<p>shoeboemom, about AP, I have input. I think that what you say is probably true of science classes. But for my college freshman D doing a double major, the humanities AP credit is invaluable. It’s hard to squeeze in a double major, esp when one is 90 credit music performance. Having the gen eds mostly taken care of makes life a lot easier for her. She still has to take 2nd semester freshman English and her honors college has a 2 semester required humanities course with lots of hard writing, so she’ll get enough practice writing at the college level in those 3 classes. About the math, it depends. Her BC class was brutal, though the teacher was really cool guy. She is on cloud 9 because she just got 99 on her MV calc test(honors) yesterday. But only 3 kids in class got 90+ so she is worrying about what that says about preparation and level of students there, etc. I said- think, it’s honors, fall semester. Those kids in your class are all freshman straight out of BC, and they didn’t all have Mr. Dominic for a teacher. It’s a huge adjustment to college math.They’ll be fine after awhile,most of them. Maybe some of them should have repeated the class.</p>
<p>So for science I agree, repeat. Math, maybe. Other classes, if you are doing STEM or any non-humanities majors, the AP credit is pretty useful if you attend where they give any.</p>
<p>Shoboe and 3girls my daughter has been dealing with anxiety issues since 3rd grade. She was in therapy in elementary school, a little bit in middle school, and last year. Finding a school for her is going to be tricky, but I know there is one out there. She needs a school that is on her level academically, while at the same time is somewhat laid back in terms of the " vibe." . I don’t want her locked up in her room for 4 years due to work stress. She is not a partier and does not seem to mind spending time doing schoolwork. </p>
<p>3girls I was also going to ask you about community college for a year…</p>
<p>After reading that article in the NYTimes this morning, now I have to feel guilty. Aiding in the decline of the humanities by encouraging D to avoid gen eds with AP credit…</p>
<p>Thanks Shoboe! I’m happy to say that D has taken up yoga this year and is enjoying it. My middle D studied karate through her first years in college. She earned a 3rd degree black belt and taught the little kids at her studio. It was a great experience for her! I remember watching her first black belt test and thinking oh no, she can’t possibly do this and then watching her DO this. It was incredibly impressive. The discipline and strength required to advance through the belts is truly amazing. </p>
<p>Naturally, youngest D wanted nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>The community college idea is an interesting one. I am not sure how well it would fit D but it’s something to consider. The one place where she is extremely mature is in her schoolwork. She is annoyed when her peers aren’t prepared or talk during class and don’t take it seriously or when they don’t contribute quality work to group projects or even when they just aren’t up to snuff academically. (She thinks it’s only because they are lazy.) On one hand, those at community college may well be more mature than her current classmates. They know they are paying for the education and are more apt to take it seriously. On the other hand, the level of work may not be enough to satisfy D. It would have been ideal if we’d been prepared to move her directly to community college from middle school or in her sophomore year. I think there may even be some formal programs in our area that provide for younger teens to complete their high school years at the local community college.</p>
<p>A while ago there was a discussion about checking AP grades with CB. I can’t find those posts. Can somebody give me a direction? D. has been bugging me. She got a 4 in APUSH last year. She said she should have got a 5. She did several sample tests and they’re all 5s. she did SAT history subject test and got an 800. She’s been talking about it non stop and wanted me to check to see if there is any way to find out what she didn’t do right in her AP test. I called CB. They said the only thing they can provide (with a small fee) is what she wrote in FR and DBQ, without the grader’s comments. That doesn’t help at all, because she knows what she wrote. </p>
<p>About the NY Times article: WOOHOO for my humanities girl! :)</p>
<p>My D is home sick today (just a sore throat) and she is thumbing through the Fiske guide and just informed me she has big love for Brown. Maybe I should direct her to Stanford or Princeton. ;)</p>
<p>herandhismom, I don’t know if there is anything you can do.</p>
