<p>I use the 4 free ones for schools we have determined are safeties, or to show interest :)</p>
<p>Our Board of Ed just announced that President’s day (next Monday) will be used to make up one of the snow days. </p>
<p>Some suggested take away Easter days too. I’m nervous about that, because we planned a college visit that weekend. In our county, if a student missed more than 5 days of school, s/he gets a warning. I don’t know if a college visit will be excused. I don’t want my D get a warning. </p>
<p>I haven’t been keeping up as well after the change to the forum but I wanted to pipe up on a few topics.</p>
<p>1) Facebook Group: Fine with me…is there any details?</p>
<p>2) Who is leading the college process? This is my second DD and I have been nudging her along. She definitely wants to go to college and I have been feeling her out about what she wants to study and where she wants to be located. We did tour our two best state colleges over fall break to start planting ideas of college in her head (and making it more real) and one she loved and one she hated (toooo big). So I have been investigating possibilities for her and have been mentioning them to her. I think she likes that. At some points she does say “let’s not talk about college anymore” for the day and I comply with that. One snow day we went to the library and looked at college books a bit. I also know my DD has trouble making decisions so I don’t mind working with her.</p>
<p>3) Choosing courses: I think it is good to think about what their peers in their major would be doing when picking classes. My DD wants to be pre-med…so I think her best deal would be to take Calculus AB and then take Calculus 1 again in college. If your son/daughter was planning on engineering, then many of their peers may have taken Calculus BC so you would want to consider that as a factor and at least take Calculus AB. </p>
<p>4) SAT: She will be taking her first SAT in March. She is doing a review class…hopefully she can do well on the first take! Some of her more academically oriented friends are also doing March. I was talking to another Dad and he was under the impression that the school signed you up for the SATs…I told him that was not the case. But he had never taken the SAT’s himself so hopefully his wife is aware.</p>
<p>Suzy,</p>
<p>They are correct; this past week’s ACT was the same form that was administered nationally on Oct 27th, 2012. Form 72A I believe.</p>
<p>The SAT regularly recycles its non-QAS forms for internationally administered exams but I think only the ACT does so domestically. </p>
<p>Kind of outrageous that they would administer the same form twice within the same admissions cycle.</p>
<p>Big college fairs are a zoo and weren’t worth it for my shy D1 – she was just too uncomfortable to push herself to the front of a line and chat up a stranger. Things might go better for kids who feel more comfortable with “putting themselves out there.” I don’t know that walking around just grabbing brochures is any more valuable than getting the same info by surfing the net for schools’ websites. I think the fairs can be useful for kids who are looking to connect with reps smaller less-well-known schools, especially if the kid contacts the rep by email in advance and asks to connect with them at a specific time during the fair. </p>
<p>I don’t think you can actually expect any meaningful contact at a general college fair. It’s really just about discovering possibilities for the student and generating lists of kids who have expressed interest for the reps. Sometimes the college fairs are more focussed (like for one high school or for a particular program of low income high achievers) and then it’s more meaningful. But for the generic road shows, it’s all about the demonstrated interest. I’ve represented my alma mater at several college fairs, and it’s always fun to talk to students, but I sure don’t remember them at the end of the day.</p>
<p>The college fairs we’ve been to did not have scanners (nor did we have bar-code stickers). Honestly that would have been a wonderful addition. As it is, we were furiously filling out little cards for some schools, making it a less than fun experience. Now we just check out the school website and fill out the contact info there if interested. It’s a much better experience. My D’s school participates in one of these fairs each year, so we may need to go to that one this year… but we will avoid the rest.</p>
<p>My son won’t be able to attend any college fairs or visit many schools because he is finishing high school overseas. I did suggest that he start talking to reps when they visit his school. Has anyone’s kids gotten any useful information during a visit with a college rep?</p>
<p>@bopper My little daughter’s fuzzy lop wants to meet your bunny!</p>
<p>I am sorry to hear that college visits might get messed up due to weather make-up days. 
