<p>I don’t think foreign language APs and SAT IIs are impossible if you aren’t a native speaker but they are challenging. My D13 scored a 780 on Spanish and 5 on the AP exam after a year as an exchange student in S America. She had never formally studied Spanish but lived it for 10 months. My S15 hasn’t taken the Spanish SAT II but scored a 4 on the AP exam last year after 4 years of study plus a month at Concordia Language Villages. He’s registered to take the Chinese AP exam in May towards the end of his exchange year in China. I fully expect he’ll score a 4 or 5.</p>
<p>3girls3cats, I’m mostly guessing, but I think for her she was flattered to get what felt like personalized mail (I know, I know) from schools from all over. I think it also made her realize that this whole college search thing is about to become reality and it wasn’t ME trying to get her to talk or think about it.</p>
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<p>Good advice. :p</p>
<p>Good call Suzy. It’s nice to read that this worked out so well for her. At this stage, it’s not necessary for the kids to know whether the mail they receive is personalized or not and for a kid who is uncertain, it’s a great thing to hear positive messages. I couldn’t tell whether the mail would produce stress or validation and I think I may have made the wrong judgment…but who knows. D has a sense that “everyone else” has better credentials no matter how well she does so she may have dismissed the letters anyway. </p>
<p>Apollo, I have to laugh–your kids are amazing! I love that they’ve had this kind of exposure to other languages and lives. Their preparation is far beyond what most world language students get in the U.S. though so I wouldn’t necessarily extrapolate from their experiences. What I would take from this is to encourage my girls to spend some time outside the U.S. (I spent a year living outside the U.S. during college–at a time when it was not particularly common and it was the most important and best year of my college experience.)</p>
<p>Congrats on all the good news I have read!</p>
<p>My son was testing all the way up to the last testing period Senior year because of the SAT Subject Tests-that will not be repeated with her because I know about them. When he was at this point in his sophomore year I had never heard of them. </p>
<p>I am hoping she doesn’t end up applying to any schools that require them but she should take a couple just in case. I do know now never to take more than two in one sitting! My poor son would have benefited so much if I had known any of this-oh well! He did very well on the SAT October of Senior year and in my reading it seems like this is the best time for a typical student to take them-I think I read that is when they are likely to get the highest scores-I know for him he did very well in that sitting. She plays a fall sport though and in addition may be taking a college class as part of her requirement for the certificate from the program she is a part of so I can see that not working for her.</p>
<p>They did come out with the schedule last week and she put together the next two years-she is going to stick with the Finance Program and would like to get the certificate for that which means no extra foreign language that she was thinking of adding. She also decided against Chem 2, she will take Physics one and be done with science next year ending with 4 years total-three years of lab. She would rather double up on Math senior year and take Calc and Prob. and Stats. She also put down for AP Lit and Comp next year and wants to take AP USH Senior year-her schedule is very ambitious and difficult and how she is managing to fit in all the requirements is impressive to me-and likely to fall apart when the realities of scheduling hit-but I give her a lot of credit. She is upset she can’t fit in the fourth year of lab science but she would rather take the US History class and the extra math class-I think that is a wise choice as she much prefers those subjects and I cannot think of a single school my son applied to where three years of a lab science were not enough. Our HS requires all freshman to take Physical Science which is not a lab so if the kids want four years they have to double up in one year-she did so this year with Bio and Chem and it has been tough since she really hates Biology!</p>
<p>Haven’t checked in for a while-been a lot going on with my mom’s health but she’s stable for the moment.</p>
<p>Pepper, senior year math sounds fun and challenging. Is probability offered at your D’s high school or is that DE course?</p>
<p>My son will be taking his first standardized test with accommodations on Saturday. Here in Ca., kids can take the Ca. High School Proficiency Exam and if they pass, they have the equivalence of a HS diploma. It basically will allow him, in theory, access to the local community college. He should pass but I won’t count on anything since he’s still slow as molasses in his hand written essay writing. I also hope I’m actually able to get him out of bed and get there by 8 am-realllly hard for him to do.</p>
<p>I also found a small private school that will accommodate his SAT I testing, so we are jumping into that in June. He’ll be the only one sitting since his accommodations say, “breaks as needed”. This will be a good baseline: Can he actually endure a 4-5 hour test or will he grow too tired to finish? How will he deal with blood sugar levels? And will he space out on all the math? = :-O</p>
<p>The counselor at a local high school emailed me (I’ve worked with her for years when my oldest took his AP exams at her school) and offered an SAT prep class for my 2015er. It was such a good deal, $100 for four 4 hour sessions, that I signed him up. I hope it will help him get used to the SAT!</p>
<p>sbjdorlo, I hope things get better with your mom. That can be so stressful. Good to hear from you and good luck to your S this weekend! </p>
<p>And where are you momsings??</p>
<p>My kids are impressed by the math kids! Unfortunately they seem to take after their mother. My D13 scored the same on the SAT math her junior year as her freshman year. She could never get past 650 - in fact the last time she took the SAT her score was lower! She was so frustrated.</p>
<p>Hey suzy100!!! Thanks for calling me out! I haven’t been on the forum for awhile, so I will catch up and read what’s been going on when I can.</p>
<p>Of course–tons happening here (just like everyone else). S has our required state proficiency exams that all sophomores are mandated to take in order to graduate starting tomorrow. I am annoyed with whoever decided that the week of Daylight Savings time would be a good week to have mandatory testing for kids. OY!!</p>
<p>It has just been one big music thing after another for S. Out of 20 school days in February and beginning of March, he missed 10, all due to music events except for 1 sick day!! I am really proud of him for being responsible and getting caught up on his work. It was intense for him though. I have to say his teachers were fantastic working with him–they are all very supportive of his music endeavors, so we count ourselves fortunate there.</p>
