<p>Sally - thank you. These are excellent tips.</p>
<p>Yes Sally thank you!! My daughter took two subject tests cold- LOL she really had no time to study. She is spending the summer studying vocabulary- this was also the recommendation of the tutor. I am glad to hear that it was recommended that they be finished with testing by the end of junior year- that was our plan. I want all apps to be finished and sent by mid October of senior year. We did it with our older one so I am confident we can do it again.</p>
<p>Please let me know how you like Pitt, it’s on our list to visit, with CMU at some point. Pittsburgh is a nice city but the rivers make traffic pretty funky there sometimes. Driving in at rush hour from Ohio direction, not fun.</p>
<p>Also, the SAT question of the day is a nice way to stay on top of prep in a very light way, D is pretty good about doing hers every day.</p>
<p>For Pitt, see twogirls post #3879 above. If that’s what your child is looking for, Pitt maybe a good school to look at. If your child likes more of traditional college campus feel, Pitt and CMU may not be the one. As for their merit aid, PM me if you want to know more. I’ll be happy to share how much merit they offered S2 and his stats as a reference point. Even without merit, I think they have pretty reasonable OOS tuition if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>Thanks FromMD, I will.</p>
<p>Ugh my daughter got an email from the field hockey coach with the pre- season schedule starting August 19th- practice Monday - Thursday from 6:30 til 10:30 plus Friday nights and 6:30 Saturday mornings. I am SO not ready to deal with this. Meanwhile we take her sister back to school on the 23rd and she just informed me that she is not coming cause she refuses to miss practice. Now I have to get grandma to sleep over and make sure she has rides to and from practice. I would really like her to join us because last year she helped decorate the room and it was very sweet - oh well- she wants to make varsity. I have an acquaintance whose son went to Pitt and she says " it’s a great school if you are into that sort of thing" whatever that means lol. Her son LOVED it. Then she went on to talk about the sports- that may be what she meant when she said " if you are into that sort of thing." Meanwhile we went on line and got a glimpse of the surrounding area- it looks really nice. I am currently at drivers ed where I was just informed that they are doing lane changes today- great. I am starting to shake from all this stuff coming at me.</p>
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<p>Sally22 – which state was this? I’m wondering what the NMSF qualifying score is for that state. Commended score cutoff for 2013-2014 is 203, so that suggests the presenter thinks an increase from 170-ish to 203+ is do-able. OTOH, the NM Achievement Scholar cutoff for 2013-2014 seems to have been ~193, so maybe the presenter was only thinking about an increase of 170-ish to 193+. </p>
<p>Achieving a 20+ point PSAT increase seems hard enough, whereas improving by 30+ points would be a tall order indeed!</p>
<p>Question: My son and I will be visiting my oldest son at MIT in October for the family weekend. Is there any reason to visit other schools in the area if it is almost certain my 2015er wouldn’t be applying to any of the schools?</p>
<p>Also, we may be the only ones who will delay SAT IIs until November/December of senior year. My son will take three SAT IIs but won’t have completed pre-calc and college physics until 1st semester senior year. I emailed at least one school, USC, that said December of senior year is ok, but then, I have no clue where my son might apply and even where we’ll be living, so planning ahead is a bit hard. As of now, I <em>think</em> this is the plan:</p>
<p>PSAT in Oct., 2013
SAT in Dec., 2013
SAT II Lit in March or May, 2014
SAT II Math II in Nov. or Dec., 2014
SAT II Physics in Nov. or Dec., 2014</p>
<p>If he needs to take SAT again, he’ll have time.</p>
<p>He’s having eye surgery in December and I thought it might be good to get the SAT done back to back with the PSAT so he will have time to recover.</p>
<p>Is anyone else planning on having their kiddo take the SAT in December of this year? I might push it back to Mar, May, or June, depending on how stressed he feels with studying and his fall schedule.</p>
<p>If your son is not applying to schools near MIT then you don’t have to visit them, unless you are interested in showing large versus small. If there is a slight chance that he will apply to schools in the area then you might as well visit since you are already there. My daughter is taking Dec 7 SAT and Dec 14 ACT. Then she will take Jan SAT and Feb ACT. After that I hope to be done because she will want to focus on her AP tests starting mid March. There is a March SAT that she can take if necessary, but definitely no SAT/ACT in April, May, or June. She will most likely take two more SAT 11s in June. That is the plan for now, but you never know if it will change! Good luck with the eye surgery.
