<p>Gibson: We were off the radar for a few days. Official ATTA GIRL for the D’s team winning out!!!</p>
<p>To answer your question, when HS softball is played here in the Spring, club ball goes dark until HS season is complete- club ball begins right around Memorial Day weekend; so club & school ball really don’t conflict. What this does is compress the club softball season into the Memorial Day to 1st week of August time frame in the summer. We don’t have many free sunmmer weekends.</p>
<p>The D plays varsity field hockey for school in Fall, so balancing field hockey with 16U club softball is tough. The good thing at 16U softball is they are not playing in the huge collegiate recruiting showcase events every weekend, which require out of state travel. Most of D’s club team plays a fall school sport, so the club coach will bring in some guest players to fill in for a game or two on a weekend. The D did one recruiting event this Fall which is more than enough at this age and skill level (she is not going to pitch for UCLA or Arizona).</p>
<p>D is up until 11 every night doing homework/studying, then off to school for 8 AM start (30 minute drive on the dad school bus). Field hockey practice/games are until 6 every weeknight. Club softball practice is Tuesday nights from 7-9 (under the lights) and her pitching lesson is Thursday nights at 7. D eats/studies and does her homework in the car so the time management skill is being learned. She makes good grades (B+/A-) in her classes in private school so she is not overly stressed. </p>
<p>Practice PSAT is next Saturday 10/20 at 8 AM. The school field hockey game time was moved to the afternoon as every sophmore & junior on both teams will be taking the PSAT.</p>
<p>Pepper - maybe Burr by Gore Vidal? It’s historical fiction and paints the founding fathers in a more human light, some not so flattering. Burr comes out not as he is traditionally painted in history.</p>
<p>I have a kindle. It’s easy to buy books, but you will need to set up an account with Amazon. Do you have one? (It’s been so long since I’ve had it, so I don’t remember much about setting up the account. You may have done that when you bought it.)</p>
<p>Pepper, many public libraries let you borrow books on your Kindle! Really! Our public library web page explains how to do it for our library. See if yours does.</p>
<p>Softball girl was nominated for Governor’s Honors program by her lit teacher. Happy for her, great honor. Counseling dept handed her the paperwork on Wed and it was due back the next day. AAAArrgh!!! 5 questions that needed some time to process and develop answers. Thankfully college girl was available and the 2 of them worked together till the wee hours over skype developing her responses. I am so frustrated at the counseling dept. Why do they do this to students? This is not a new program and happens every year. I spoke briefly with principal about issue at the softball game and will be sending a follow up email ( once her application has left the building). He was apologetic and angry. D1 had similar things happen to her.</p>
<p>Softball team got knocked out of state last night. Battled hard against a better team. Lost 3-1 then 4 -1. Girls tired and disappointed. Thinking by the time the weekend comes they will be over the loss and happy about the shiny region cup and patch they will get for their letterman jackets!</p>
<p>Pepper- hope your d is feeling better
threesdad- I am exhausted just thinking about your d’s schedule!</p>
<p>Gibson, congratulations to your D on that great honor but sorry it was so stressful getting the application turned around quickly.</p>
<p>Maxwell, I agree! Hearing everyone else’s schedules make me feel better too… but threesdad, that schedule sounds grueling! My D seems content with the crazy schedule and says she has plenty of friends with schedules that are more challenging. I have a hard time thinking this is healthy. I loved my more laid back but pleasantly busy high school years.</p>
<p>3G3C: Yes, the DD stays quite busy, but this all begins to calm down in a few weeks, when field hockey season concludes. This schedule is a bit hectic for a 15 y/o but not out of the ordinary for her peer group of student-athletes attending her private school</p>
<p>As I am a “glass half full” guy, what the DD is living through now begins to mimic her lifestyle if she selects to be a student-athlete at the next level in college. Why not be exposed to this now rather than going is with rose colored glasses at the collegiate level and be faced with a situation where it may be difficult to succeed. </p>
<p>Currently, there is a safety net with all of this - Mom & Dad. As parents, we can pull the plug on any activity if we see the total extra curricular pacakge as overbearning and impacting D’s academic progress; which is our 1st and foremost focus.</p>
