<p>“I just wish that APs could transfer within families.”
Great idea Slithey – like donating blood or a kidney, and so much more valuable!
We’re in the same boat – S will have zero APs, D has mucho APs. </p>
<p>If they do let her graduate early, I think it would be a real plus in the job hunt (you’re not out there competing with all the other May grads). Son of a friend did that (unfortunately he graduated into a horrible economy) but he said it helped.</p>
<p>No job yet but D is volunteering at a place that tutors kids in math. She is also taking her pre-calc/trig class over the summer so she can take her first AP class (A/B Calc) next year. Also, two weeks of debate camp and a couple weeks at the cabin. Oh, and spending time with her boyfriend and friends, reading, watching way too much tv and social networking on her computer. She could make quite a bit of money babysitting/nannying like some of the other girls but we try to make up for that loss by giving her a generous allowance, depending on how much she volunteers. I hope that doesn’t take away from the intrinsic satisfaction she is supposed to get from volunteering.</p>
<p>@ordinarylives: Detassel? Kids are still doing that? Makes me shutter just thinking about it. Guess I have been out of the midwest too long.</p>
<p>Sure do! Guess nobody’s come up with a machine that can do it more efficiently. Bean-walking, however, is as extinct as the dinosaur.</p>
<p>Bean-walking. OK maybe that is what I was thinking of. Grew up on a farm. Before my senior year in HS my Dad had just me and 4 friends Bean-walk. We goofed off so bad. </p>
<p>One field took us two weeks. About a mile wide right on a highway. All our friends would drive by and honk. By the time we finished, all the butterprint we missed was really showing up at the other end. All our friends commented on what a crappy job we did. I was sure we would have to start over with no pay. </p>
<p>I threaten my kids. I am sending you to Grammy’s to “work” this summer.</p>
<p>Ok, I’ll bite. What is bean walking?</p>
<p>…and what’s butterprint? A type of lettuce?</p>
<p>^^Hmm Not being from any agricultural background…I have no clue…
will guess that butterprint is a weed?..</p>
<p>I know what the detasseling is though haven’t done it–and having horrible allergies I am not a candidate to learn…</p>
<p>ah ha…
googled it…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have winner!</p>
<p>Yes, that’s exactly what beanwalking is. Seeds of weeds in the harvested beans means less money for the farmer. Cheaper to hire a crew to walk the field and take out the nastiest–cocklebur, buttonweed, ironweed, pigweed, etc. Kids as young as 12 could be hired for agricultural work, and nearly all of us could get a whole year’s worth of spending money during June and July (by August, the beans are so large and tangled the walking the rows could damage the crop). </p>
<p>Round-up ready soybeans pretty much killed that business as the farmer can now spray the whole field with herbicide. The weeds die, but the beans live.</p>
<p>Yeah butterprint is just weed. Nothing special. I did not even know that about the new round-up soybean. I had heard about “no-till” and thought that was the reason for not needing to walk beans anymore.</p>
<p>Guess there is a reason I did not stay on the farm and didn’t listen to my old man.</p>
<p>I took my d14 to a recruitment program here in CT last eve… five colleges/universities were represented…</p>
<p>Duke, G. Town, UPENN, Stanford, Harvard…even though the weather was less than desirable for driving it was a packed house! Each ac gave a slide show and a 10 minute presentation. I wish the presentations had been longer…she fell in love with Stanford but Harvard remains her favorite… </p>
<p>Each of these schools has so much to offer. Honestly, whats not to like? I know there are many more schools out there for her to take a look at/fall in love with…the list is so long and this is such an important decision for her. </p>
<p>Are there schools out there that are just as good as the aforementioned but less competitive(sp?)? Realizing that though she will have the package to apply, the likelihood of acceptance is quite slim…so she wants to have more viable options to consider… any ideas on where to start?</p>
<p>NewHavenCTmom: Took my oldest son to the same type of recruitment program four years ago. (He just completed his second year of college). Like your daughter, he came away with his faves – Duke and Harvard. (He got waitlisted by those two schools.) He always recommends that a student first see how well he or she does on the PSAT as a junior. It could the link to the “viable option.”</p>
<p>The National Merit program has several excellent state school options that students should pursue – at least safeties. Many of those state schools (Alabama and Oklahoma as examples) have outstanding scholarship programs (full tuition and honors housing, among the perks) to those students who are NM in their respective states. The honors colleges with many of the state schools have excellent programs, too, which allow students to travel, take small classes (my son had seven in one seminar) and do research throughout their undergrad years. </p>
<p>Also, some state school offer big merit money for big SAT/ACT scores, although a student did not earn NM recognition.</p>
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</p>
<p>Of course there are. It’s just that they’re not names on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Here’s a great place to start looking: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/881237-ivy-caliber-safeties-matches-condensed-advice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/881237-ivy-caliber-safeties-matches-condensed-advice.html</a> I also like this list for students who don’t have top-notch stats, but who’d like to find match or reach schools that have at least a cadre of high-caliber students. </p>
