<p>Ellie- I will join you! My daughter is not one to go to the mall or walk around with her friends. She finds it boring. A few weeks ago she was at a friend’s house and I had to pick her up because they were all " sitting around playing with their phones."</p>
<p>So there’re quite a few CTY lan families here. That IS funny. 
Do you all remember that letter from CTY before the summer camp last year? How did your kids react to that?</p>
<p>I wish CTY still had that family forum. They said it was replaced by CTY facebook. There was actually nothing.</p>
<p>Ellie - band camp is pretty hot here in New Mexico too (but it’s a dry heat … lol ).</p>
<p>twogirls – I’ve picked up my D13 early from gatherings more than once because everyone else was sitting around texting other people. And I am in complete agreement with her and your D! OTOH, DS’s friends don’t seem to be into phones at all. But now that I think about it,they may not be texting but they do spend a lot of time on their ipods. So maybe they aren’t any better socially.</p>
<p>Not just CTY but all the other fantastic programs the kids of parents here are participating in! </p>
<p>I think most of it is that we’re a self-selected sample. At D’s school (a large public high school in a middle-class Chicago suburb), it seems that most students, parents, and even school counselors tend to put off thinking about college choice until junior year of high school at the earliest. </p>
<p>I’ll admit I was sort of in that crowd, too, with S. His college search was totally football scholarship based. So we got to know that process pretty well with him—camps and combines, Rival ratings, highlight DVDs, and NCAA recruiting regulations. </p>
<p>But S and D could not be more different from one another, so this time around is not the same. (Honestly, if they didn’t look alike, I’d swear one of them was switched at birth.) D is more academically oriented and started thinking about college in 7th grade. In fact, she has become the unofficial college counselor for several of her friends—she’s learned a lot researching summer opportunities, college programs, and scholarships on her own and keeps being asked to put together match-and-reach college lists for her friends.</p>
<p>@herandhis, yes I remember that letter. It caused an uproar among D’s CTY friends. I wonder if admin will send another letter to the parents in May or June again. </p>
<p>D. just found out she is the first chair clarinet in the county. she is very happy. The audition was done a month ago. She is not physically in mind (because of the conflict with chemistry) and never bothered to go ask the band teacher. Today they had a solo festival, and the list of all county band was on the wall of the band room where the festival was.</p>
<p>Hi all! </p>
<p>I had typed an extremely long post- longer than this one, but I got up to take a call & lost the whole thing due to timing out. </p>
<p>So, the short of it, or shorter of it-grin.</p>
<p>My D took a medical gap year her “real” sophomore year (2011-2012). She lost her paternal grandparents due to kidney failure and prostate cancer, her maternal grandfather died in a car accident, and we also lost our home in the MPLS, 5/22/2011 tornado. All of the aforementioned took place from April 2011-September 2011. </p>
<p>DD. shut. down. completely. </p>
<p>She did intensive therapy for 3 months, 5x a week,then down to 2x a week. We traveled. D danced, swam, read, cried, screamed, blamed her father, blamed her grandparents, blamed me, blamed climate change and blamed the world. She began to heal, and we began to live a real life again. </p>
<p>We bought a new, but old, and not as nice as a home as before, house. I let D help with location and amenities. We each have a “master” bedroom and share bathrooms with no one-grin. She picked the nasty creek in the backyard, but seeing her laugh at the ducks go by is worth the honking of the geese. I’ve stepped up and began preparing for Shabbat, and attend most Saturday Temple services–I’m trying-grin. I will hold my first BIG Seder this year and I’m knocking on 50! I converted to Judaism before I married my ex-husband, and promised my father-in-law on his death bed I would continue to make sure S & D kept close to their Jewish roots. I’m proud of my D as she’s helping me confront some of my own demons, religious adherence and observance. Enough sad stories. On to some bragging, well at least in our home. </p>
<p>D ended freshman year with a 3.8 GPA. I thought she would end her sophomore year 1st semester with a 1.0, but due to a lovely friend of her grandmother’s, D discovered a community service activity that gave her not one, but 20 Jewish grandmothers that each have a personal attribute that reminds D of her own Jewish grandmother that passed away. This activity SAVED my kid! D finished 1st semester with a 3.2 & not a D or F in sight. She received a c+ in PE. She has a little mouth on her that reminds me of her grandmother that she did not have before & told the PE teacher every class he was a misogynist & gave him examples. She wrote them down after each class. He had tried to fail her & she knew he would so she gave a copy of her PE journal to the board of directors & the Dean. PE man, gave D the c+, and she happily told him, " I told you I would not fail your class!" That PE teacher will no longer instruct the HS kids after this year or any children from any grade at D’s school for that matter. Grin. He’s not teaching health this semester & D has a female instructor for health. </p>
<p>So, 2nd semester D is doing a lot better, but does not care about being a straight A student, as learned early that life is too short, and to enjoy it today, as tomorrow may not come. </p>
<p>She’s taking all honors and plans to do so through 12th grade. School is not certified with CB; thus, they cannot call their courses AP X. The kids all take AP exams, all pass and most score 4/5s. </p>
