<p>I need BHG here as well. I would ask my kid but she is either studying ( refuses to talk) or throwing tantrums. If she knew how much I was on here she would think I was nuts. </p>
<p>Anybody here taking both tests in December? I think Keepme’s kid is…I pray we are " one and done" so this craziness ends. I suspect she will take them again regardless just to make sure. </p>
<p>My older one comes home tonight for fall break- goes back Sunday. She helps balance out her sister. </p>
<p>I seem to be walking around in a constant state of stress lately which can’t be healthy. I may have to take up meditation or yoga.</p>
<p>Lots went on here yesterday! I’m too old and senile to remember all the topics discussed ;). NewToday…I hope all went well at the doctor yesterday and you are making positive progress.</p>
<p>A tip on mechanical pencils…make sure you get medium point and not fine point. I had no idea Bic pencils came that way and bought a whole pack of fine point that makes you want to throw the pencil against the wall when the point breaks every two seconds. That would NOT be good on the SAT!!</p>
<p>SOG…you need to hang around here, we’ll name you the official group therapist :).</p>
<p>Parents at our school very rarely talk GPA at games or maybe they just don’t talk about it with me lol. Chatter is always all about the team and the coaches. I never mind sitting by myself.</p>
<p>And for the record, I didn’t understand any of the music jokes hehe. My 6th grader is a music kid though so I’m slowly being introduced to that world.</p>
<p>LOL, more synchronicity, I was talking to D about yoga a couple of days ago. At the very least we’re going to pull out our Wii fit (which we haven’t used in a couple of years) and do the yoga on that, and maybe I can get her to go to the studio with me.</p>
<p>And count us in as stressed. D had a mini-meltdown last night when doing an essay for AP Lit and angrily tore up the printout of the passage from Howards End that she was analyzing. I didn’t blame her, it’s not my favorite book either and it was a difficult assignment. She’s doing PSAT prep for Oct 16 and we have a Math tutoring session scheduled for tomorrow, self-study and online tutoring are not doing enough. </p>
<p>We’re not doing Dec SAT, D wants more prep time so we’re thinking January.</p>
<p>Of all things, what also has me stressed out and almost crying is a parakeet that escaped from its cage. I know it’s a little thing compared to other things that can go wrong but one big reason I’m upset is that D is upset–she wasn’t too attached to the bird, one of a pair, Daisy and Gatsby, but it was her bird and she feels it was her fault. In the heat of the moment H, who was more attached to the bird, did blame her and yell at her. At least he apologized and admitted it was partly his fault for having her clean the birdcage out in the backyard. Meanwhile I’m trying every strategy I can to lure the bird back, if it’s still alive and in range that is. I keep thinking of Peanuts and “Snoopy come home” or in this case Daisy come home.</p>
<p>On mechanical pencils, they come in 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9 mm which are the thickest and probably the best for bubbling purposes. As for pencils I know that it specifies #2, but I know that somewhere I have softer lead pencils that I’ve used for sketching, like #1 and others that are even softer, 4B and 6B. I wonder how to find out if those are ok for test purposes?</p>
<p>Oh man, sorry about the bird, crepes. I have a friend who is a bird nut - I will check to see if she has any suggestions. </p>
<p>IJD, good luck to your D on Saturday. Are you guys sending your scores anywhere? I’m wondering if I should go ahead and have D’s sent to a safety or two.</p>
<p>suzy - I wouldn’t recommend sending scores in case kids have a bad testing day. It saves you a few $ but I prefer knowing what to send and when/where to send. My two cents.</p>
<p>Thanks suzy100, we’ve tried tips found online like leaving out an empty cage in the yard with water and millet, playing recordings of parakeets singing (from youtube) and also leaving out the other bird (Gatsby) in his cage so she can hear him. I see that a little of the millet has been eaten but can’t tell if it was wild birds. I’d love to think it was Daisy but with no evidence don’t want to get my hopes up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile best of luck to all the Saturday test takers! </p>
<p>I saw a thread on the SAT prep forum by a poster giving his success story, from somewhere like 2090 to 2350 in 10 days. When I told D she laughed and said he must have taken Ritalin. That had me wondering, not Ritalin, but an herbal supplement, Gingko biloba, a friend told me a while back that it really helped her with concentration and memory. I’m wondering about getting some for D since from what I read online it does work for some people. If it doesn’t actually work for her at least it’s not harmful and who knows, there may even be a placebo effect. I don’t know–at this point anything that would make me feel a bit less stressed would help. </p>
