<p>celeste, don’t worry, my S15 has zero choices yet either–he can hardly even make a list of college names and where they are located. For those who think their kids have made “final selections,” and have this nailed, you may be surprised. I have two older kids and their “choices” evolved quite a bit from junior winter till senior fall. It’s just too darn early and ALOT of kids will change their minds many times between now and when they actually pick a school to attend in spring of 2015. Yes, we are still a long way away from 2015.</p>
<p>We’ve been at this for over a year, and started a lot earlier than most as BHG is looking at a number of schools that require auditions even if she wishes to minor in dance and a her GC says it DAILY in the announcements and meetings with students and parents to get the list done. The GC meets with the juniors weekly in group meetings to discuss fit, FA, NPCs, course catalogs, and visits. If a student cannot visit many schools, the GC helps facilitate interviews in-person in our state or via phone or SKYPE. Students at BHG’s school have their lists done early. Period. </p>
<p>BHG’s HS wants tentative school lists in hand the first week of school along with a rough draft of two CA essays along with supplemental essays to tweak and work on the whole first quarter. Three LOR requests are due in May of Junior year with LOR request forms signed & dated by the recommender agreeing to write the LOR. BHG’s school also highly recommends all testing for the ACT, SAT & SATIIs completed no later than June of junior year and all first campus visits done prior to the beginning of senior year. Senior year visits should only happen for interviews or auditions. Our school GC finds that students that follow the advised timeline get all their applications in early (by end of October even for RD apps) and only have to wait for acceptances and keep grades up. </p>
<p>We’re following the advised timeline given to us and discussed ad nauseum by BHG’s GC since fall of 10th grade. The GC runs a well oiled machine and gets pretty much everyone into 80% of the schools applied to-- provided the lists reflect schools based on gpa and test scores and are not all lottery schools. If it is not broke, why fix it?</p>
<p>Threesdad sounds like you had a fabulous time - what a great experience for your daughter!! Good luck to her as the process moves forward. My D will also be taking the ACT on the 14, but most of her studying and tutoring has focused on the SAT which will be this Saturday. Over the past couple of weeks the tutor has done some ACT reading and English and she has done two science and math sections on her own. Last night she looked at one of her math tests to review wrong answers. Her ACT scores seem to be pretty good but she already knows that on Sunday she will sit down and take an ACT and may do am extra math section.</p>
<p>I think it’s wonderful that BHG’s school operates the way it does but for those of you who do not have schools picked out, do not worry- it will come. A few weeks ago one of the teachers asked my D if she started looking at schools and she said “no” ( she lied). The teacher told her that she should really get moving. When I instructed my D not to discuss this with anybody I did not mean to lie! I simply advised her to keep her responses vague. </p>
<p>Our school has a lot of meetings junior year for parents but I will not go because I already went to these meetings with my older kid and I believe the info is the same- same speakers etc. Most of the meetings center on how many schools to apply to, make sure you get LOR this year, and make sure you follow all of the time lines perfectly. The info is not specific to your kid. The GC will meet with each kid individually to discuss schools some time in the spring and each kid comes home with a list, but I am usually 10 steps ahead of guidance. </p>
<p>We will be submitting our apps in September and the transcripts and LOR will be in by October. That’s just me- there are plenty of people out there who do not finish this process quite as early. When my older D applied we were out to dinner in December/January ( mine had already heard back from most schools) and we ran into a family who told us that their son was home still working on apps and he hopes to get them in " soon." I was horrified but of course did not show it. This kid was ( and is) a very smart kid applying to many great schools and guess what? He got in to the school that he wanted despite having apps that went in much later than my kids. I could not handle such stress and would much rather be on the schedule of BHG- fits my personality better and I love the way the school keeps everybody so organized. That is one of the benefits to attending a small school. Our school does not recommend waiting until December/ January to finish the apps, BTW, but it happens. </p>
<p>I think most kids will put together some type of list and stick to it, but their preference within the list may change. My older kid was set on one school on the list and at the very last minute switched to another school on the list, but her actual list did not change. My friends kid wanted a small school ( 2,000 kids) and created a final list that contained mostly small schools with 2-3 bigger schools on the list (10,000 kids or more) just in case. One of the bigger schools was added just because the GC kept pushing it. They did not visit the school- decided to visit if she got in. This kid not only got in but she got a ton of money and when they visited the school she fell immediately in love- with a school that has about 15,000 kids. So much for insisting on a small school ( think Hamilton, Colgate). Her list did not change, but the type of school within the list changed.</p>