<p>On the looking at colleges thing–S hasn’t done the ACT or SAT so we are not being inundated with college mail. S, however, has been eyeing colleges for months now though. We may fit in a visit or two this summer.</p>
<p>The SAT/ACT tutor that we used for my older daughter, and will use again on younger one, has always told me that kids generally get their highest score when they take the tests senior year. I won’t wait that long- makes me nervous. I suppose you can take the tests junior year and then take one in Sept. of senior year, but by then my mind is geared towards doing the apps- not the test. Is there really that big a jump? Any thoughts?</p>
<p>@twogirls – I think that’s one of those questions you ask 10 people and get 11 different answers. IMHO, it really depends on how hard kids study between junior to senior year and whether kids are mentally/physically “fresh” enough to take on the exams.</p>
<p>Here’s what we plan to do. We plan to have D study over this coming summer and take first ACT/SAT by January of junior year and then shift focus to APs/SATII/IB exams from Feb thru May. The summer after junior year, we will help her prepare for another ACT/SAT (assuming it’s necessary) which she will take beginning of her senior year and then followed by another AP/IB exams May of her senior year.</p>
<p>While I don’t necessary think kids with better scores make better students, I think it’s a game we (and our kids) are forced to play. Sigh…</p>
<p>FromMD I agree. Mine will take a few practice tests during spring break and begin studying in the summer. She will take her tests in the fall and be done by January- hopefully. Then she can study for her AP tests beginning in Feb . Sounds like a plan!!!</p>
<p>My son thought the secret to a high SAT math score had more to do with increasing his speed than his actual math knowledge-he actually thought the test was not the best to measure actual knowledge it was more of how fast you could get-the math itself is not that high level (to him anyway). </p>
<p>He went up almost 200 points from the test in May of Junior year to the one in October of Senior year and he didn’t have a tutor or study-he just took practice tests and did some iPhone games to strengthen his vocabulary. The one big change he made was to quit reading the entire passage before answering questions in the CR portion-which he refused to do until I had my daughter administer a practice test to both of us and I outscored him with my method of reading the questions first and then working backwards! He refused to consider that method until I blew him away! :)</p>
<p>I think the testing is such an unfortunate part of the admission process and with the amount of prepping and studying that is going on these days I wonder if it will become less important?</p>
<p>My hope is that when she starts making lists of schools she is more concerned about the whole package than she is with the name brand. I think she will do well anywhere but would excel where she could be a big fish in a little pond-and she is not a learning for the sake of learning kind of student so she would be better suited to a place that is more real world than than academic.</p>
<p>We still have’t seriously looked at schools yet. It’s just the worry that her stats and test scores may not match up with what she wants. It might be better not building up any dreams yet. I might be wrong but that’s what we’re doing here. </p>
<p>D is not doing band next year. That breaks her heart and the teacher is upset too, because she is a strong member in the band, music -wise. She got all county band, first chair clarinet. Last year she got into all state band and she is the only one in her school who ever got into all state. However, D. decided not to do band because it makes other things impossible - she wants to be in school newspaper, she wants to do mock trial, etc. She sacrificed mock trail for band this year and she cried about that. </p>
<p>I don’t know if other band families also see this - the way the band works makes it like the major thing in school. It’s more important than physics/chemistry/calculus combined. The kids in band miss so many days of school at this time of the year, while all the AP teachers rush to get materials covered, the students have to constantly miss classes. This year, even though D. participates in band concerts, she doesn’t do band as a class, because it conflicts with AP chem. She had to do extra practice after school during marching band season. I still remember the night before PSAT she came back from a game at 10:30, then had to do her homework, until almost 1am. In junior year when all the tests actually matter, she decided she’d have to give up band.</p>
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<p>Not here. S was in band throughout HS and D is in orchestra. Our band is symphonic and other side bands are optional - marching band, jazz band, steel drum band. He only did symphonic which meets daily for a period and has 3-4 concerts plus 2-3 contests/other events per year. Not a huge commitment.</p>
<p>Orchestra is very similar.</p>
<p>Maxwell, it sounds like your D has had to make choices all along between band and other things. Band does sound unusually intense at your school. My sons’s music schedule is so crazy because he does 4 music groups at the school, plus a combo (as well as non school music groups). This is ok because we know he wants to do music for a career. That said, in your situation, band seems like it prevents your D from doing other stuff she loves. It sounds like your D will get to explore and expand! Hard choices though!</p>
<p>It seems like this weekend is particularly bad for D2’s ECs stomping on one-another… Oh well, life is full of trade-offs. I just hate that she has to make such difficult choices at such a young age.</p>
<p>mihcal-- bummer.</p>
<p>Maxwell I am sorry your daughter was faced with this decision, but it seems like she really did what was best for her. That’s great! My daughter does field hockey, yearbook, community service, etc and decided to do crew this spring. She has been going to the try outs and today she decided to quit. She felt the time commitment is huge- more than field hockey- and it would stress her out and prevent her from doing other things. I am not comparing this to band as I realize that band is a huge part of her life, but it’s a decision that they both had to make. It’s like when my daughter suddenly decided to switch from IB to AP next year. It’s sad when they give something up like band, which has been such a big part of her life, but on the flip side they are learning how to make decisions. My friend’s daughter went through this with dance.</p>
<p>Mihcal, we’ve definitely had weekends where the ECs stepped all over each other. Typically it’s math competitions and music (performance and audition) conflicts. </p>
<p>Good luck to your D making the choices.</p>