 720?). We knew he was capable.</p>
<p>Good luck to your DD! The practice, but more importantly the calm and confidence will make the world of difference.</p>
<p>Good morning all! May I join the group? Hopefully, I’ll bring some wisdom and support in addition to drawing on yours!</p>
<p>Sending last child to college “Cheergirl”–currently a Junior in Montgomery County, Maryland. Solid GPA (3.7ish-uw, 4.4ish-w). Good EC’s. Mock/practice test results frighteningly dismal however. Taking first “official” ACT on Saturday, same for SAT on June 1. Not panicking yet!</p>
<p>We’ve toured UPitt (crossed off list), UDel (LOVED everything about it!), UMiami (awesome, definitely a reach), and UMD/College Park (first choice, fingers crossed!). Visiting Elon in a few weeks, and JMU next month. Also hoping to visit Indiana, may have to wait til the fall. </p>
<p>The birds are finally chirping and the cherry blossoms are opening up; wishing everyone a spectacular Monday!</p>