<p>College email avalanche from PSATs has definitely begun, she’s getting a dozen a day, easy. I’m going into her gmail to make a filter so they bypass her inbox. It’s a lot. </p>
<p>I wish I’d thought to create an email for her just for college but that idea came after she’d already checked the box and given her normal email. She does have a collegeboard account so I’ll see if I can change it.</p>
<p>LOL - S hasn’t gotten a single email, except the email from PSAT/NMSQT with his access code. He says he checked the box to receive communications from college,s but I’m starting to think he didn’t.</p>
<p>Ah, you guys are bringing back memories of my 2012er. Enjoy (or not) the emails and mail. You never know when you might find a gem… :-)</p>
<p>I called the college board today, and they said we didn’t get an email because S didn’t put down an email address. Hmm… then where did all these schools suddenly get our email and how do they explain the other PSAT/NMSQT emails we’ve gotten in the last weeks.</p>
<p>Anyway, ithe college board person told me that as of Jan 15, you can log on or create a new QuickStart account and by virtue of the personal information entered to match data put on the test, you can get scores online without needing the access code. So we finally got DS’s score.</p>
<p>And still no response from the hs counselor. :[</p>
<p>Good for you, STEMFamily!</p>
<p>STEMFamily, At least you heard from CB. Well done! Sometimes counselors are just … We have a relative who is a HS counselor. Instead of asking questions in my children’s schools, I often ask him (my relative) questions, or come to CC for consultation. :)</p>
<p>I don’t expect much from our counselor since she is responsible for around 350 students and we have previous experience with her with D13. Still bugs me to get no response to email or to get a response 2 weeks later lol. Luckily I stumbled on CC a little over a year ago when my D13 was starting to take a serious interest in colleges. Now I rely on the school counselor for as little as possible.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo and anyone else who wants to weigh in on this, are there really “gems” to be found in the emails from colleges? D says that she’s been getting them and ignoring them. She’s busy studying for midterms but after they’re over I’m curious to look at her email and see there’s anything.</p>
<p>STEMfamily, glad to see that you finally got your scores and were able to work around your counselor! </p>
<p>We’ve heard that the guidance people at D’s school are not that helpful; we were going to drop by and say hello during Parent-Teacher night but her counselor was out sick. We got a note saying something like “you should have your Naviance password by now” but I don’t remember seeing anything of the kind and neither does D. Is anyone else looking at Naviance for their 2015 kids yet?</p>
<p>I registered D2 for SAT subjects (WH, CH, M2 in June).
Just for grins, I took a stab at filling in her CB college search parameters.
It returned 1203 colleges that are potential matches.<br>
Good thing I checked the no mail box!</p>
<p>I love playing with our HS Naviance, especially the scattergrams.
But at this point it’s just for fun – not really useful for D2 yet, because we don’t know how her stats will end up.</p>
<p>We are supposed to have a naviance password and username too but I haven’t seen it. I haven’t been all that anxious to get involved with naviance yet and I don’t want D anywhere near it but then I was told yesterday at a non-college-related parent meeting that naviance is used for all communications with colleges. That would mean ordering transcripts and sending the school profile. If this is true, it’s very far from my limited experience with scattergrams and data and it suggests D and I should start getting familiar with it sooner rather than later. </p>
<p>Our college counselors seem nice but pretty useless. I do like that they have class meetings dedicated to the junior and senior classes so that they get to know the kids and also help the kids prepare for college applications.</p>
<p>Is it time to sign up for the SAT subject tests already? Gulp. Do you guys know this from school or just experience? Not a word from D’s school about what she should be taking at the end of the year but the formal descriptions of the classes suggest that she should be taking the Chemistry test. I think she’ll wait until next year to take Math 2.</p>
<p>The email and snail mail for D13 just started dropping off. I don’t think she ever looked at a single mailing of either type. But both my kids are looking at engineering majors so we had already looked at the readily available lists and data for all ABET programs. Maybe the mailings are more useful for kids interested in liberal or performing arts.</p>
<p>I’ve seen it recommended to take Math 2 as soon as possible after precalculus (specifically after a second algebra course and trigonometry.) Since D13 took that class as a freshman, she waited until after Calculus AB and that worked fine for her. She also took the physics test after Physics B.</p>
<p>3girls3cats, there is still a lot of time before you have to register for the SAT subject tests. I think registration deadlines are about a month before the test. I found out about subject tests purely from CC. I don’t think I would have known about them from our counselor - she also supports about 500 kids - maybe more, so I don’t rely on her for much. She does respond quickly to emails, though.</p>
<p>Our school does not have Naviance. I wish it did.</p>
<p>The child mumbled to me last night on the way home from pitching practice that she’s received about a dozen college emails in the past few days as a result of the PSAT test. Most were schools she had some knowledge about from the local area (100 mile drive).</p>
<p>crepes,</p>
<p>I think it was fun to get things in the mail. Since we were unfamiliar with a vast majority of colleges back when my son was a sophomore, it was good to open our eyes and find out about various schools. I don’t know how many of those eventually ended up on my son’s list, but it was still fun (at least for me). :-)</p>
<p>Thanks Suzy! I can breathe a bit easier now. </p>
<p>Re: mailings: If I recall correctly, my eldest received a “fast track” application to Brandeis and at least one other school (can’t remember) that waived the application fee and provided a quicker decision process. Johns Hopkins also provided something but I don’t remember what and it might have come out of CTY rather than PSAT/SAT. UVM offered access to its scholarship and honors program. Along with those mailings and emailings, came a HUGE collection of spam. We did laugh after getting repeated stuff from MIT. You’d understand this if you knew my daughter: a math phobic who is skewed very, very heavily to the humanities side of study and who makes her living as a writer. The thing is, this was 5 years ago, a lifetime ago in college admissions. I’m not sure if it’s at all relevant to today and I definitely wouldn’t want all this to be flooding D’s mailbox as a sophomore when we really don’t know what her stats will be in the end</p>
<p>Good point about the app fees, 3girls. I’d forgotten about that. I think my son had about 4 schools waive their fees.</p>
<p>Funny story about MIT! Another funny story: My 2012er is still getting emails from colleges asking him to apply!</p>
<p>@mihcal1, WOW 3 subjects! </p>
<p>I was discussing with D. about this. She is taking APUSH and AP chem. She can take subject tests on these two in May and June. She is not going to major in science in college. I don’t know if she needs to take chem SAT. Any thought?</p>
<p>herandhisMom, my thinking for my D (who I don’t think will pursue science or math) is to keep her options open because she’s not sure what she wants to study. Also, I think (not sure but it’s the impression I’m getting) that schools like to see a variety. So at this point I think my D will take the Math 2 and USH and English.</p>
<p>The Chem SAT is challenging, and the scoring is tough. Make sure if she wants to take it that she’s actually covered all of the topics, since the coverage for the SAT Subject test and the AP test are somewhat different.</p>
<p>D is thinking about the APUSH exam. Her history course doesn’t specifically prepare for the exam, so it may be a bad idea.</p>
<p>Spring events are already starting to collide. In particular, music performances and math competitions conflict. This happens every year, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but I always am.</p>
<p>As for college mail, we’ve really enjoyed the U Chicago postcards. D1 checked the “don’t send me any mail” box, so she didn’t get a lot of mail, but any school she visited sent her mailings. Plus WUSTL, who seems to send a TON of mail. D2 is getting some random mail, including U Chicago and WUTSL.</p>