<p>Hi all… (I may have posted once or twice before but not for ages…have been lurking though.) Congratulations on all these fantastic AP scores. I am amazed at how many of your kids have taken several AP classes. Our school only offers one before Junior year (which my son didn’t take) so he will be starting with AP this fall. My head is reeling with all this talk of AP, testing, and college visits. When did these kids get so old? Well, I can tell I will need to check in on CC more often…time is zooming past!</p>
<p>The girls who code thing sounds awesome! D doesn’t code but she might enjoy it…did your d enjoy coding before this?</p>
<p>D has had her permit since Feb, will take the driving test on her 16th birthday later this summer. She’s actually very good, she drives me everywhere…through snow, highways, city downtown. I figure best to have her do all this while I’m still in the car to guide. My 19 yo son however, has zero interest in getting his license. He does fine without so I figure he’ll let me know when he’s ready.</p>
<p>D took only one AP soph year, Euro. She thought she failed but she got a 3, so she’s OK. A 4 would have gotten her credit at more schools but it is what it is, she’'ll do English lang, gov, and chem next year. With SAts and ACts and all that, it will be a busy spring for testing.</p>
<p>Hi Dacilu,</p>
<p>My kiddo is in the same boat as yours, except our school does not even offer AP courses but, most of the juniors and seniors sit the AP exams and mostly score 4s & 5s. And yes, the roller-coaster ride towards admissions officially began for our kids the day after school let out and they became rising juniors. </p>
<p>Time surely flies. </p>
<p>We’re working on several itineraries for college visits this coming school year, summer, and fall of senior year. We already visited a ton of schools, but Bunheadgirl only loved 2, liked 2, and will pass on 5 others as last resort applications. She has a solid list of 15, yes 15 Common App schools, plus 3 safety universities with their own applications. </p>
<p>Bunheadgirl has a strong ACT score, but low GPA; thus, she has to cast an extremely wide net. Since she happily would attend KU, we’re aiming high, as she has nothing to lose. She’ll apply to 3 public safeties, 3 private safeties, 5 private matches, and 7 private HMFR schools. Many of the schools waive application fees if one files via the CA.</p>
<p>OHMom your state allows kids to get their permit before they turn 16? In NY you have to be 16. I think it’s great that your daughter has the confidence to drive all over the place. Mine has the confidence but not the skill LOL- she has only been driving for about 2 weeks. I give you a lot of credit for allowing her to drive you everywhere.</p>
<p>Bunhead you have a great plan going on there! We visited 8 schools and she has eliminated one. There is one school that she LOVES, but at $53,000 per year she needs to get some merit aid. Although mine would happily attend 2 of our state schools ( thank goodness), I already suspect that she is going to fall in love with several OOS schools that are double the price- we will also be casting a wide net.
Dacinlu if our kids are getting old, what does that mean for us LOL?</p>
<p>My 16 year old sits her road test Friday am. She is also a confident driver. We are so ready for her to be driving. She will be taking a class at a science center this fall which is about 15 miles away, so she will be practicing the drive over the next few weeks. Thank goodness for GPS in phones, will give her a lot of reassurance.</p>
<p>Congratulations on all of the great AP scores! I have to say it’s nice that D has one under her belt. Next year she’ll have 4 to take at the end of the year - YIKES! </p>
<p>OHMom and 3girls3cats, those programs sound awesome!</p>
<p>sunnydayfun, let us know how the DL test goes. My D tests on Thursday. The maneuverability part they have to take here is tricky!</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone on all the fab AP scores. Well done to your children.</p>
<p>It’s possible to get a permit here at age 15. I think that’s why I’m not so eager to get D behind the wheel. I’d much rather wait until she turns 16. There’s also the miserably clogged roads with too many aggressive and reckless drivers. My oldest was very eager to drive and got her permit on her 16th birthday (different state) . The only thing that held her back from getting her license quickly was the system in place at the time that required the prospective driver to schedule the written and driving test together. I’m not sure why, but under that system, there were never available dates. It took a good nine months for her to get a test date. D2 was less anxious to drive and was delayed in getting her permit/license because she’d spent the second part of her junior year abroad. By then, we’d figured out that the way to go was to enroll her in a driving school that also did the final testing onsite. SO painless! Like OHMom, I had my girls drive with me everywhere we went while they had their permits–even on college visit trips. I wanted them to deal with lots of different road conditions when I was there to help them through. </p>
<p>Welcome back Dacinlu! My D didn’t have any APs this past year either. The school has moved away from APs and offers a limited number. I think her honors math class will probably be more challenging than some of the APs she’s taking next year. Even so, I’m not looking forward to the flurry of testing at the end of the year, ugh. I can’t believe they are so old. I find myself looking back at those baby years very wistfully and wondering how they disappeared so quickly. I know, I know, this makes ME sound old and also guilty of selective memory.</p>