<p>And NewToday, sending positive thoughts for you and your daughter.</p>
<p>CelesteJordan & 2Girls- Ask away on organization & research, since I’m a Planning Analyst, it’s what I do best and enjoy, but will need everyone’s hand-holding, and perhaps a padded room as I watch the Great Procrastinator move towards completing and submitting her college apps next fall. UGH, I can’t even go there right now, as I despise scary movies. </p>
<p>with the execution of the BHG Launch 2015, and finding my room on the 2015 cruise ship. I’m fantastic at making plans and schedules, but am a procrastinator at heart.</p>
<p>We did not send any scores, as wanted to have control over which scores to send schools, and since BHG is not applying to any school that requires all test scores, we can pick the best sitting composite to submit.</p>
<p>Good morning all! Well, I may not have to worry about sending my youngest to college after all. I may kill her before that happens. She handed me the school facebook with all the kids’ school photos. I remarked that she and her namesake were also lookalikes this year. Their hairstyles are very similar, their coloring is similar, and my D has grown a lot so that she no longer looks much younger than everyone else. She looked again, tilted her head, and said, “Hmm. You know, I’d better check my pictures again. They might be mine.” I told her that she’d better hope they weren’t after I made such a fuss with the photographer.</p>
<p>Crepes, I’m so sorry about the bird. My sister once mistakenly released a pet rabbit in the backyard when she was cleaning the cage and the rabbit hopped off…and then returned several hours later when he became hungry. I’m hoping a pet bird will also head for home once she needs to eat and that she’ll have the survival skills to manage her small dose of freedom. Playing the parakeet songs sounds smart. (Is it possible to clip parakeet’s wings to prevent future flight or are they too small?)</p>
<p>Best of luck to all the Saturday test takers! Can you believe we’re at this point already?</p>
<p>3girls I get it. Yesterday I was so mad that I took a bottle of ketchup and squirted it all over the floor on purpose ugh then I had to clean it up!! Next time I will go on the treadmill as it’s easier!! </p>
<p>BHG- I (we - I forgot) have about 17 schools on the list but they are generally the more " popular" schools. What is the most efficient way to possibly find some " less popular" schools that may be a good fit, both socially and academically? </p>
<p>@crepes, You’re not the only one. I just read on a site named The Gentle Barn that they found a parakeet. Do you live in Calf.? They’re trying to find a home for it. Oh well, sorry about your bird. Hope he comes home.</p>
<p>I tend to volunteer to run the scoreboard or whatever at games precisely because I do not enjoy sitting around other parents who talk about how this or that athlete is doing, who messed up, who should be taken out or put in, blah blah blah. There are very few parents I will sit with at games for that reason. </p>
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<p>That is true for D and for ME too! Now, when anyone is being somewhat irrationally upset I think about what was last eaten and get a snack out and it fixes both of us almost instantly!</p>
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<p>D hasn’t studied (this year, she did a little bit last year) but the National Merit winners from last year were just announced and suddenly, she finds she wants to be in that list next year. We’ll see.</p>
<p>@2Girls–If you have an idea of several areas your D2 wishes to study, then I highly recommend the Rugg’s book on college recommendations. The reason why I like this book of school listings so much, is that it lists schools with nationally recognized and or strong programs within each major and by selectivity. </p>
<p>A prime example is a directional school in my state that has one of the best anthropology programs in the nation. It also has a strong biology program, too. So, students majoring in anthropology or biology will be challenged academically. This directional is also a social fit for BHG, as there are many clubs of interest for her and a tri-college dance company, too. She felt comfortable around the students, and liked that there is another university and college within a mile of each other where she can take courses not offered at the directional. </p>
<p>There is a bit of crossover between Group I and Group II schools based on how they are perceived on CC. For example, Gustavus Adolphus is listed as Most Selective and Beloit College as Most Selective, but Beloit is a better known institution. Most people who are not from the midwest states of MN, IA, WI, ND, or SD probably never heard of Gustavus Adolphus where as most have heard of Beloit College. </p>
<p>I would go through the lists and find schools to research for social and academic fits.