<p>D will most likely pull a 3.6- 4.0 2nd semester and end the year with a 3.4-3.6 and a cumulative GPA of 3.5-3.7. School does not weigh classes or rank students. </p>
<p>D will not take the SAT, but will sit the ACT. She scored a 28 due to her science score: E 34, M 28, S 24. We plan to use resources I gathered to work on the science section & the RB to try to grab an extra point or two on the E & M sections. I think her M score will go up on its own as D only had up to Algebra Trig. Geometry is taken in 10th grade AFTER alg/trig at her school. So, by next fall, D will have a strong math background Goal= 30+ combined score.</p>
<p>D’s Junior schedule:
Will sit 3 AP tests: European History, Chemistry & English Language
Semester I & II
Latin VI/VII: Poetry and Virgil (H)
Japanese II (H-elective)
Pre-Calculus (H)
Romantic-Modern World Literature(H)
Modern History(H- will sit European History AP)</p>
<p>Semester I Only
Genetics (H if writes 20 page paper)
Literature of Jane Austen (H-elective)</p>
<p>Semester II Only
Advanced Chemistry (will sit AP)
Modern Rhetoric ( will sit English Language AP)</p>
<p>Well, this novella seems as long or longer than my “missing” post, so I’ll end it right here, and post about college visits, etc. in a separate posting.</p>
<p>That’s wonderful!! Looking forward to your next post.</p>
<p>BunHeadMom – welcome aboard!</p>
<p>Maxwellequations – congrats on first chair clarinet :)</p>
<p>RE: Travel Abroad Programs</p>
<p>The program D’s school uses is School Year Abroad (SYA): [School</a> Year Abroad - Frequently Asked Questions](<a href=“SYA Admissions | High School Study Abroad Programs”>SYA Admissions | High School Study Abroad Programs)</p>
<p>Since D already had a year off school, she no longer is a candidate for SYA. If your school is not a member, your student can still apply to the program as an independent.</p>
<p>WOW! & Congratulations to all the award winners thus far this school year. I wish our school gave awards outside of senior year. </p>
<p>Many of the STEM kids within this thread remind me of my eldest when he was younger with the science competitions & Math Olympiad, which he loved. It earned him a full-tuition scholarship to one of our regionally ranked U’s-- University of St. Thomas. He wanted to attend St. Olaf, but went with St. Thomas offer since he would graduate dept free.</p>
<p>@BunHeadMom, welcome!
@mihcal, Thank you!</p>
<p>
Just read this again posted by ME. Don’t know what was in my MIND. 
I meant “band”.</p>
<p>Welcome BunHeadMom! Very heartwarming story. Your D is not only a survivor, she’s a winner!</p>
<p>Too funny Maxwelleq! I read that several times, got the gist but couldn’t really figure out what she wasn’t physically in.</p>
<p>I am curious- how much time do your kids study and do HW during the week and on the weekends?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My DD has lots of during-the-week ECs, so she tries to pull as much homework as possible into the weekends. Most weekdays (M-Th) she only has time for 1~2 hours of HW. Most weekends, HW dominates Friday afternoon and sometimes the evening too; Saturday most of the day; and Sunday morning/evening (taking Sunday afternoon off for 4 hrs of dance). ~20 hours HW total, on an average weekend. </p>
<p>Too much homework! Makes it nearly impossible to do anything together as a family. :(</p>
<p>Ugh. My daughter also does a lot- 5 to 7 hours each night during the week and 20 hours over the weekend. This is for tests - projects - and regular homework. Part of it is self imposed- she can do a little less and still do well.</p>
<p>homework - It’s really hard to say because it varies a lot. Sometimes it feels like all she does in a weekend is homework and homework and homework. But this weekend her teachers didn’t give them any homework! so she used it to play some music, do some review problems on chemistry and read history for APUSH. also she went out with friends Friday evening, which happens once in a blue moon - 
not quite that bad, just almost. I still remember one day two weeks ago she came back home with a crying voice saying she would have 6 quizzes the next day and a ton of homework and she had her clarinet lesson that day that lasted forever, because it was a group practice. Fortunately one of the quizzes was basketball. lol</p>
<p>twogirls post sounds about right for us. Min of 5 hours and max of “whenever” for Mon-Thur and little less on Fridays. About 20 for the weekend give or take a few. Then you add ECs and volunteer hours, there’s never enough time.</p>
<p>There is no time! My daughter was off the week of Feb 18-22. She came home after school on Friday the 15th hysterical from all the work that she had to do the week she was " off." She was upset mostly because we were going upstate for a few days for siblings weekend with her sister followed by a few college visits since we were up there already. She was scared she would have no time. Turns out she had about 8 hours a day in the hotel for her work so it was fine. She chooses to stay home a lot and work- I anticipate that junior year she won’t leave the house!!</p>
<p>I actually feel better hearing about all the work everyone does. I was starting to think my daughter was overworking herself but now I see that everyone else does the same!</p>
<p>@twogirls - your D sounds a lot like my D. And, yes, kids are probably overworked but not sure if there’s anything we can do about it. I once read a book called “Overachievers” which was based on a high school in the same county as we are (about 30 min from where we live) and its pretty close to what we go thru. Kids who were considered over the top when the book was written 7-8 years ago are not as “over the top” now days. Many of D’s friends go thru the same drill. Poor kids.</p>