<p>I agree that it is good to start planning in your child’s junior year but it basically is deciding if you want the stress in the junior year or senior year. I would guess that Twogirls friends son that was just doing applications in his senior year December had no stress about college his junior year because they weren’t thinking about it. My d13 also had all her applications in by October of her senior year but in December of her junior year she still had 14 schools on her list. She only applied to 7 in the end. She is VERY happy with her choice in the end. S15 will be done by November of next year because he is an athlete and will sign in November. I am very excited for him to be done early in his senior year.</p>
<p>erlanger, good to know I am not alone.</p>
<p>BHM, I understand that dance, music, MT other fine arts require much advance planning. Some families are working on it already in 9th/10th grade. It seems you are prepared and ready. Good position to be in.</p>
<p>My S doesn’t have any specialized program in mind, though if his ankle surgery goes well winter break, he may want to look at D3 schools with soccer programs he has a chance to get into, or at least some credible club-type EC soccer. </p>
<p>I wish our school did the pushing. In that case there would be no trouble. He would just do what was expected as a matter of course. But instead, it’s me, perceived as neurotic and bothersome, and there is all kinds of pushback.</p>
<p>Soon he needs to decide about courses for next year. He has the option of going to our state uni for math and French, since he’ll be beyond what they offer at HS. Or he could take it a bit easier and stay at HS, take AP Stats and a year of Chinese or Spanish. I was hoping he would stay at HS and maybe take one of the hands-on courses that lead to careers, like PLTW engineering or medical technology, to get a feeling for what interests him. He derides those as ‘classes for dummies.’ However, he has been happily taking woodworking every year, bringing home night stands, shelves, and whatnot. Next year he wants to fit in auto mechanics. But these he categorizes as hobbies or life skills, not as something he’ll do for a job after high school. I’m afraid he’ll insist on going to uni for 2 classes next year, which is pretty time-consuming- driving back and forth, and worrying about parking too. Our uni obligingly offers special sections of MC calc and diff eq at 7:30 am, 45 minutes before HS school starts, to make it easier for kids to fit into schedule. Still, I think it’s too much trouble. OTOH, if he spends time in classes there, perhaps he’ll learn to love it and want to attend college there, so both choices haves +s and -s.</p>
<p>We are so far from making a final list of schools it’s laughable. I’m looking forward to our spring school visits - I think D will have a much better idea of what interests her after those.</p>
<p>I can’t believe that schools will get PSAT scores this week. 0_0 Only two more weeks of school and then finals. This semester has really flown by.</p>
<p>celeste, I LOVE that your S takes woodworking and is considering auto mechanics. I agree with him - those are great hobbies/life skills to have! I’m just happy that D will be able to squeeze in an art class next semester. She really loves it.</p>
<p>@suzy same here. is it really laughable? :p</p>
<p>D. was teaching me all kinds of things in the past months - when she had time. She is such a great teacher! I was impressed how much she knew about move making (with finalcut), photo shop and all that. It impressed me how many skills she learned on her own, against all the pressures about SAT, school grades, etc. Kids these days!</p>
<p>Any of you grow up listening to Really Rosie? I have a Pierre on my hands whose response to 90% of questions put to her is “I don’t care”. She has some opinions about college (mostly location) and some other things but…“Do you want to take the Dec or Jan SAT?” or “Should we stay for the info session?” and such often elicit a very Pierre response :)</p>
<p>suzy100, thanks. I’m pleased about the wood-working. It was his idea. I don’t get involved in his class choices at all. My H has no skills so I do all the repairs and etc around here, so glad S will not be similarly hampered. It’s very good to understand how to do things, even if you pay others to do the work when you don’t have time or inclination. It helps you judge if they are doing good work. And you know when something is just a 15 minute repair for which you need to buy one cheap tool, vs. something really complicated that requires lots of expensive equipment and need to bring in outside help.</p>
<p>D13’s free class time at school was all taken up by various music classes. Never could even take art, had to take that through our uni’s extension classes for adults. S plays guitar, but not in any school music, so was been able to take art metals glass at HS. It’s a great thing to have classes other than hard academics in the mix. And I don’t care how that affects college admissions. A pox on ad coms.</p>
