<p>sunnydayfun, how do they get all of that equipment into a tent??? Those must be some big tents with looong extension cords!</p>
<p>It is funny and interesting to see how these boys set up their tents. Each tent is about 8’ x 8’ (or 10’ x 10’ I am not sure) on a raised platform and has its own electric outlet. The cots can be stacked up like a bunk bed to allow room for a couch. If not, there is room in the middle between two cots for a TV and/or a square refrigerator. S2’s tent mate brought a refrigerator, a TV and PS3 from home. He ended up storing his PS3 under his cot because they did not have time to play. We have been to this campsite many times over the years and this was our first time to the staff area. I was shocked at what I saw!</p>
<p>momsings, congrats on your DS’s first gig (a few pages back)!</p>
<p>Ezilyamused, welcome!</p>
<p>mihcal1, wow - thank you for that info! I need to remember that & tell DS15. </p>
<p>sunnyday, your DS sounds like he’s a very responsible guy & a trooper for living in a tent!</p>
<p>And speaking of driving, my DS drove me home from his job today - after I went to pick him up. He couldn’t believe I’d let him drive me (nor could I)! Have to admit I was scared - he is still learning & has much room for improvement. But I compimented him only (though once I told him that he was driving in the grass…where there are no curbs…which he was). Anyway, I may not do that again for a while but I was proud of him & told him so. It’s hard to fathom that my oldest is driving!</p>
<p>Our community center is offering a practice SAT tomorrow, so DS & his younger bro are taking it (long story on the younger bro). Bribes were required but they haven’t actually complained much and, though DS15 has already taken the SAT in 8th grade, he was pretty sick that day and I’ll be interested to see his improvement. It’s nice that this is offered (for a small fee) and the center is usually packed, so it’s a great, low-key way to get familiar with the test under simulated conditions.</p>
<p>Have a great weekend, everyone! Lots of activity on this thread & sorry if I missed anything.</p>
<p>I like the differences of opinion we have on here-I don’t think with many of the topics we will discuss over the next several years there is a right or wrong answer.</p>
<p>I know having gone through this process with an older child I don’t see things the way I used to.</p>
<p>I know now the resources my daughter has the opportunity to use that may help her get into more schools-whether she chooses them or not is beyond my control. I am not from the camp of forcing my children to do things they don’t want to do-I was forced to stick with something as a child that I hated but was “good” at-I won’t do that to them. I ended up quitting it in Junior year in HS and wonder what I could have been doing all those years instead of doing something I hated. It was so hard to break away from it but I had finally had more than I could take and when I walked away from it I know I disappointed a lot of people-I don’t want to put my children in that position.</p>
<p>I am fortunate my children are good students and responsible people-I don’t have to get on them to do what they need to be doing like I know others do with their kids-my nephews for instance! If they didn’t do what they needed to do of course I would drop the hammer on them!</p>
<p>I wish my daughter would be a little more interested in some things but in the end she is the one who will live with the results. She sees how well her brother did-a lot of it because he did well on the SAT’s-if she chooses to spend some time on them she may or may not get the same results-hard to say. He was one of those kids who tested well with really minimal prep-she won’t be. She may need to take it and bomb it the first time or maybe the PSAT she will take in the fall will be a lesson for her. It has been made very clear to her as it was to her brother that we will pay for four years of college at the state U-anything above that cost is on her. If she wants a different experience like her brother she needs to put in the effort without us badgering her. It needs to come from within-I really do believe that.</p>
<p>Hi all, I’m new here, with a rising sophomore. I’m reading all your entries with a bit of panic. My d is my baby and she’s 14: not about to get a permit and because of the limitations of her school, not about to take an AP class either.</p>
<p>Her school does not rank except by deciles. That would be perfect except that AP and honors classes are weighted. That too would be ok except that these classes are not offered with symmetry, meaning that a kid taking Mandarin 3 cannot take honors even though a kid taking Spanish 3 or French 3 can. Other schools recognize the difficulty of Mandarin and automatically label it an honors class or at least make it available to the high achieving, motivated student. And in all other respects, the humanities are ignored. The only other AP or honors classes offered to sophomores are classes in computer science, physics B, math, and accelerated chemistry. D is taking math and chemistry and has elected not to pursue physics or computer science. I agree with Pepper 100 percent that a kid should not simply take classes because they are labeled AP or honors and give an extra weight to the gpa.</p>
<p>Welcome 3grils3cats! My D is also 14 and won’t drive for a LONG time. Our school also offers only one AP to sophomores - Euro History, the one subject area she isn’t as interested in. So she’ll probably wait until junior year too.</p>
<p>My S (just graduated) took APs because he wanted college credit, our school doesn’t weight GPA at all. He begins college this fall with two of his gen-ed requirements fulfilled and some elective credits out of the way (so if he needs a lighter semester or goes abroad or whatever he’s still good to graduate in 4 years). When applying to college, he also got “credit” for taking a more rigorous program. He also enjoyed the work and only took APs in subjects he liked. I think those are good reasons to do it.</p>
<p>Good point, ohiobassmom. My older D took APs that enabled her to graduate college on time even though she took a semester off to volunteer on a project of interest. She was also able to move up to a much higher level of language or place out entirely. There are good reasons to take AP classes and exams beyond looking good for college admissions.</p>
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<p>Oh - a lot of pressure for a kid to feel like they are letting everyone else down if they want to stop an activity. 
