Parents of the HS Class of 2015

<p>tripleamom.
Our eldest thought about studying at Oxford. We are Brits expats - but she would still have been considered an overseas student. As the time approached and we looked into it more, we talked her out of it. The last thing I wanted was her to " settle" back in the UK. D2 is very American and I can’t imagine her living in the UK. At this point, I didn’t want my girls living on 2 diff continents. Now I know how our parents felt when we announced we were moving overseas.</p>

<p>Our compromise was to promise her study abroad to Oxford. She spent a Maymester at Oxford last year, part of the scholarship program. She loved it! This summer she is heading to LSE for a summer program( again fully funded)</p>

<p>It sounds like there are a few students on this forum that will have similar stats to my D1, and even more like my d2. If you have a student in that top 1% statistically of the ACT/ SAT, merit money is out there. D1 had over $500,000 scholarships offered by 4 schools. She applied to HYP- but was not admitted. She is very happy at our state school on their premier scholarship.</p>

<p>D2 is studying for AP exams and is also sitting the SAT tomorrow.
I think I shared our school board is in jeopardy of losing accreditation. I really don’t think it will happen, but we need options just in case. Our back up plan is that she can take classes at community college through a program called" Move on". Not ideal , but we need options. She needs a score of 900 to attend. I am confident that she will score that with out any problem. She seems nervous- but I keep reminding her this is just get the base score and not to worry about it. It will be good practice for her. Once, we get the score back we will plan her next steps.</p>

<p>Her standardized test scores are not as strong as her GPA and EC’s. We met with the college counselor that we worked with for D1. She advised us on signing her up for a test prep course. I hadn’t really considered that before. She pointed out, that if she could get her test scores in line with her other 2 skill levels, that more doors would open. </p>

<p>All the rain is so frustrating! Softball girl hasn’t played a tournament in weeks and looks like this weekend is going to be a wash out too! D2 has had so many free weekends because of canceled tournaments. It is strange to suddenly have a free weekend. Plan tomorrow was for d2 to wear her uniform to testing and then drive straight to the ball-field. Don’t think that is going to happen!</p>

<p>Happy weekend to all!</p>

<p>Sally22,I know what you mean. That is my concern too. We have too other kids. I want all of them to be here in the same country if possible close to each other in the same city. I know the pain of being away from the family. My kids don’t have their grandparents or uncles and aunts here. All we have are our friends. I want their kids to have all the relations that they didn’t have. More over she cannot change her major if she wants to at oxford. We have Claremont colleges close by (30 minutes drive).They also offer good merit aid. I will be happy if she goes there. Only time has to tell.
My D is not a test taker. She took a practice yesterday for AP Bio and according to the new grading for this year she will have a 4 instead of a 5 as per last years grading. She was very upset and her eyes were tearing up. I had to calm her down. All the sleepless nights and the pressure is stressing her out. I feel sorry for her.</p>

<p>Last year a 75% would get a 5 on AP Bio. But this year it is 85% it seems. With the change in the syllabus and the question pattern this year, I am worried.</p>

<p>I thought the AP exams were scored on a curve?</p>

<p>Yes, I also thought so. I am actually confused by this. One of her friends brother who runs a tutorial gave her the test and he is the one who told her about the scoring. Could someone clarify on this.</p>

<pre><code> About the AP Scholar, a friend of mine who has a S as my D. She called me the other day and said that she is planning to make her S do 2 AP’s outside apart from the 5 AP’s he will be taking at school. To qualify for the AP Scholar award one has to complete 8 AP’s with a 4 or 5. In think this is too munch to handle considering the kids have to take the SAT/ACT and the SAT IIs. How important is the AP Scholar thing and the weightage it has on an application?
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<p>I do not know much about this and I am probably off base, but I think that is too much and I would focus on the SAT/ACT. My daughter will take 6 APs and the rest honors/advanced honors by the time she graduates. If I had her take 8+ APs she would do just fine, but the added stress would not be fine. I would like to add, however, that the AP Scholar sounds wonderful and is certainly an honor, but personally I need her to focus on the SAT/ACT testing. There is only so much that our tired and stressed household can take!! I am curious however on how much weight being an AP scholar will pull. I have no idea. I did not know that this existed until I read it on CC!</p>