<p>Some of the best advice we received here on CC was to start building the college list from the bottom up. It’s easy to fall in love with the tippy-top lottery schools. It takes more work to find safeties that you can fall in love with. :)</p>
<p>I’ll second the National Merit program for providing options for some big-money scholarships. Keep an eye on the cutoff score for qualification for your state, and if it looks like your kid could score high enough, have them put in some effort to prep for the test.</p>
<p>Checking in with everyone as the school year is finishing up.</p>
<p>I am trying to break myself of checking grades on-line. He is hovering between b+ and A- average. I check them frequently but don’t tell him. Then when he brings it up, I act surprised and interested. </p>
<p>He still doesn’t have his schedule set. He made a try out choir (during the day for class credit) but can’t do it because of H. Eng and APUSH (which is blocked) there is only one section which is down from 2 sections last year. If it was because of budget cuts I would understand, but it is the class of 2014 not wanting challenging classes. I love seeing him on stage so I am bummed but he will participate in Men’s Glee club which is an EC. He will be able to go back to it junior year, if he still wants to. </p>
<p>So now he has to pick a class. I suggested an easy A, no homework class to replace the choir. Of course, he doesn’t want to listen to me. </p>
<p>Is everybody ready to have rising sophomores?</p>
<p>29happymom26–I guess the checking is the downside of having a kid’s grades available on-line! Our son is planning on doubling up in science next year. Increasingly kids in his school are doing that. Then his guidance counselor suggested he take AP Bio instead of H Bio as a sophomore. It sounds like a crazy load of work to me and he has decided not to do it. He is taking 2 sciences because he likes science, so that makes sense to me.
In terms of him being a ‘rising sophomore’ I am just looking forward to the break of summer vacation!</p>
<p>Hi all! Good to see everyone surfacing.</p>
<p>@NHCtMom - That sounds like a fun program. I will agree with others, try to keep from falling in love with a single program. Look at what you are drawn to with the high calibre programs and identify where you see that successfully replicated in other schools. Momreads has some great advise. We didn’t pay enough attention to the NMF program with S2 (Bluejr). S3 will be the lucky recipient of this re-do. 
As it turns out I believe that his list of schools may benefit far more from schools that reward NMF, so if he hits the mark it will be worth it. STove also give good advise to build the list from the bottom up, not the other way around.</p>
<p>It’s funny how you change with younger kids. I have no desire to check grades with this one. With my oldest I had to ration my grade checking.</p>
<p>S3 is finishing up his online geometry class and looks like he will get an A…big sigh of relief on this one…BIG sigh. State exams are ending this week which exempt our kids from exams in most cases. I think it’s a cruddy system, but I can’t blame the kids OR teachers from not wanting to take, administer, or grade another flipping exam! He was pretty thrilled to get the science department award this year. I don’t know how he ended up with it as a first year…he kept saying bio wasn’t his thing. His first reaction was that his older brothers never got the award which made me laugh…no they did not. Being the youngest comes with a certain amount of angst built in I guess.</p>
<p>Hope everyone is rolling towards a great holiday weekend!!</p>
<p>Last day of school today for us. Won’t know what the schedule looks like until the fall. Got the driver’s ed schedule yesterday. In the next month, I get to spend 20 hours with d2 driving. If you don’t see me again, I died of a heart attack or something. Between driver’s ed, softball (high schools have a summer season in my state), cheer, lifting, fencing, and piano, don’t know that the kid gets much of a break. Had to laugh about lifting, though. D2, my late sleeper, had to take the 6:30 am slot, Mon-Thy, because that was all that was open and would work with driver’s ed. </p>
<p>Can’t wait until next year when she HAS to throw a job in there, too.</p>
<p>^ Ahhh yes, the learner’s permit. We just got one of those too. I’m not on teaching duty until Bluedad passes S3 off to me in a few weeks. I can’t take the kids when they are fresh from the classroom. They drive me nuts! Luckily he has two older brothers that are old enough to share the burden of these hours too.</p>
<p>I like this thread – it moves very slowly – unlike the HS Class of 2011/Clg Class of 2015 thread – you get up to refill your coffe and bam! The posts fill another 5 pages.</p>
<p>We are limping to the finish line here…another month til school is done for S’11. I may postpone S’s driver’s ed til I see some decent grades. Our insurance company actually had a “good student discount” for D, which they define as B average or higher. S hasn’t ever had anything close to grades like that. And his degree of maturity and judgment is not where hers was at same age. I can just see him wrecking our car (which I can’t afford right now, with college tuition looming).</p>
<p>Ordinarylives- I tell my son that this is his last summer without a job, too. He delivers papers 1x a week for a little extra money. He will stay plenty busy.</p>
<p>No temps for 3 more months. You have to be 15 1/2 here</p>