You’re kids will benefit from your perspective on that!</p>
<p>A big welcome to 3girls3cats! Is you Class of 2015 D your middle daughter?</p>
<p>S’15 won’t take any AP’s until junior year. The only ones offered before during freshman & sophomore years are AP History classes, and those are time hogs in our school - S has no desire to do it. I think it would be cool to take AP Comp Sci before he graduates - my older two managed to head off to college not knowing anything about computers. I’d like this guy to know little something about programming, although the CS department at our school has a reputation for sucking all the fun out of it whenever possible, so maybe he should just find something online or during the summer. </p>
<p>Anybody know any good beginner programming things to do online?</p>
<p>Finally, D is done with her online PE and Health.It is so time consuming.Lots of reading quizzies and assignments.</p>
<pre><code> Dropping her off at stanford for debate camp for couple of weeks tomorrow.She is nervous.
And she is done with “The fountain Head”.Had a very interesting discussion after that.At first i regretted why i let her read the book.But after the discussion, she had started thinking in all directions.So she will be analyzing the book rest of the summer.
</code></pre>
<p>I do some volunteer work with teenagers and it gives me a great reminder of how tough the age can be-and the pressure these kids feel to not disappoint parents etc.</p>
<p>3girls don’t worry-my daughter just turned 15, won’t be able to drive until second semester junior year, and isn’t taking any AP’s either since none are offered this year and the school has just recently started adding them-my son took none since they didn’t offer them and he did fine.</p>
<p>I am of the “only take AP if you really are interested” camp. The same with any activity–I don’t believe kids should be resume building for the sake of resume building. At least for my boys, I want them to participate in things they enjoy or think they have an interest in. If something isn’t their cup of tea, then by all means don’t feel obligated to continue.</p>
<p>S is in the middle of changing bass teachers, and in many ways it feels like a break-up! After an initial lesson to try out the new teacher, S has decided that he would benefit more from working with him. What is hard is that he is also attached to the teacher he has had for 3 years. It is a tough decision he is making.</p>
<p>DS got his driver’s permit today. Barely passed the test by one point. I think when I told him to look over the material he must have looked at the cover and gone right back to playing Xbox. LOL. </p>
<p>School starts in about 3 weeks. Crossing my fingers that they get his schedule right so we don’t have to wait in lines for changes. </p>
<p>He is taking two math classes this year: Honors Algebra 2 and Honors Geometry. So we have a very expensive calculator to buy.</p>
<p>Our HS starts in 3 weeks also. Ugh! I sympathize on the expensive calculator - S had to get one last year. $155! And he really didn’t learn to do much of the cool stuff it’s capable of. He had a teacher who was new, coming up from teaching middle school, and she just wasn’t into technology a lot. He’ll have the teacher this fall who is very hard but very good. She’s also very into the tech stuff, so he’ll learn how to use it. And then when he goes off to college it will be complete overkill. :rolleyes: I had a college math prof tell me once that one of the best things high schools could do would be to lose the fancy calculators and just do math.</p>
<p>momsings - I can sympathize with changing teachers. That can be sad and awkward. But sometimes necessary.</p>
<p>As far as AP’s, my kids take AP courses in some subject beyond what they especially like. At our HS, is an AP class if offered, there’s no honors level of that course - it’s AP or regular. So the AP classes are attractive because of the higher level content, usually better teachers, and more serious classmates. That being said, they completely avoid AP History-anything because the workload scares them!</p>
<p>Summer homework is done (only because of Household Deadline for such things), but DS is glad it’s over & he can enjoy our upcoming family vacation. This is the last week of his Summer Camp TA job and soccer kick-arounds continue, despite the heat.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I cannot wait for school to start in mid-August. On the other hand, the school emails are starting & I’m dreading the mad dash of activities (for all my kids) in the first few weeks.</p>
<p>For those with DS/DDs taking AP Euro, our DS has started reading a “Crash Course” book rec’d on the CC AP Euro thread. I ordered it on Amazon & he has been reading some definitions & passages to me and then we discuss (while I pack for our trip). So far, it has worked out well. No idea if it will help DS, but I’m learning a lot that I’d forgotten! :-)</p>
<p>Hi, everyone. I think I last posted about a year ago…I guess things have been busy. DD just got back from a two-week Summer@Brown course and loved it. She found the comparative freedom of the Brown experience to be more to her liking than CTY (although she had a blast there, as well). I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has been or is considering the Princeton CTY summer program. She’s very interested in epidemiology and they actually have a course.</p>
<p>I hate to think school will start in less than a month! </p>
<p>We still have some traveling to do. D. has reunions with her CTY friends. She also will have a band camp. Still has summer homework…</p>
<p>Summer homework is done (only because of Household Deadline for such things)</p>
<p>Oh how I wish I could say that and that I had set a deadline. D has 4 page essay due in 2 days, hasn’t started it. (She did at least read the book.) I cut her slack because of the endless summer school gym class (seriously, that felt like it went on forever) and then we had family vacation BUT I wish I wasn’t nagging her now. School starts in almost 2 weeks - yikes!</p>
<p>We only have 2 weeks of summer hols left too! So sad. D2 completed drivers ed last week and is driving ( locally) most days. She is getting pretty good at the mile to the neighborhood pool : )</p>
<p>I think most of her summer work is completed. She is a diligent student and just does it without nagging. Both my girls are organized and beyond elementary school didn’t require much parental prodding/assistance with school work.</p>
<p>Tryouts start next week for varsity softball. D2 has bronchitis so we are hoping she is well. Playing in 90+ with the high humidity is hard enough without adding breathing probs.</p>
<p>D2 has decided (after agonizing about it all summer) to change high schools to a magnet math and science high school. Ironically, that means she has much less summer homework, but will start a week earlier. Since I thought the decision was going the other way, I’m a little shell-shocked.</p>
<p>One of my best friends’ daughter was accepted by TJ. This girl has never done any real academic work during the summer. now she’s entering TJ (a rising 9th grader). She has to do a lot of remedial work (esp. in math) to catch up. I have an odd feeling about this.</p>