<p>CB will never tell you what you got right or wrong or even the total scores on either part of the test. Nothing. Possible causes of scores lower than expected: misbubbling MC, computer not reading bubble markings, not labelling top of each page of FRQ section with the number of the question worked on that page(in which case essay graders don’t have to look at it), CB lost mangled or mismatched one part of test. You can also pay $25 to have them rescore the MC by hand. They won’t tell you anything about the results of the rescore, except whether it changes your score. You get a notice that score remained the same or score changed from 4 to 5.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is possible to have a 4 and be missing one whole section. You’d have to check the scoring guides for APUSH. I thought 3 would be highest, but could be wrong. It was probably me writing before. D got 2 on APUSH and was confident of 5, so we paid the $7+$25. They sent back the FRQ and she had forgotten to label top of a page. Not that they care, wouldn’t change anything, but we know she probably lost some points there. They refunded the $25 because there was some difficulty with the MC, lost or something. Then just doubled her 2 to a 4 to make up for the missing MC. They won’t tell you if a section is missing from grade. You have to pay to have them send and regrade to have them look into it.</p>
<p>That’s a good start, suzy100! If she can identify what she likes about Brown it will help her search for other similar schools for her list. </p>
<p>herandhisMom - I’m not sure, but can’t you ask them to regrade it? I may be thinking of some other test that lets you do that, and there may be a fee.</p>
<p>D got the USC letter as well. She took Oct SAT and had performed well on her soph PSAT, but we hope she got it because she aced the 2013 PSAT and USC got an early list of strong 2013 PSAT scorers!
No way she is going to college early, but enjoyed the letter. We are pretty far from USC geographically, though two NMF who went to D’s high school and elementary/middle school did go to USC last year.
Volleyball is winding down, last game today, while soccer starts up. I hope to make her last vball game today, but I am really looking forward to watching her soccer team. They are returning most of their starters from an undefeated, state championship year, so expectations are high.</p>
<p>“but we hope she got it because she aced the 2013 PSAT and USC got an early list of strong 2013 PSAT scorers!”</p>
<p>I seriously doubt it. The letter said they sent one earlier (before this year’s PSAT date) so I don’t think this year’s PSAT score is involved. I think it’s an open invitation anyone can apply. </p>
<p>Stanford is notorious for preferring to admit STEM oriented kids. I had to laugh when I read the article because there are many, many humanities oriented kids out there who would love to go to Princeton, Yale, Stanford , Brown. The schools aren’t admitting them!</p>
<p>D is definitely going to do humanities. so it’ll be easier for her to get into Princeton? haha fat chance. </p>
<p>She took AP chem last year and got a 4 in the exam. Does it count anything if she majors in something that has nothing to do with chemistry? (like international relations, or law)</p>
<p>If she goes to a public university, a 4 on AP chem will probably count toward science distribution requirements. Every university will give you info on AP/IB credit if you search “credit by examination”. For instance at Ole Miss, she’d get 3 credits but it wouldn’t count as a lab. The most credit at most schools seems to be for world language classes. For my kids’ AP 4s and 5s in Spanish and Chinese, they could get 6-9 credit hours and test out of WL requirements anywhere, including LACs that aren’t generous with AP credit.</p>
<p>I guess what I meant is that if you are STEM, it is good to take the university’s science sequences to get a good foundation. But if you are humanities, it’s probably good to use science credit for gen eds. Hadn’t thought of that. Since D and S are more math/science-like, I was thinking of it from that perspective.</p>
<p>Good luck to the kids taking the SAT tomorrow! Hoping for coffee-stocked kitchens, sharp #2 pencils, working calculators, well-functioning brains, and a little bit of zen.</p>
<p>Yes - good luck to the SAT takers tomorrow! My S is taking it. I need to look up his calculator and make sure it’s OK. I think it was last time I checked, but I’d better make sure…it’s one of those fancy graphing calculators that the school made us buy that they really don’t need to have. LOL</p>
<p>Yes - it looks like it’s OK. I know he couldn’t take it to the ACT. Here’s the link if anyone cares - it looks like the SAT allows almost all type of calculators:</p>
