<p>The bad proctor bothers me too, but I really don’t think it’s actionable. We have no proof. It’s not something like a power outage that would’ve affected the entire testing site, and that we could document. My D has already moved on from this, and I think I just have to let it go, too.</p>
<p>What bothers me more is that my D’s dance studio scheduled a competition for the first weekend in May, which conflicts with the May SAT date and falls right before APs. It really puts my D and her peers in a bind. I think it’s no coincidence that none of the principals or choreographers have high-school aged kids. In the past, when some of them did, they were more contentious about avoiding academic conflicts.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the warm welcome. I am relieved to learn that others have kids who are bouncing back and forth between the SAT and ACT. I gave a minute’s thought to taking DD out of state for the Feb ACT but then reconsidered. I think she will feel too pressured.</p>
<p>My concern is that she goes straight from PSAT prep to ACT prep, back to SAT and back again to ACT. December ACT, January SAT, March SAT, April ACT.
AP exams in May. Heaven forbid she has SAT 2’s in June.</p>
<p>I think D may be the only one who isn’t planning to take on the ACT. She seems to click ok with the SAT and her real weakness generally is timing. That suggests that the time challenge of the ACT wouldn’t be a good match for her. If she doesn’t do well on the SAT, we may have to rethink that together but I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.</p>
<p>We visited Northwestern and UChicago over the past few days. We took one of D’s friends with us and managed to visit the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Technology, and take in an improv show at Second City too. What a great city! I wish we’d had more time to spend in both museums. The girls both enjoyed the visits and both schools in spite of the very cold and sometimes rainy weather. I think it was unusually cold in Chicago for this time of year but it was an outright shock to our wimpy systems.</p>
<p>Northwestern felt more comfortable to the girls and they enjoyed the breadth of offerings and flexibility of the various undergrad schools. My D’s friend said the culture felt very much like their high school’s culture and she thinks she could be happy there. D agreed and liked the quarter system and the options to major across schools. She was surprised and not thrilled by the Greek life: nearly 30% of the kids are in fraternities or sororities. As many of you have already pointed out, the school doesn’t give merit aid and it’s mighty expensive. We all liked the presentation. Northwestern has done a wonderful job in putting together a pre-talk slideshow filled with interesting facts and highlights. I was very interested in their Education and Social Policy School and the way in which Medill (their journalism school) has evolved from a pure journalism training to one in marketing and p.r. as well. Where it was once almost impossible to take courses at Medill if you weren’t a Medill student, it now seems extremely open and flexible. </p>
<p>UChicago gives some merit aid-not sure whether it ends up being significant or what superstar quality it takes to get it in that kind of pool. D liked the core system there along with the quarter system and the quirky quality they work hard to convey. The girls both felt the school was more “restrictive.” H and I liked that it’s not necessary to declare a major until the end of the 3rd year. It gives kids a really good chance to explore areas of study via the core and really figure out the major. Of course many kids know well before the 3rd year what their major focus will be and even those who don’t have satisfied many of the credits by the time they declare. I felt that this would be a wonderful school for a kid who is quirky, creative, and intellectual and who is interested in studying many different subject areas. I also liked their house system and varied food options.</p>
<p>Our next visit will probably be to the Claremont Colleges and then a more lengthy visit to the east coast. That will be a challenge! We’ll have to create a workable list of reach, match, and safety schools for that visit.</p>
<p>She retired about 15 years ago. She always said nice things about it. I note that all three of their kids, my cousins, went to Emory, including the daughters. Agnes Scott is very small and since it’s in the same town they all grew up in, perhaps that was too much for them. I am sure they could have attended either one for free. </p>
<p>I am intrigued by Emory at Oxford. My cousins didn’t choose it but I think it’s a great program, first two years at a small LAC then the final two at the big U.</p>
<p>D and I just had our first and most likely last college fair experience. I did not know it could be so crowded. I almost bailed (D said she would not have argued). But she managed to talk to four or five colleges she had targeted and got pretty good impressions, so they’re now on the visit list.</p>
<p>After the fifth school, I said there was one more school on her list. We looked at the crowd and decided to leave instead.</p>
<p>I think a lot passes me by. I never heard of college fairs. The colleges send reps to visit the high schools, but that isn’t a fair exactly. Embarrassed to admit neither of my kids has gone even to the high school visits to get info. Though there is still time for S. D never was interested. Where do they have fairs? Big cities? University campuses?</p>
<p>celeste, our high school hosts one each year in spring and it is a county-wide affair, kids from other high schools come to it. It’s the only one i know of in our area. </p>
<p>Nervous about getting D’s SAT scores this week. I have a guess as to how she will do, but it’s just a guess. I see the ACT in her future. ;)</p>
<p>SlackerMomMD, I don’t have a lot experience about college fairs, but from everything I’ve seen and from reports, they sound like a big cattle-call and I’m not sure how much value they have but I could be totally wrong.</p>