So far I haven’t heard anything from D’s school about it. I think if they do anything, they will tack on days at the end of the year.</p>
<p>@apollo6, my D did get good info from the Northwestern college rep when she visited D’s school.</p>
<p>Apollo6 - My D visited with a few school reps when they were visiting her school. She found these much, much better than the huge college fairs. The rep gave some info, and there was time for the kids to ask questions. Juniors were limited this year (couldn’t miss class for any of these) so hopefully she will get to go to more next year.</p>
<p>I know that my students seem to love their time with the reps who come to the school. For many of the private schools there may be only 3-8 students at a particular rep meeting. The rep often makes some notes and at times has helped a student or two schedule an alumni/college interview. There seems to be a bigger crowd at the state school meetings and students claim meeting is more informational than personal.</p>
<p>As a teacher, I can come to rep meeting if I am free. Over the years, I notice that the smaller private schools tend to send the same rep/admin person. The school establishes a nice relationship with the person and I feel this benefits some students. The larger schools send various alumni and/or different reps and harder to establish personal relationship.</p>
<p>My D’s school has set up 2 panels in the past with about 15-20 admissions officers and I attended last year’s. It was very personal, friendly, and informative. I don’t see it on this year’s schedule though.</p>
<p>The list for the Fall is already started. Right now there are 23 scheduled reps coming, but that number will grow.</p>
<p>I think it also shows interest, especially when a visit may be costly/difficult.</p>
<p>I am in shock that they would use an ACT from October 2012- that’s only 16 months ago and it’s quite possible that some current juniors who took the Feb 8 test also took it in October of their sophomore year just to get some practice. Oh well- nothing we can do about it now. </p>
<p>My kid went to guidance today and finalized her schedule, although it can be changed so it’s not really finalized. She told him which schools we were visiting next week and he said, “you really know what you are doing. Come back after the visits and we will sit down and talk some more.” Thankfully my kid did not mention that her mother has a CC addiction. </p>
<p>I am sorry for all of the college visit mess ups due to vacations being cancelled. </p>
<p>Ok Atlanta round 2 of winter storms. Please let’s not make the same mistakes as 2 weeks ago! Thankfully school h is already canceled for tomorrow. Day 5 of winter closings. Kinda unprecedented for us in the South! AP teachers are panicking at the loss of instruction time. This is a downside of block scheduling. 2nd semester AP classes already have a compressed schedule and to lose 5 instructional days is a lot. I am surprised there are not investigating virtual classes- google chats etc would work. </p>
<p>Very excited to start the college visit process with S2. We leave on Friday for Washington and Lee, University of Richmond and UVA. </p>
<p>Ooh, would love to hear a review of that trip, Disneydad. Those schools may be on D’s list.</p>
<p>@sally22, how much snow are you guys expecting? Someone I work with said school has already been canceled for the next two days but not much snow in the forecast?</p>
<p>Disneydad – I’d love to hear about them, too, when you return. We went to a W & Lee presentation here (the school is pretty much unknown on the west coast) and it looked beautiful and sounded like a great school. Just too far for us to visit…</p>
<p>@suzy100
Not much snow, they are fearing an ice storm. laundry done, dishwasher will be run and everything will be charged overnight.</p>
<p>W&L have been mailing softball girl daily. Her sister was offered the Johnson, but declined. Not her type of school.
Beautiful campus and I loved the town of Lexington. Very remote. </p>
<p>We all liked UVA, but no merit money was offered. :(</p>
<p>Also looking at Richmond for d2. </p>
<p>Disneydad UVA and U of Richmond are on our list of schools to visit during Presidents week. We will be at UVA on Monday and we will be at U of Richmond on the way back. We are also seeing Duke, UMD-CP, Emory, Wake Forest and UNC-CH. What day will you be at UVA?</p>
<p>We are getting more snow Wednesday night and Thursday… ~X( </p>
<p>Sally22 – I hear that W & L is very unique and that it’s either a fit or it isn’t. Hard to tell from all the way across the country, though! ;)</p>