<p>Remember how I said AP Bio was rough for my D? She has all A’s in the rest of her classes, including 3 AP’s ( Lit, Computer Science and APUSH) but has a C in this class, and each test that grade drops. I think we will pull her out and have her take regular biology to protect her GPA and her sanity. She feels like this is a failure- and would rather take enriched Bio instead but that would require changing almost her whole schedule and everything else is going so well I would hate to do that. She’s not applying to any schools that would reject her over one class not being the ‘most rigorous’ so as long as she gets at least a B in the regular biology class I think she will be OK. Not a great place to be but could be worse.</p>
<p>For the camping at halloween thing, that does sound like something my D and her friends would come up with, and I would say no but my H would think it sounded fine. I certainly would be a wreck all night, though I think they would be fine. Just too many bad possibilities.</p>
<p>I feel the need to send D away for at least a couple of weeks this summer. Looking for a program that is not super competitive that would be interesting for her, my main motive if just to have her AWAY from home for a few weeks to see what that really is like. Her main criterea for a college is that it is far from home, and she has never done that before, seems like she should do it for a shorter time before making a college decision. NOt thinking about the NSLI thing for her, though my younger D will want to do that for sure. Maybe the GERI institute at Purdue ( we are Purdue grads…) any other ideas?</p>
<p>DS loved GERI @ Purdue. He attended the summers of 5th-8th grades. Once he entered high school though, he chose not to attend because his summers were very busy. Our DS who is now in middle school wants to attend this year.</p>
<p>mittentigger - We have the same daughter! College has to be at least two hours away.</p>
<p>I felt the same way last summer (and this summer). That’s how D ended up doing YCC (Youth Conservation Corps) at a state park. There are longer residential programs at Yellowstone and Yosemite and non-residential programs at other US parks. D is an environmental sort of person, so I also found the Summer Field Institute at the College of the Atlantic for her. </p>
<p>Slacker mom, thank you for those links. I always wonder how people learn of these programs.</p>
<p>I hadn’t thought about the idea of making sure D got some time away from home before college. Makes sense, definitely something I will look into. There is one for orchestra a couple hours from here that I think could be good if she’s up for it. </p>
<p>It reminds me of back to pre school times, when I signed her up for part time preschool, even though I was at home so that she could get used to it…and I could too. ;-)</p>
<p>I just looked at the in-depth report for D’s SAT scores. Man, it makes me feel like she should definitely not take it again. Just a few either missed or omitted and it really could change a score, but it is so dependent on the curve! For example, there is a 70 point difference between the scores of two sections, but that difference amounted to one incorrect answer in the lower score - all other things were equal. Seems so unpredictable!</p>
<p>My kids never want to do the high powered academic things in summer, but kids have gone to residential week-long tennis camps(run by Nike?) and music camps. I found out too late that at U Michigan the music professors run their own 2-week long camps that are focused completely on the one instrument, not a band camp. With HS sports tryouts in early August, the whole month of August is shot. That used to be the month we went to Finland to visit H’s family and I really miss it. And June is reserved for the possibility of club soccer playoffs.</p>
<p>S is going on the HS French trip to France this summer. Part of the time they stay with host families. Spring break his soccer team(and many families) went to Florence and that was a blast, so he’s psyched.</p>
<p>Every time I peek in on S studying in his room and ask what he’s up to, the answer is AP Bio. I knew he should’ve done the physics, would’ve been so much easier.</p>
<p>Mitten I would not put her in enriched bio if it means disrupting her schedule. Have her talk to the teacher and GC and if you decide to switch to regular, it will be fine.</p>
<p>Celeste my kid wanted to take AP bio but was talked into taking AP physics and will do bio next year. While she is doing very well in AP physics, it requires an enormous amount of time and work. Whenever I ask her what she is doing, her answer is " physics." LOL</p>
<p>Ha, ha, twogirls. So funny. The grass is greener…</p>
