<p>The deal in my house concerning text messages and Facebook is as long as I’m paying the bill for the laptop, iPhone and phone bills I’m allowed to snoop from time to time.
Just the other day D came home from college and left her phone on the kitchen counter. I happened to look to see who was texting her. The text had a lot of F words in it. So when D came back in the kitchen I told her it’s not very classy if you talk that way to each other. She understood and there was no argument.</p>
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<p>Yes, you are correct, but that is not what was being discussed, and I understand any confusion based on this sentence I wrote:</p>
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<p>It should read as follows:
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<p>Thanks, for bringing the error to my attention!</p>
<p>Bunheadmom, Hi to you too neighbor. July 4th fireworks at St. Anthony’s, spoonbridge/cherry, Hiawatha falls, lunch at the revolving restaurant above St.Paul watching the boats. Love love Twin Cities.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I posted here about this already. Maybe I am repeating adnauseum and someone tell me to be quiet. If your D does that well on math section then she definitely can ‘outwit’ the science section. D and I studied and analyzed these tests to death. We aren’t very smart at life skills, but just give us a test to take apart and we’re in our element. D was also panicked about science, kept putting off mastering that until it was almost too late. The trick is:You don’t need to actually read the excerpts AT ALL in most cases. The exception is the problems where they are contrasting 2 viewpoints on a controversial topic. For the others, first read the questions. They generally ask you to glean some info from the accompanying graphs/charts, but you don’t need to read and understand the science behind it. This is a huge timesaver. What you do need to understand is the graph. In sample tests pay attention to all the weird ways they have of constructing these, upside down, with multiple sections below each other, partly shrunken and expanded axes and so on. Become familiar with as many of these as you can. If she is good at math, this will come easily. All of the time on a problem can be spent understanding the info in the graph and being careful to answer the question they ask, not its inverse or something.</p>
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<p>OOPS, I did not define my acronym for the College Board’s College Handbook. BBC stands for Big Book of Colleges at our house since it is the size of a huge telephone book.</p>
<p>So I did share with my D that she can cancel her score if she doesn’t think she did well. I would be very surprised if she chose to do that, but I think that did give her some breathing room. (And I really would let her cancel if she thinks she really bombed.) And thanks to all about advice on what to pack, etc. It may be hard to get much food into her - not a big morning eater, but I will pack snacks for breaks.</p>
<p>CT1417 - can they bring mechanical pencils? Thought they had to be the “regular” kind.</p>
<p>I will have her keep her phone in the car as well, although I wish she could keep it until right before the test starts. She listens to music on it and it definitely is something that calms her nerves. Only a few more days to go!</p>
<p>I don’t think the lists will overlap but I can’t say for sure. Believe it or not, the birthdates are also very close, as in a day apart, so use of the birthdates is not a great consolation.</p>
<p>Celeste, that makes me laugh because I do the exact same thing. Too much good news and I start waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m glad there’s so much happy news for your S!</p>
<p>Mihcal, my eldest is one of those creative test takers. When she was in K, the teacher asked the children to name the shortest month of the year. Her choice? May. You can always count on this girl to have a unique perspective on things. </p>
<p>I’m lucky with the current high schooler. She seems to get what the tester wants. When she’s wrong, she’s clearly wrong, lol. Much easier to deal with!</p>
<p>The rules say old fashioned wood pencils, so that’s what we sent the first big test. D was furious to find that they don’t actually enforce that rule and everyone else seemed to know that but her dumb mom.</p>
<p>Einstein had a unique perspective on things too.</p>
<p>Re: mechanical pencils. The rules clearly state that mech pencils are not allowed, so I dutifully sharpened ten wood pencils but my son took his mech pencils with him and has now used mech on PSAT, two rounds of SAT and SAT II w/o incident. I will still send the wood pencils…</p>
<p>Suzy good luck to your daughter on Saturday. </p>
<p>Well daughter and I both had meltdowns today. I was at her game sitting alone because some of these women annoy me and the ones that I like did not come. One of the moms started discussing the GPAs of the " smart" kids in the grade. I walked away. How does she know kids GPAs? My kid is friends with these kids and she does not know the GPAs, nor should she. It is nobodies business!</p>
<p>When we were driving home I asked my daughter how this mom knows GPAs ( big mistake for me to say something). This led up to a meltdown about how physics is boring, her Spanish hw directions make no sense, she is tired of competing ( I told her she does not compete with anybody- Run your own race!), blah blah blah. She was screaming, I was screaming… Not a candidate for mother of the year this evening. It lasted for 5 minutes and then it was fine. It all started after I told her about what this mother was discussing- it was my big mistake for telling her, but it got me mad. </p>
<p>Now she is fine. I am a little shaken as I realize that I need to isolate myself at her games.</p>
<p>BHG I am very impressed with all of your knowledge!! Somebody brought up feminine hygiene products- good idea, but will they let you go to the bathroom? Do you need to wait for a break?</p>
<p>These tests are starting to stress me out and mine is not taking any until December.</p>
<p>When my older daughter took these tests I sharpened 25 pencils and put them in a zip lock bag. She was not pleased walking in with 25 pencils. Perhaps I went overboard!</p>
<p>Three years ago kids were not allowed to bring food/ drink into the ACT- that may have changed now. Well my kid wanted to bring a water bottle and I told her no. No food, no water, nothing. I was afraid that she would get kicked out. Well kids showed up with grocery bags filled with chips, granola bars, water etc. I felt so bad and I was so angry that I emailed the ACT people. I really wanted them to cancel the test - I was so mad that my daughter followed the rules but nobody else did and it just was not fair ( ugh I am cranky can you tell?) well ACT offered me a free test but would not cancel- I did not think they would, but I felt the need to complain. </p>