Some of the schools may even provide nice merit aid. </p>
<p>crepes – I don’t think using softer drawing pencils would be a good idea. They might smudge and get the bubble sheet thrown out for extraneous marks. </p>
<p>If you want to experiment with something like Ginko Biloba, I would try it well in advance of the test, several times, to be absolutely sure that she won’t have any sort of bad reaction. IMO, it is self-contradictory that something can be at the same time “effective” and “no risk”. If it’s active enough to be effective, then it’s also active enough to carry some risk. </p>
<p>BTW, I love Daisy and Gatsby for bird names! I hope your bird comes back. One of our pet rats once had a 3-day adventure where she escaped from her cage and got into the walls behind our kitchen cabinets. We left an open cage with food, water, and a nestbox, and on the 4th morning we found her curled up asleep inside.</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting list, “Colleges that Change Lives.” Some are reasonably well known–Clark University, St. Olaf, Goucher–some less well known–Guilford, Eckerd, Hiram. The list is from a book of the same name, and the colleges listed formed an organization and put up a website. They all profess to provide “student centered education.”</p>
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<p>My kids have attended inner city public schools all their lives, although much of their elementary education was in an interdistrict magnet school that attracted a fair number of students from the suburbs. I think a highly diverse school environment provided a social and cultural education and experience that money can’t buy. </p>
<p>The high school has many of the problems of an urban environment. The senior class is significantly smaller than the freshman class–due to dropouts. But the education occurs in an orderly environment and there is tracking into an honors curriculum, which offers about a dozen APs. There is also the perk of being able to take a college class at the local Ivy, Yale, tuition free, which my 2015 kid is now doing. The university also provides a variety of other educational programs geared to the locals. </p>
<p>Outside of the honors program, my kids interact with the general population, so to speak, playing sports and playing in the excellent school band. </p>
<p>As far as college admission goes, Yale regularly accepts a few top students each year–almost like a quota. But kids regularly get accepted to other top schools–Harvard, Brown, Bowdoin, Cornell, Johns Hopkins–so if you’re a top student the high school is not a disadvantage, maybe even an advantage. A good friend of my daughter was recruited for soccer at Brown, but she was also the salutatorian. </p>
<p>My older son, bright, but a homework optional high school student went to a good state university. I am very proud of him going from academic suspension and probation as a freshman to being hired as a senior by the college’s math tutoring program. So there can be a second act in college education. </p>
<p>My middle-child daughter (and she used that as the basis of her college essay) is a soph at Connecticut College, which is a gem. It’s a need-blind/full-need school without merit aid. It’s hard to get a full ride unless you’re low income, but if you can afford the EFC, you’re good to go. I’d recommend a campus visit if you’re doing a northeast tour circuit. It’s selectively, but not in an insane way with a very good faculty-student ratio. </p>
<p>My 2015 kid is setting his sights on the elite schools, and my wife (reminding me of the aforementioned Georgetown husband) would feel her life’s purpose would be fulfilled if he went ED to her alma mater, Williams. She tries–sometimes successfully–to be low keyed about it.</p>
<p>Saturday is SAT subject test day. He’s taking math 2, American history, and either Chem or Physics. He’s leaning to chem because thanks to his chem teacher who has a PhD (a la Walter White, although he likes being a teacher) he’s now taking organic chemistry–so there’s a lot of review just in time for Saturday.</p>
<p>Ok well the photos were of the other girl. Whew. The photographer told me that there are currently two seniors at this school who share the same first and last name names AND play the same sport. The good news is that the guidance team will have lots of experience with this name issue by the time it comes up for my D next year. I guess when I bring it up to the GCs they won’t be surprised. </p>
<p>D participated in a competitive sport last year and I have to say I was outright appalled by the gossip and over the top craziness that went on during the games. One of the younger coaches was just as bad as the parents and even gossiped with some of the players about other players. My mouth was hanging open and I definitely had to keep myself apart.</p>
<p>In a very rare occurrence, both the girls and boys volleyball teams are playing at home today. Varsity girls in the big gym and JV boys in the small gym. Unfortunately my kids are playing at the same time. Fortunately, I’m going to stand in the doorway between both gyms and won’t be able to hear the negative chatter unless they come stand in the doorway with me :).</p>
<p>Last week they had a food drive and I offered to sit at the table by myself to avoid the gossip. I was especially appalled that they were discussing other kids GPAs. I also get angry when they start criticizing kids who are out there playing. </p>
<p>Thank you BHG and Lat for the suggestions. I will look into them. </p>
<p>Crepes I also think that if you are going to try anything new it should be done way in advance as a first try. </p>
<p>Going to get her from practice and then she has the SAT tutor. Hoping for a good mood today to balance out yesterday! I think I will bring a snack. </p>
<p>I was telling a co-worker today about how my daughter has meltdowns that last a few minutes and then disappear, but I am left shaken. She called it the " aftershock."</p>
<p>Twogirl’s- LOL’ing at the “aftershock” comment. I’m adding “afterschock” to Celeste’s “Anger Burn” description of a melt down.</p>
<p>With D in competitive dance, and now professional, I learned a long time ago to not stay in the same building as the other mothers. I go shopping, to a coffee shop, to a library or home. I only make an appearance at performances, and since one does not talk during a live dance performance, I do not have to hear the insidious, deprecating chatter of one upmanship .</p>