<p>Meanwhile my daughter is taking honors chem and thankfully is doing very well- she works very hard. At least half of the class is either failing, close to failing, or getting lower grades than what they are used to. Maybe they need to work a little more… Who knows. Parents are complaining etc and there was no escape route ie a drop down class. The school finally admitted that they taught the class at a much much much higher level in order to keep up with the other district high school who is teaching the class basically at AP level. The main complaint seems to be that if you are teaching practically AP chem at least give everyone a " heads up" so that they can decide which class to take: regular or honors. The second parent gripe was that there was no regular level with room at the same time, which would mean major schedule changes. I am so looking forward to July 1!</p>

<p>twogirls, D will be taking 4 APs next year at school,one online and she is taking 2 this year. I don’t want her to stress anymore. She has to take care of the ECs, exams and apply for summer programs for summer of junior year. She has a lot on her hand already. I checked the college board site and it states anybody with more than 3 APs and a 3.5 gpa will be an AP Scholar. If one has 8 or more APs with 4 or 5s and a 3.25 gpa will be an AP Scholar with distinction. In CC I read there are around 10,000 kids with AP Scholar award.</p>

<pre><code> And for the chemistry, your school should have informed the kids before hand. Now their gpa will be affected in spite of them working hard. The scheduling is over in our school. D still needs the approval for her online classes.
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<p>Tripleamom yes I agree that the school should have said something. As I said my daughter is doing very well so I kept my mouth closed, but if I had an issue I would have called right away.</p>

<p>Good luck to all the Class of 2015 who sat the SAT today!</p>

<p>My eldest took 13 AP’s. By the time the AP scholar with distinction certificate came in, she couldn’t have cared less. She had moved on and was in college.</p>

<p>The AP test scores are not curved. There are very different averages and percentages of 5’s, 4’s, 3’s etc on each of the tests. I believe CalcBC has over 50% 5’s but that percentage is much lower on AP World History.</p>

<p>If you are interested, google “AP test percentages” to get the 2012 distributions for various tests. These are based on tweets from the College Board’s head of AP.</p>

<p>SAlly - I agree. AP scholar awards are a pleasant afterthought to taking whatever AP’s you want to take. I certainly wouldn’t cram my kid through extra AP tests with the honors distinction in mind. The certificates for both of my boys came after they were away at college too. There’s some study recently that said there’s no correlation between college success and more than 5 AP classes. In other words, kids who had up to 5 AP passing tests did better than kids with fewer, but after that, diminishing returns. Anyone remember where that came from? </p>

<p>We’re just trying to survive the end of year crunch here - projects, finals, tests, performances, school musical, study hall periods eaten up by performances right when students need the study hall the most. LOL I’m ready for May 29th - I’m sure S is too!</p>

<p>I have to agree with other posters here about AP Scholar awards. I don’t think it adds much value to student’s application. My boys list them as they listed other honors/awards but since colleges already have your kid’s AP score report, we didn’t think it add anything. So, it’s better than not having one, but not much better would be my assessment.</p>

<p>Taking 5 in-class APs and 2 online APs? I think that goes into “One of those crazy things Parents Do” file… How do students do when they take that many APs? Can they get mostly 4s and 5s? I wonder…</p>

<p>According to this page: <a href=“Get the Most Out of AP – AP Students | College Board”>Get the Most Out of AP – AP Students | College Board, AP scholars are granted “to students who receive scores of 3 or higher on three or more AP Exams,” and AP scholars with distinction “to students who receive an average score of 3.5 on all AP Exams taken, and scores of 3 or higher on five or more of these exams.” i.e., one can become an AP scholar with 3 APs, and a scholar with distinction with 5 APs, if he does well in all of them. Am I reading it right?</p>

<p>I’d think by the end of junior year, many of our 2015s will qualify for at least AP scholars.</p>

<p>I think so too, ^ and while it’s nice, I do not think it will matter much in terms of college admissions.</p>

<p>Yeah, I’d say it comes almost “automatically”, if s/he is in a school that offers APs.</p>

<p>I think the only AP scholar award that is significant is National Scholar but to be able to put that on your college application you have to score a 4 or better on 8 exams and have an average score of 4 (in case you take more than 8) by the end of junior year! Very difficult to accomplish. My D13 tried but she was at an IB only school for the last 2 years. S15 tried but he will be at an IB only school for his last 2 years and even with the AP Chinese exam that he is taking this week, he’ll only have 7 tests with 4 or better. Close but no cigar ;)</p>

<p>@Appolo that makes sense. Because I vaguely remember it’s something pretty hard, not 3 APs. Thanks for the clarification. I think by the time D. finishes her junior year, she’ll probably have 6 or 7, definitely not 8.</p>