<p>JM you are lucky that your D is taking an active role and trying to create a list. Good for her!</p>
<p>Got s15’s ACT scores this morning. This was the first time he took them and he can’t take again until April. Did better than I expected. Pleasantly surprised. His reading was his highest score which makes me laugh because he really doesn’t read! HA! Also - his English was his lowest score and I think that should be the easiest to “study” for - any thoughts? He took this without any prep so there should be room for improvement.</p>
<p>ahsmuoh - does he have time to prep before the next test? If he has time, definitely recommend practice tests using the Redbook. For many kids, April is a difficult time to take the test due to upcoming APs/IB exams. Good to hear he did better than expected.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any one way of starting a college list or doing the college search “process”, but I agree it can be VERY stressful and we’ve tried to alleviate that somewhat with how we’ve approached it.</p>
<p>Our thoughts were that anything worth building needs to have a solid foundation in place first…or in CC terms “honor thy safety”. Our first goal is to get the safety school(s) nailed down as early as possible. Once the student/parents know that there is a school in the bag that is academically/socially/geographically agreeable to the student and financially affordable for the parents, I think it takes a lot of the stress out of the application (and the WAITING) process for the “take a shot” schools.</p>
<p>So far everything has gone relatively well. S and D2 have both found at least one safety school within the local/regional area that they’d be happy attending, and that definitely changes the mindset as they look at additional potential safeties (PSAT dependent) and start looking towards “take a shot” schools. We just thought it would be better to have Plan B already in place before looking too hard at Plan A. I think it could help to cushion any possible disappointments from “reach” or “dream” school admissions/FA decisions.</p>
<p>ahsmuoh…Congrats to your S!! Our kids also started off their testing with limited/no prep just for familiarity and comfort purposes, and the scores did improve with prep and additional HS coursework.</p>
<p>Wolverine and FromMD - thanks. As far as the Redbook is concerned - we have it from when d13 took the test (she did very little prep so it is not marked up much!). Do you think having one that is 2 years old matters? Someone also suggested the blue book - I think it is Princeton review. We will make some time for him to do some prep work. He REALLY wants to be done before senior year. So I think he will be motivated. He got a score high enough to get in to the schools (at least according to the common data set) that are on his list but would like to get the score a little higher for scholarship purposes.</p>
<p>ahsmuoh - check which edition you have. The latest one is the 3rd edition which contains 5 practice exams. It came out a couple years ago so you may have 2nd edition. You do NOT need both. The 3rd edition contains 2 (or 3) from the 2nd edition if I remember correctly. I don’t know anything about the PR book. D took the exam in September and only used the RB (and 4 hours of tutoring which didn’t help).</p>
<p>That’s great news ahsmuoh!</p>
<p>shoeboemom, I also can totally relate to your post. It’s really exactly where I am, although I have a little more data having one set of SAT scores in.</p>
<p>This weekend really was a turning point for us, though. It was the first time that D said that she could see herself (and would be fine) attending a school we’ve identified as a safety school. That really really takes the pressure off. (And I am assuming/hoping a formal follow up visit will solidify that.) I think she should have additional safeties assuming the PSAT went well, and so now we can start looking at the “take a shot” schools (in the words of Wolverine), where the focus would be something along the lines of “this would be nice but it’s perfectly fine if it doesn’t work out.”</p>
<p>Ah, therein lies the rub…trying to find that true safety…that she actually likes. It would be a big relief to find one! We have found a state school that would be a financial safety, and she said she liked, but it’s an honors college, so I don’t know that we can consider it an ‘admit’ safety. Schools that would really be safeties she is less than uninterested in. But, to be fair, we haven’t done any official tours of them…just brief visits on our own. Maybe that is where we should focus our efforts. Maybe there is something about these big schools that will end up appealing to her. Seems unlikely, but I guess you never know.</p>
