Yea well D is going to L.A., so no car for her at least first year. Then we will see how much she needs one. Will be enjoying that insurance break for a little while. After a minor accident, her ins premium is the same as my wife and I’s combined!
@Mom24boys, I continue to send your hubs good health vibes. Hopefully you can get answers soon.
@SOG, no acknowledging senioritis today please! Calc is the only AP test that matters for D so I’m hoping for one more day of focus. After today, she can slide all she wants. Boy, though, that Violent Femmes tune took me back!
Good luck to everyone taking AP tests over the next weeks. My son is following the family tradition of not studying for them, and he signed up to take the AP test for a class he’s not even taking and one for a class that is AP/Dual Credit, so he is getting the credit anyway, and some others that won’t count for any credit in his degree, so it basically makes no sense. But he sort of likes taking standardized tests (a peculiar trait he inherited from me), and he gets excused from class. It would have been much cheaper had he just skipped class.
@giterdone - here’s to hoping your son rocks the Calc AP! What worries me is that wrestler was not in the least bit concerned about the Calc. In fact, he studied for the AP physics test yesterday afternoon instead. He can honestly be a little cocky about his math skills – so I hope he brings home a 5! The deal we made was if he gets a 4, he retakes Calc II in college. If he gets a 5, he can go into Calc III.
I have to say, seeing how many of you have to pay for AP tests, I feel very fortunate. Our district pays for all of them. I guess that is one benefit to living in a State that is near the bottom on the educational chart! LOL
@Wrestlersmom We have basically the same deal with D re. her APCalc scores. She, too, is surprisingly blasé about the BC exam. But I remember my own experience of “testing into” a math class because I was good at standardized tests and spending most of the semester in CalcIII (never having taken Calc II) with that horrified deer-in-the-headlights look that people tend to get when they know they’re in over their heads. I want her to have good foundation before moving into the next level of math. Of course, since she’s going to be making her own decisions re. course placement in the fall, our “deal” is probably more of a “recommendation” in her mind.
@Wrestlersmom and @EllieMom, won’t your kids’ colleges determine which courses they are ready for? Where my sons attend, when they went to their freshman registration, the advisors had access to their transcripts and AP scores, and we took the advisors’ advice as to where in the calculus sequence to begin. Not sure they would have even allowed my sons to start in any more advanced Calc class.
D’s school does not use APs for placement except for language. At least that’s what we’ve been led to understand. I have the sense that math and science placement, which is most relevant for D, is sort of “negotiated,” with the school having guidelines but allowing students to make the final decisions, with the help of an academic adviser, during orientation week.
@MuggleMom, my son’s plans are sort of morphing. He was offered a job playing cello for a summer musical theater production with one of the best known young musical directors in town. Not much money, but it should be a great experience, as oldest son did the same thing so we know he’ll enjoy it. That will take him from June through beginning of August.
He’s also been offered the opportunity to do some short animations for a website, but he needs to see if he has the skills to do it. He would love to be able to say yes and get that on his resume, so he’ll talk with his animation prof tomorrow about doing that for one of his projects.
He is doing a quartet gig later in the month, and may just ask the other members of the quartet (formed by his orchestra director and all girls-how convenient! LOL) if they want to continue meeting and trying to get gigs, since forming a quartet had been one of his plans all along.
He needs to confirm with his college that he can take community colleges classes during the gap year. If so, he would like to take third semester animation. I would like him to do math through Khan, Coursera, or something else to keep his calculus skills sharp. Possibly he could do some more programming on his own. He has a project (programming a feature on his insulin pump) that he’s going to talk about with his endocrinologist this week.
It’s really important for my son to stay busy, not with structured school, but with fun stuff like this.
Most importantly, I want him to have this time to mature, become more independent, and generally feel ready to go off to college because he now readily admits he does not feel ready.
My D had her AP Psych test on Monday, and she said she felt great about how she did. Next week is Bio and Music Therapy, both of which she’s more worried about.
@Barfly - There is a placement exam but being just like his mother, wrestler never seems to ever really “fit”. There is always an exception. His wrestling coach feels very strongly about retaking Calc II. He said he had a kid with a 32 ACT end up with a 1.5 GPA and not be academically eligible to wrestle. Now being that kid myself when I started college, I am more inclined to believe the kid was drinking shots on the roof of a frat house somewhere than having the work be THAT difficult, But I know Truman is very proud of the academic achievements of their student-athletes so there is an interest in having the team GPA be as high as it can be (not that that is a bad things when you have kids starting in things like Calc III).
So I ended up calling the math department head for some guidance and recommendations for placement. (Truman really makes themselves available to students and parents which is one of the reasons wrestler elected to go there.) Math head said that the kids he has seen struggle (who have scored well on the AP tests) have been more kids coming out of dual enrollment programs as opposed to traditional AP programs. His opinion was that there was a great disparity in dual enrollment programs. Several of his colleagues agreed.