<p>BunHeadMom, you are right to aim high. There are reasons for BunHeadgirl’s transcript and she clearly has skills and abilities that (imo) trump the transcript. If she is able to write a compelling essay (but not necessarily about the reasons for the low gpa in her freshman year) that conveys her strengths, I think there will be many schools that will want her. </p>
<p>OHMom, this is D’s first taste of coding. It sounds like doing puzzles. It can be enormously frustrating and complicated. She worked for most of a day on creating a game but only got so far as getting a virtual deck of cards to shuffle. Aside from mishap after mishap, the sequences were very complicated and she’d get so far and then realize she’d have to go at it from a different direction. But this is the kind of thing she can sit with and muse over for hours and hours. She loved the animation workshop which was pure fun. </p>
<p>Good luck to everyone getting ready to take that driving test!</p>
<p>3Girls: tell us all about Girls Who Code! Do the girls who show up have programming backgrounds? I think D is in that awkward position of knowing just too much for the novice programs and not enough to just jump in. She’ll take APCS next year.</p>
<p>AP exam results and back and good, though not quite as good as hoped. What are you going to do.</p>
<p>I’m starting to think about fall standardized testing. Anyone else?</p>
<p>Driving: D has had her permit for a year. I should make sure that she takes the road test before it expires! But since she can’t have a car at school and so far she has no need to drive without one of us, I’ve been being stingy about paying the insurance (which has to happen the minute she gets the license). I guess sometime this summer it will happen. My D’12 didn’t get her license until half-way through Freshman year of college! She didn’t see the point.</p>
<p>IJD, yes, fall standardized testing is on the horizon. D will take the SAT probably in October or November. She will also take the ACT - MAYBE in September. She is prepping a bit over the summer and I’m hoping she can be done with all of the testing (except for subject tests) by spring of Junior year.</p>
<p>In NY you can get your license at 16 1/2. You also need to log in a certain number of night driving hours. IJD- mine will be doing both tests in December. I am hoping to finish up testing by March because after that she will be thinking about her AP tests. The SAT tutor always says that scores go up a lot in the fall of senior year because they are older and have more schooling behind them. I understand what he is saying, but I am not comfortable waiting. The coding program sounds very cool!</p>
<p>IJD, there is a range of knowledge in D’s program but my guess is that your D knows too much already. It’s something to keep in mind though because if she’s interested, she could be a great TA at some point. D had to take some sort of math and logic test to be admitted and her math teacher had to vouch for her. This program is dubbed an “immersion” experience because the girls spend 8 hours most days learning and working and it sounds like they are all very serious. The nice side benefit is that the mentors and speakers have also been teaching them how to speak and present, how to operate in an adult–corporate in this case-- setting, and showing them future possibilities. This is only the second year of the program so it’s hard to know what will come out of it this year. Last year, a number of the girls were offered internships.</p>
<p>Yes, we’re also thinking of the upcoming standardized testing. I think D will take the SAT in November right after the PSAT. At this point, I don’t think she will take the ACT. I think she might have trouble with the timing issues I hear about with that test.</p>
<p>Yes we are also thinking about the testing and it is not going to be fun. just have to deal with it. She’ll take the SAT in Nov, right after PSAT. I really hope she can do well the first time so it’ll be done. But it’s hard to tell. There will also be some subject tests. what a pain. </p>
<p>She is now having a fantastic time at Cambridge in UK. She is doing International Relations. Yesterday some British person gave a speech on how “cool war” affected Obama’s election. she said she responded to many of the speaker’s questions. That got me think - I bet there are not many students from this country in her class. Wonderful experience. Today they’ll have a former UK ambassador to China to speak with them.</p>
<p>After coming back from Europe, fun will end. work will start, school will be fun, but tests… She has 4 APs as well. a scary thought.</p>
<p>If D gets the schedule she requests, she’ll have 6 AP exams next spring (if you count Physics C as 2 exams). So I’m really interested in being done with everything else long before spring.</p>
<p>D’s chemistry actually counted as 2 AP credit last school year. That made her rank high. </p>
<p>@Maxwell, I’m sure it’s a great experience for your D. Our kids really need to have more opportunities to interact with people in different part of the world.</p>
<p>IJD- 6 AP classes?!!! WOW! I do not blame you for wanting SATs to be finished early. What AP classss?</p>
<p>@3girls - “I think she might have trouble with the timing issues I hear about with that test.”</p>
<p>What timing issues are you referring to?</p>
<p>^ You have to be able to get through the test quickly without much time to really think. For example, the science subtest has 40 questions in 35 minutes. Some kids have trouble with this type of test and do better on the SAT.</p>
<p>No, 6 AP exams – 2 of them Physics C. Her school doesn’t actually have any AP courses, but some courses do a better job of prepping for the exams than others</p>