<p>I wish CB offered SAT subject in March, together with the general SATs. D. wants to take Math II. but she is not sure she can be ready by January. She doesn’t want to take it in May with all the APs.</p>
<p>Maxwell - I agree that there should be more opportunities to take the tests. I wish they had the ACT or SAT in the summer. I HATE the whole standardized test thing - I have one child that is a whiz at standardized tests and one that isn’t. So, I see both sides when people are trying to get to full scholarship level and those just getting the test scores to match GPA’s or perceived intelligence!</p>
<p>I would like to have a fully rested kid taking these things. I do think that my kid is working under a disability there. I’m actually pondering the January test date in hopes that she’ll be better rested, but since that’s the middle of build season, it’s probably not the case. Kids in residential schools just don’t sleep!</p>
<p>Maxwell, is June too late? I think that’s my D’s plan. She’ll take history at the same time as the AP in May (and maybe English Lit). Then she’ll take Math in June.</p>
<p>I’m a big believer in finding the safety before anything else. I’m just not sure what that means anymore. I think I’ll feel a lot more confident guiding D or getting her to ask for the guidance counselor’s help once we have more data. She has a very general sense of what she wants (urban rather than rural, small feeling even if in a large setting, limited Greek life) so we’ll start from there after the first semester. The other bonus is that by then the seniors will have filed their applications so the counselors will be ready to turn their full attention to the juniors.</p>
<p>I feel like doing APs and Subjects at the same time makes sense so that’s tentatively scheduled for May.</p>
<p>Last school year she took APUSH and was willing to take the subject test in U.S. history either in May or in June, which makes sense. (she didn’t, because of conflicts.) But math II doesn’t really go with any AP.
@3girls, I think history AP and SAT at the same time makes sense.
June for math sounds good. </p>
<p>She is interested in Georgetown, even though we haven’t visited it yet. She’s heard family friends talking about it. GT asks for 3 SAT subject tests. She is thinking maybe literature. I suggested a FL. She objected vehemently. 
so I guess not. </p>
<p>When is the latest time they can take the test and turn it in with the application?</p>
<p>Maxwell—Oct of Sr year, to be comfortable, but even that can cause a bit of a last-minute scramble as you need to self-report the test scores on the CA and then also order score reports. </p>
<p>My son mistakingly thought that Lit would be easy b/c he had scored a 770 on CR the prior fall. Now, it may be that some students have studied material similar to the Lit exam, but my son did not find it easy at all. He has never taken honors or AP English, so perhaps that might have made a difference. It is difficult for some to find that third subject test.</p>
<p>I think Math 2 covers through pre-calc, yes? So right at the end of that class seems to make sense. Here in OH the kids are out of school by the June test date so that’s less than ideal if they have summer plans.</p>
<p>D will take Chem (she’s in Chem 2 this year) and Math 2 and that’s probably going to be it, unless she falls in love with a school that requires 3.</p>
<p>She is taking the AP Lang exam this year…I don’t know if that corresponds to a Subject test well or not. AP Lit is a senior class here so it’ll be too late to make that work with a Lit Subject test.</p>
<p>OHMom, yes Math II covers through pre-calc. i.e., pre calc taught correctly. My D’s school didn’t cover a lot of things that are in math II, we just found out. So she doesn’t feel comfortable taking the test right after taking the class, even though she finished precalc in June this year. </p>
<p>CT, I’ve heard many people say lit is hard. One student I know got 2400 in SAT and 800 in every subject test. but he didn’t even get 700 in lit. Of course people are talented in different ways. Still it shows it’s a hard test.</p>
<p>I had heard Lit is hard as well, but D will probably take it in June, along with French. I really wish that she had taken either Math2 or US History at the end of last year, but she was burnt out. Maybe she can still take Math2 sometime this year - I need to check the SAT schedules.</p>
<p>suzy, SAT subjects are on December, Jan. May and June.
Maxwell, my d’s situation is similar to that of yours. But she decided to take MathII in January anyway. If it doesn’t go well, she will take it again in May or June. </p>
<p>FLs are supposed to be also very hard.</p>