<p>3girls3cats – my D2012 never took the ACT. She took the SAT once, in June of junior year, and was satisfied with that score. My D2015 probably won’t take the ACT, as her sophomore year mock-PSAT was much stronger than her PLAN. Crossing fingers for one-and-done with her, too.</p>
<p>OK, seeing these concordance score links highlights an issue I’ve always had as a rookie with this: some of these seem to strip out the essay portion. How do you know when it’s appropriate to strip out that part of the score? Does it depend on the school, and thus you have to go hunting at that school’s website to see if they consider writing? OY. Will the score report we get be broken out that way? I think the ACT breaks everything out pretty clearly, and then also give a composite score. Do you get that with the SAT? Like the score with and without the essay portion?</p>
<p>There are still colleges that only consider the CR+M part of SAT and don’t look at any part of the writing or essay. U Chicago is one. You can see it in the FAQ section of admissions about tests. They talked about it at the info session too. Still, I have a sneaking suspicion that they don’t disregard it entirely. There it is for them to see. And I don’t know what they do with the science section of ACT for kids who submit that. That isn’t clear. What do others think?</p>
<p>The SAT score report online shows a MC score and essay score separately. They scale the MC up to 80, so that’s like 800. I don’t know if that is what they send the colleges. The online report is pretty detailed, shows how many questions you missed of various types. </p>
<p>The effect of the essay on score seems minimal. They claim it’s worth 30% of writing grade. But my D only got 8/12 on essay and that only dropped writing score by 30 points from 800. Seems like it should have dropped more, when one missed MC question can drop you 30 points.</p>
<p>We get a lot of college fairs coming to us at local high schools and community colleges. We also get a lot of individual schools coming to hotels in the area. Just recently 2 of my daughters top picks were at hotels 20 minutes away, but we could not go because they came during the week and she had things going on. There is a huge college fair coming up within the next few days ( over 250 schools) and I would like her to go even if it’s for short period of time. I expect it to be hot, crowded, and very unpleasant!! I just want her to make face to face contact with a few schools and then we can leave. Her high school also has colleges visiting almost every single day but so far she has not spoken to any. </p>
<p>Living near NYC is a huge disadvantage for us when applying to schools in the Northeast ( it’s that geographic diversity thing). The county that we live in seems to give us a slight edge over some other counties that have a much bigger population. Schools love geographic diversity- although mine is applying to many in the NE, she is also going to apply to several in the south and Midwest. </p>
<p>There are many schools that look more closely at the CR/M than the writing, especially when it comes to scholarships. I suspect the ACT is different in that scholarship money is based on the composite score and not individual subtests, but I suppose there are always exceptions. I have seen many many schools state that you need a certain score on CR/math for the honors program and scholarships, but you need a composite of 33 ( example) for money based on the ACT ( it is not broken down). I know UPitt is top 5% of HS class and either 1450 CR/M or 33 for scholarship money ( I suppose this changes based on the credentials of the kids applying each year). Yesterday we ran into some old friends who commented that it’s very hard for " average " kids to get scholarship money. It seems that the high stats kids will always apply to the schools that these " average" kids apply to. The truth is that if you do your research and apply wisely then your " average" kid can absolutely get some money . My older one is considered " average" and got merit money from 3 schools ( out of 8).</p>
<p>Celeste, Suzy100 is right. College fairs are cattle calls and near useless. This fair took place in a shopping mall after stores closed. I had never been to one so neither Dnor I knew crowded they were. </p>
<p>D hadn’t been interested in any colleges that have visited her high school so far. She wants to go to a small CTCL type LAC and most schools have been big universities. Her school isn’t on the visit list for many small colleges. It doesn’t have a big name like other high schools in the DC-Baltimore area and the majority of students go to probably four in state universities plus Penn State.</p>
<p>The college fair had some colleges she had found interesting so we sought out those schools, bypassing the rest. Talking even for five minutes to a person turned out to be a nice way for D to connect a little to this college search process. She was thrilled to find out that there are safety schools for her (she’s a B+ student with fair test scores so far).</p>
<p>twogirls, there were 400 colleges at this college fair in a shopping mall (!) and we only went to four or five booths. There was a sixth and maybe seventh but after the fifth one, we had to get out of the place. </p>
<p>The colleges are lined up on both floors of the mall in alphabetical order (A-M upstairs, the rest downstairs). We did downstairs first. Then we walked up. I think on the staircase we wanted to leave but we couldn’t change direction. We had to walk up. D talked to Eckerd College. I said something about Earlham and Clark. She gave me “the stare” and I returned my stare. Then I realized while Earlham was a possibility (just past all those Eastern’s) Clark was just out of the question. So we left. </p>
<p>I may recover by the time S is ready for the college search in 6 years but that’s the last fair for D.</p>