Last Feb we had siblings weekend at my older daughter’s school, which fell during the winter break. We found it to be the perfect time to visit several schools in the area. We actually did the tour for Binghamton, Geneseo, U of Rochester, and Cornell. We did a drive through of Syracuse just out of curiosity- no tour.</p>
<p>That’s a good point. I’ll talk with him about it. We will have an extra day before all the events start.</p>
<p>No ACT here since my son gets accommodations and I hear it’s really hard to go through the process with the ACT. </p>
<p>Finally have the fall schedule (so different as homeschoolers):</p>
<ol>
<li>Architectural Drafting (community college)</li>
<li>Intro to Engineering (community college)</li>
<li>Alg. II (Art of Problem Solving online-this will finish in October)</li>
<li>Understanding our Times (modern history at the homeschool co-op)</li>
<li>Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative (online through Coursera)</li>
<li>Write Guide (online writing tutor)</li>
<li>Cello (lessons and Youth Philharmonic Orchestra possibly)</li>
</ol>
<p>Spring looks to be laid out, as well!</p>
<ol>
<li>Russian 101 (community college-worth two years of high school, for some reason)</li>
<li>Trig (community college)</li>
<li>Understanding Our Times</li>
<li>Write Guide</li>
<li>Cello</li>
</ol>
<p>And possibly varsity baseball in the spring.</p>
<p>It’ll give him 7 classes for the year. No AP exams, though. He’ll only do two AP exams senior year, most likely, AP Calc A/B and Physics B. I suppose he could self-study AP Music Theory. We’ll see!</p>
<p>sbjdorlo-I am wondering the similar thing. We will be in LA in August to visit relatives and go to beaches, Universal Studio, etc. Schools that S2 is interested in seeing are long reaches (USC and UCLA). Given the limited time we have there, I dont know whether we should take a campus tour or not.</p>
<p>FWIW, my son & I took the campus tour of USC & UCLA last month. Even though it was the summer, campuses were quite vibrant, and we enjoyed the tours a lot. They are beautiful schools, and after visiting, they are high on his list. (We visited Stanford, too. Totally the favorite, but at 6% admittance and mucho $$$, it is just a happy daydream.)</p>
<p>Sunnydayfun,</p>
<p>Maybe you should visit Loyola Marymount if your son wants an LA school that may not be as much of a reach as USC and UCLA. You can drive by from the airport.</p>
<p>shacherry-We are considering driving through LMU since it is near LAX. Have you toured the campus? I would love to hear what you think of it.</p>
<p>SAT-I am not sure when S2 will take his first SAT/ACT. Jan SAT maybe is the earliest. It depends on how well he will do on the practice tests.</p>
<p>LMU ranks #7 as the most beautiful campus. If you guys like it you may need to go back and see if he is a fit with the students and see if it is strong in his desired major. He could even snag merit aid if his stats are high without needing to be Ivy level high.</p>
<p>[Beautiful</a> College Campuses - America’s 50 Best in 2013](<a href=“http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/]Beautiful”>http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/)</p>
<p>Over the years, when traveling or on vacation, we try to work in a college campus drive by. We also live in a university town, and my kids have been involved in various activities–educational/summer programs specifically for community people, lectures, exhibition visits, etc. I wonder if that has taken the edge of the college visit desire. For my older kids we visited a number of campuses, and you do get the feeling, seen 4 or 5, and you’ve seen them all. </p>
<p>Just a word on my class of 2015 kid working in a lab thing. It’s two days since he started. First day, it was pretty much just hanging out. “They were waiting for some equpment.” Second day, he got to hold a beaker while someone else poured something into it. “I did science!” he joked. I’m telling him he’s in a situation where he could work up a good science fair project, or better still–in my fantasy if not his–be in a position to have his name on a paper, or have something for the Intel competiton.</p>
<p>But I think he’s enjoying the social experience. His mother packed lunch, but both days he went out to lunch with the other lab rats. That could add up. I’m happy though he’s being accepted by the others, who include an undergrad at the uni, and a kid who just graduated from high school.</p>