<p>Moral of the story: bring a water bottle and a snack. Worst case is that they tell you to throw it away. I pray that nobody chews gum while sitting next to my kid.</p>
<p>You guys are making me laugh with your pencil stories!</p>
<p>twogirls, sorry you guys had a bad night. I think the kids get over it quickly but we moms stew on it and continue to feel bad. Hang in there.</p>
<p>My daughter emailed her Spanish teacher to tell her that the hw does not make sense. The teacher emailed her back and told her that she did not assign that page and to please ignore it. Another " crisis" averted!! Now she is moving on to physics. It may be time for me to leave the room…</p>
<p>For my S these meltdowns (anger burns) are always low blood sugar related, though I didn’t figure that out until fairly recently. Now I know- don’t engage, find calories, stuff as many into him as fast as possible, and poof it’s over. Could have avoided years of heartburn if I had been more observant.</p>
<p>Good observation! “Anger burn” I like that!! </p>
<p>Today she sends me a text around 3:00 telling me she needs gas-x ASAP. Gas-x? Really? She never took that before and I did not realize she knew what it was!! Anyway I raced out of work to the drug store and zipped over to the field ( at this point I was really really cranky) as fast as possible because I had a vision of her being in pain. When I got to the field I ran over to give it to her and she says “what is that?” After I told her that I am giving her what she asked for she says " oh… I don’t need it anymore." Aaahhh!!!</p>
<p>I love this thread. Just sayin’<br>
I had no idea you might be able to get away with using mechanical pencils. D will be very happy if they will allow that! I think I will try to send her prepared with both types of pencils. I think I am coming to the real conclusion that, since none of the schools D seems at all interested in offer any significant merit aid for nmf, it really doesn’t matter at all what she gets on the upcoming PSAT, and when she takes the SAT shortly thereafter, the score will only really count if she wants it to, and she can always take it again…so, I shall try to let go of my own stress about her not studying/preparing for those tests.</p>
<p>^shoboe I don’t think my daughter is interested in any schools that may offer her merit for NMF either, so I am trying not to stress. Another way to put it is that the schools she is interested in don’t offer much for NMF. She kind of knocked Northeastern off the list, and that one was the only possibility. There will be many test dates after the October test so try not to stress ( ha). </p>
<p>My daughter is not into mechanical pencils. I think we are sticking with the old fashioned #2 just to be safe. Maybe not 25… </p>
<p>Remind your kids to check for test booklet pages that are stuck together ( for the answers). Mine had that happen during the SAT 11. I thought there was a problem when everyone came out except for her! I waited for about 30 minutes and then went looking for her . Turns out her pages were stuck together and she filled out the wrong answer sheet. She realized she made a mistake, they had to fill out a special form and let her re-do her answer sheet.</p>
<p>BunHeadmom- I did not realize Cornell would feel so religous. We are not Christian either but my D says she would not mind a school with a religous affiliation if it were fairly liberal and had lots of students that were not very focused on the religoius aspects. We also have a high EFC but really can’t afford to pay it, there are some schools out east where we may have a small amount of ‘need’ but even if they met need 100% we would still have the EFC that would be too high. There are so many good opportunties out there for merit though, and so far D is fairly open minded- she does not really small, really religious, or really competitive. She would like to be around very smart students who are not all that hung up on being smart 
She could care less about prestige, and does understand that it is not smart to take on a large amount of debt for undergrad. She wants to be at least somewhat far away- she thinks Chicago is far enough. </p>
<p>New College of Florida is on her list, smaller than she wants but very liberal and smart kids, good biology. Alabama is a financial safety and I think Ole Miss would be as well. One other thing I have considered is University of Manitoba. Tuition + room and board is less than any in-state school in MN. Crazy!</p>
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<p>At the top of each thread there is a “Thread Tools” icon. Click on that icon, you then can select Subscribe to this Thread. I then save threads like the one I posted a few days ago regarding Organizing the College Search. </p>
<p>When you want to save a specific post within a thread like ours, you cannot use the subscription option, as you will only save the whole thread from page 1 to the current page.
You have to use a different process of saving the post in your computers favorites folder. </p>
<p>First, click the red post # to open the posting in another window or tab.</p>
<p>Next, click your browsers bookmark icon.</p>
<p>Finally, select the favorites folder to where you wish to save the post.</p>
<p>I have a main favorites folder titled College Stuff within that folder I have the following subfolders:</p>
<p>College Search
College List
College Visits
Common Application
School Specific Essay Prompts
Organization
Financial Aid/scholarships
Articles-Misc
ACT
SAT
Test Prep-Misc
Essay Writing and Prompts
Books
Dorm stuff
Blogs</p>
<p>Most of the subfolders have additional subfolders. For instance, If I wish to look for a specific post or article on bed toppers, I would go to my favorites, click on college stuff, then click on dorm stuff, and finally, bedding. </p>
<p>If seems like a lot, but it saves time when I need to find an article, blog, or PDF of an old ACT practice booklet quickly. Some items may be filed in more than one file, like the ACT & SAT score comparison chart, which is filed under the ACT and SAT folder.</p>
<p>Okay, folks. Stressful day. Time to unwind after chasing our speed racers. </p>
<p>[Cake</a> - “The Distance” (Speed Racer AMV) - YouTube](<a href=“Cake - "The Distance" (Speed Racer AMV) - YouTube”>Cake - "The Distance" (Speed Racer AMV) - YouTube)</p>
<p>(It’s an odd habit of mine, but the '13ers seemed mostly amused last spring.)</p>
<p>do you know if they need to take photo ID to take the SAT? My D. took her passport to the AP test. but we read instructions about SAT. They only mentioned the ticket.</p>