He felt certain that a kid with 5’s on the AP’s would not be well-served sitting through these classes again. However, what he did do was send us an old Calc II final exam. Wrestler is going to take it and he is going to score it just so that we can be sure we have the right fit for where to start in the fall.
Like I said, wrestler can be cocky about his math skills! He really views math with the “go ahead and give me your best shot” mentality. Now if he wrestled all matches with the same cockiness – he would have likely had an undefeated season! LOL
My son is taking the AP Calc BC exam today, and he took AB last year but did poorer than expected. He thinks he is “total 5” this year, but even so, not sure if I want him to place up to Calc 3 as a freshman. Great idea to have him tackle a Calc 2 final exam, I’ll find one for him.
We have to look into summer college courses for my son, I think he will be a lot less busy this summer than the following summers, and he should be able to get some credits under his belt.
Great idea @rhandco, to have him take some summer classes. We had a friend a few years back whose son took all his humanities electives at a junior college over the summer, though, and that didn’t work out too well. When he started college in the fall, he had just his calc, physics, chem, and engineering classes and his GPA ended up too low to stay in the engineering discipline he wanted. He really needed to have had some other classes to pull up his GPA, and for him, that would have been his humanities classes. So just keep that in mind when he is deciding what to take over the summer if they will not be at his U and count in his GPA! One of my boys did take government and history at our cc over breaks, but he never needed any GPA boosts anyway. Another of mine took one of his physics classes over the summer at cc, but only after we confirmed that it wouldn’t affect his performance in later engineering classes. That worked out well as it got out of the way one of the hardest classes at his U.
@Wrestlersmom, it sounds like all of you are on top of it! Every school has it’s own policy. Where my boys attend, they strongly discourage accepting AP credits for Calc in the engineering school, but with a 5 on Calc BC they will allow skipping Calc 1. Lots of other recommendations on Chem and Physics, but since all of my boys needed only 1 year of Chem, they went ahead and took the AP Chem credits and were DONE with chem. I think that is so great that they sent you an old final exam! Wonderful! I have one who is confident in his math skills as well, but he may have a rude awakening!
Senioritis HAD been in full swing here, but then she missed almost 2 weeks of school in April for college (re)visits, and now there’s enough work that’s piled up to get rid of that. Just in time for end of semester projects and finals in a couple of weeks! Graduation is before June 1 here!
@Barfly - With 5’s on AB and BC they still only allow skipping Calc I? Wrestler got a 5 on the AB He expects the same of BC. There has been some discussion that Calc II is a weed-out class so that I why I was concerned. The only area the Math Head said might be a gap going into Calc III as opposed to II was Vectors. But wrestler said Vectors were covered in both BC and Physics. I think the Math Head is leaning toward III simply because a lot of kids have a hard time getting in all of the classes they need for the math/physics double major in 4 years. Then add in participating in a sport on top of that and it is one full plate!
rhandco, be sure to check with the school your son will be going to because taking classes at a college/university prior to freshman year and wanting the credits to transfer might jeopardize his freshman standing and the scholarships associated with freshman standing.
@Wrestlersmom , yes at my sons’ U, at least in their majors. But certainly every school and major is different. For example, my kids were able to use their AP Chem credits, but students in Chem or ChemE cannot accept the AP Chem credits from what I have heard. As it was, they were in the correct Calc class for them, and it eased up their schedules a bit and strengthened their calc foundation, so it worked out well. Your boy certainly will have a full plate regardless of which math he starts with!
@mugglemom, My D is still considering a Gap Year. She has to formally request it soon although her school has already said that in general they are fine with it and she keeps her merit aid. She has applied for Americorps and is waiting to hear about that and is also looking at programs through The Student Conservation Association.They have some amazing opportunities.
She is excited about college and part of her wants to go ahead and start school in the fall. I think she could benefit from another year of maturing before starting college and I would like it to be mostly away from home so she has some adventure and so she is independent from us. So it’s all still up in the air and will get decided at the last minute like most things here do.
If she does take the year off academics, I like the idea of her doing something online regarding math. I think whatever she is doing will probably keep her brain engaged but not necessarily sharpen math skills so we will have to look for something to specifically address that.
Good luck to all taking APs!
D’s college will not take any AP credits at all so D decided not to take any of the exams. She’s having a fun week 
It is such a busy thread! I logged in yesterday and had 75 new post, logged back again today an 45 are new !
Today is English Paper #2 for those taking IB. My D is one of them. She said yesterday went really well.
@ SomeOldGuy - common, do you want me to make the announcement?
@MuggleMom - my D is taking a gap year as well. I am thinking we should form a new thread on Parent’s Forum.
@Mom24boys - what is going on with your H? I missed that. Good thought s and prayers are going your way.
@singermom4, that is my son 15 too. No prom, no senior breakfast, no grad night. If I wasn’t forcing him, he wouldn’t even attend graduation. He has good friends at school, he’s just done. Doesn’t want to be in high school any more. Ready to move on to the next phase in his life.