<p>Re beautiful campuses. It’s in the eye of the beholder–both the ranking and the inclusion. University of Chicago–went to grad school there–is ok, but c’mon, 14th? My wife, a Williams grad, would take umbrage at its non-inclusion as well as anything Amherst being ranked ahead of it. My daughter goes to Connecticut College, which is not on the list but has great views of Long Island Sound, and a serene campus. There are some threads here at CC which have obsessively argued this out. E.g., <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/292751-most-beautiful-campuses.html?highlight=beautiful+campus[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/292751-most-beautiful-campuses.html?highlight=beautiful+campus</a></p>
<p>latich,</p>
<p>It will depend on the lab, the professor, and the project as to how much the students actually get to engage in research, but it sounds like your son has a good attitude and that’s great!</p>
<p>My 2012er was fortunate to jump into research and creating something from scratch during the summer after junior year through the summer after senior year. That was beneficial to his getting his summer research position on campus this year, I suspect.</p>
<p>I think time in the lab with benefit your son in a variety of ways!</p>
<p>Good discussion on college visits. I know my 2015er will be able to sit in on at least a class or two at MIT (not a school he would apply to), and maybe we’ll check out Northeastern. I think we’ll plan to look at So Cal. Schools in the spring, though he’ll be in college classes, so not sure how that will go. It might have to wait til the summer.</p>
<p>mihcal—my S14 took the 10th grade PSAT cold and scored in the upper 170s and managed to just achieve the commended score of 203 in 11th grade, so it can be done. He didn’t study for the PSAT but instead, prepped last summer for the Oct & Dec SATs. While our school suggests Jan jr year as the first test date, the students’ midterm exams end a day or two before the SAT, so less than ideal, especially when coupled with a winter HS sport.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo–you mentioned the possibility of SAT II in March. I have not looked at the 2014 schedule, but the Subject Tests were not offered in March this year. Also, not every subject test is offered on all of the six test dates so just verify on the CB site. Have you considered having your son take the Oct SAT? The reason I ask is that Oct is one of the test dates where you can pay an additional $18 to obtain your child’s answers along with a copy of the test booklet and the correct answers. It did not end up being useful for my son as the package arrived the night before the Dec 1st SAT! But, if someone had planned to take the Jan or March SAT I, the Oct answers could help direct future studying. </p>
<p>As to visiting colleges…I guess this depends on the child but I found that visiting helped my son see what college was like and understand the significance of the process. Prior to attending info sessions, it was all just babble from mom! As a second child, this may be less of an issue for your son. My younger son has already attended Splash programs at Yale & MIT so he is comfortable on college campuses.</p>
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<p>MIT, similar to other places, lists classes that profs have given the okay for visits, but if there’s a class not listed my kids have had good results with a direct email to the instructor.</p>
<p>Talking about beautifulness, one thing about MIT is that aside from the building with the dome and a couple of others the campus is the opposite of leafy green parkland. Fitting in with the STEM types that go there the buildings are identified and located by a numbering system–almost a cypher.
[Building</a> History and Numbering System | MIT Division of Student Life](<a href=“http://studentlife.mit.edu/mindandhandbook/campus-life/building-history]Building”>http://studentlife.mit.edu/mindandhandbook/campus-life/building-history)</p>
<p>I love the German-industrial-minimalist interior design aesthetic of some of the newer MIT buildings. (Sorry, cannot remember which ones). </p>
<p>It didn’t make the [url=<a href=“http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/]list[/url”>http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/]list[/url</a>], but University of Santa Clara is also gorgeous. Much prettier than Stanford, IMO.</p>