<p>“Don’t pour syrup on your chair.” “If only you would say ‘I care’, I’d let you fold the folding chair”… Then the lion ate Pierre. But that wasn’t a show. It was my kids’ favorite Maurice Sendak nutshell library book. Is it the same?</p>
<p>We are certainly still in the dreaming about it phase and haven’t shifted to the worry about it stage. In my mind, junior year is all about looking at the limitless possibilities and develop a record. With our D’12, we would have been very surprised if her grades and scores weren’t where we expected. But even so, it’s hard to know how the record will be seen. We had visited various schools the summer before junior year, SATs in October, APs and the last SAT Subject exams in May, a large college list in June, with it pared down to 14 by August. Applications for about half of the schools were in by December 1, and after EA results (positive), the list was pared further. We intend to follow the same road with D’15. </p>
<p>So we visited a lot of schools last summer, and she’s now banked an SAT and ACT score that will be sufficient in October. Now she needs to concentrate on grades, her research, and prepping for APs. She also needs to figure out what she wants for the summer and to apply over winter break. She’ll visit her sister over her spring break, but other than that, thinking about specific colleges until June!</p>
<p>BHM, I have a friend with a younger ballet kid (freshman or sophomore) and would benefit from your research. Can I point her at you?</p>
<p>No no, it was: “Don’t sit backwards on your chair. Or pour syrup on your hair.” It’s coming back to me now. How could I forget after all those readings?</p>
<p>Wish I could “like” all these Sendak posts!</p>
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<p>We had the Carole King children’s record in our house so I guess I think of it that way first but absolutely that song was based on the Sendak book!</p>
<p>I just looked it up and it was her soundtrack to the movie directed by Sendak in 1975 :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5HTA_9M29M[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5HTA_9M29M</a></p>
<p>Sendak’s Nutshell Library were our pack-along bedtime stories when traveling. Fond memories!</p>
<p>I am very glad that my D1 (HS2012) did not finalize her college list early in junior year. She was a late bloomer, and only discovered some of her academic strengths during the course of her junior and senior years. Partway through junior year she was tapped as an alternate for some HS academic teams, and discovered that she could be competitive at a state and national level. That boosted her confidence, not just in those competitions but in general. She started to believe in herself and put herself out there more, including speaking up in class. Her teachers and peers started to look to her as a leader. Her grades soared, and that confidence buoyed her standardized test scores. The whole way she thought of herself changed, right down to her bearing and posture. Since <em>she</em> was changing, her list kept changing too. I am glad she didn’t lockdown too early, as the low-admit-probability program that she now attends wasn’t added until November of senior year.</p>
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<p>Or not at all. My '15 daughter is perfectly content with the three choices she has on the table right now (two of which we have visited). Because certain criteria are non-negotiable for her I’d be surprised if she added more. She is also not susceptible AT ALL to peer pressure, so she is unlikely to be motivated by what her friends end up doing.</p>
<p>Having said that, I reserve the right to come back on this thread lamenting our situation if something radically changes! :)</p>
<p>Put us in the camp of merely developing a “wish list” at this point. We’ll be following D12’s path which was; focus on the gpa junior year (with a couple of fun trips during the year). The list won’t get serious until next summer. D12’ just sat at the computer and did the Common Apps without any essay prepping and submitted them the day before their due date - she got accepted into 5 of 7 and absolutely LOVES where she’s at.</p>
<p>It will all work out - regardles of your tactics.</p>
<p>mihcal, that was inspirational. But now I won’t be able to help myself. I’ll be carefully observing S for any signs of ‘blooming.’ ANY kind of flower. I don’t care. But a flower already, OK? Just what he wants, more hovering from mom. Serious case of watched pot syndrome here.</p>
<p>You guys are making me laugh. I think I’m the only one with a kid who has “junioritis”. I keep telling her there’s no such thing!!! I think she had such a stressful sophomore year with 2 teachers and a coach who were just plain mean that she is really relaxed and enjoying this year. She keeps telling me not to worry about the ACT so I sit here and try not to worry. Only a few more weeks and we’ll have an idea if her list is realistic or not.</p>
<p>My kid has ADHD. That’s his theory. Came up with it earlier this semester. He says he can’t concentrate on schoolwork however hard he tries. I said, “Nice try.” All these years he’s a great student, no issues, and all of a sudden he develops ADHD at age 16. How likely is that? I told him what he is experiencing is called ‘feeling lazy’. No special diagnosis needed for that and no special prerogatives given either.</p>