<p>No, it’s the 2nd year, and the test results were SO bad last year that the teachers are really pushing the kids hard this year. Traditionally it’s been viewed as the ‘easy’ AP science at S’s HS since they don’t have EnvSc. Kids not expecting this at all. He has Astronomy too, but that hasn’t been hard yet, still studying the skies and not plotting spaceship trajectories yet. Just wait, I told him.</p>
<p>Good luck to your S, PN! Well <em>I</em> think she should be done. She hasn’t weighed in yet. ;)</p>
<p>CR, my D is avoiding APBio altogether. It is said to be the hardest class at the school, and she’s not a science kid and will have more than a full plate next year without it. I wish my D could go on the school trip to France. I’m sure she’ll get to study there in college though!</p>
<p>D did this two summers ago, age 14, at Brown, and it was a life-changer for her. She’s been with the same kids in school all her life, never had to put herself out there with strangers. She lived at Brown for 3 weeks, studied neuroscience (her choice, they offer literally hundreds of classes), lived in a dorm and made friends from all over the country and world. It was an excellent experience for her. I don’t think Brown is particularly difficult to get into for summer so it’s not something to crow about on a college app, but it really broadened her horizons. She also came back so into neuroscience that she did an independent study in it through HS last year. </p>
<p>Tons and tons of similar opportunities exist, most cost quite a lot of money.</p>
<p>It is funny how the class that is considered the hardest is different from school to school. At our school it is AP Chem. I would not let my S take it this year because he is simply too busy. I am so glad we/he made that decision. I ran into a friend over the weekend whose D is taking it, and she has had to give up some things she really loves because of the homework load.</p>
<p>AP Chem is the killer class at D’s school with AP Physics as a close runner-up. AP Bio is demanding but not as hard as the other two. D wants to take AP Chem next year - I’m a bit nervous about that. Her friends who are taking either class are always doing homework/projects or just studying. AP EnvSci is a deceptively easy class. D took it last year. Some kids didn’t take it seriously (because it’s the easy AP) and they failed the AP exam.</p>
<p>OHMomof2, a friend of D’s also went to Brown a few summers ago and really liked it. I didn’t realize it wasn’t competitive. I’m finding a lot of these summer programs are pretty expensive. I try to find the ones marked “free” but they are incredibly competitive.</p>
<p>Yes, the cost of most of these programs is prohibitive for us, although I think she’d get a lot of value out of simply being away from home for a few weeks.</p>
<p>If you have financial need, a lot of the somewhat-easier-to-get-into programs offer partial or even full financial aid. Very few offer “merit”.</p>
<p>I don’t want to say Summer@Brown isn’t competitive - D had to send recs, transcript, scores and an essay and all were good. But a couple thousand kids go each year so it’s not like a TASP-type program where like 40 are selected from thousands and there are several interviews and so on.</p>
<p>D is taking Chem II (our advanced Chem is not AP and has HS Chem as a prerequisite) and loves it. I don’t see her struggling with the work load from that or Physics or Analysis at all. Now English and Gov…these she frets over and spends a lot of time on and still struggles to get a B or B+. A kid’s natural strengths play a real part, I think, as her older brother was the opposite - easy-breezy through advanced English and History, struggled with math and science.</p>
<p>mittentiger, I think it makes sense to move her from APbio. Bio just seems to n=me to be one of those subject that really shouldn’t be taken in the AP format…at least what AP is typically known for…cramming lots of info for the test. I guess really no subject should be taught that way, but bio is a foundation for so much that I think it is important for the class to have time to absorb the info. If she switches and feels more comfortable, maybe she can still self study for the AP test if that’s important to her. </p>
<p>The program at Brown sounds great…and neuroscience…yes, D would love that, but I can’t quite imagine sending her off that far away! It’s one thing to go away for a couple weeks, but traveling across the country by herself…I am not ready for that, an highly doubt she would be either.</p>
<p>OHMomof2, analysis? As in real analysis? You have that at your high school??? How many kids advanced enough to take that? Your D must be a math prodigy.</p>