<p>Frankly sports can be substituted for band or other time intense activity any of the Class of 2015/2019 parents. If your D/S wants to multi-task and that extra-curricular is their passion, provided academic progress is not significantly impacted let them have at it. As parents, you can alwys help moderate the extra curricular activity if academic work suffers. Better now then later when you get the panic phone call " Mom/Dad, I hate it here, I’m failing and I want to come home".</p>
<p>Just my $0.02 as things were very different back in the last Ice Age when D’s mother and I attended college.</p>
<p>D won her first competiton in Speech today.She was excited as she was only one to represent her school and she placed first among all the schools.</p>
<p>Congrats,Gibson on your D’s rec. to the Governor’s program.An honor,truly.I feel happy and sorry for the softball season.</p>
<p>Wow tripleamom that is wonderful! If she is already good at public speaking the world can be her oyster-my son didn’t start his “speaking career” until late Sophomore year and only since he had no choice! I hope my daughter will somehow follow his path and get over that fear-it is really something that will be a huge plus for them in life!</p>
<p>My girl did return to school Thursday and she is getting close to being her old self. I guess it was just some random virus that needed rest-something as we all know is very hard to do with these hectic days.</p>
<p>She has so much work it is unbelievable to me. Two more weeks left of soccer then the playoffs and then she will finally get a break! I can’t imagine now if she had continued her winter sport how she could have done that-but kids seem to and good for them-and good for her she knew enough that she knew she couldn’t.</p>
<p>She has a very tough week ahead and it includes the PSAT Wednesday on top of it! I am glad now she didn’t try to study as she wouldn’t have been able to-I am hoping she does well enough that it will be worth it for her to try to do well next year when it counts-if nothing else I think she will at least realize she will need to study in the summer because next year won’t be any easier.</p>
<p>Pepper, it’s nice to hear that your D is healthy and back in the swing of things but I hear you on the pace. My D is in a full year sport that demands so much it seems crazy. I’m not so sure she knows her limits and I’m crossing my fingers that she doesn’t crash and burn. I don’t know how these kids do it all. Next summer should be fun for all our kiddos, eh? </p>
<p>Tripleamom, congrats to your D! She sounds like a gifted public speaker! Fantastic.</p>
<p>Threesdad, since I’ve never been accused of being a glass half full person ;), it’s interesting and good to hear your perspective. I am completely supportive of a kid following an interest and working hard at it but I’m an old fashioned and probably overly limited person who believes in the importance of sleep, downtime, and regular meals. My kid eats and changes on the run, works til the wee hours more often than I’d like and is up and running every morning by 7. Practice starts at 8 on the weekends–both days. I’m watching this unfold and wringing my hands and worrying. I guess I also worry that when one activity demands so much to the exclusion of all else that kids don’t really get the chance to see what else might be out there. But, as I said, D seems happy and thinks she’s got it better than many of her friends. So I’ll try to see it a little differently.</p>
<p>Congrats to the DDs of Gibson & Tripleamom. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone else - this thread is moving along. Pepper, glad to know your DD is OK and doesn’t have mono!</p>
<p>DS takes the PSAT this Wed, then has college readiness activities in the afternoon. He hasn’t had much time to review any PSAT-related material, aside from some minor prep he did over the Summer, so hope it goes well enough for him. The best test prep for him is probably Sleep, which is in short supply given school, his fall sport, music and volunteer activities.</p>
<p>I’ve learned that DS’s HS reports all ACT/SAT scores on the student’s transcript. The student doesn’t get to decide whether or not certain scores, or all scores, go on the transcript. I’ve read in other threads that not all high schools automatically report all test scores, which seems like a better deal for the student. We’d considered having DS take the ACT in 10th grade, whenever it’s last offered in the school year (maybe June?), but he may wait, given that the stakes are a bit higher with all scores reported. Also, I talked w/a mom of a National Merit Semifinalist at the HS and she advised DS to wait until JR year, as her son did. </p>
<p>Good luck to all the students taking the PSAT this week!</p>
<p>GoAskDad: when a student registers for the ACT there is a question that they mark yes/no that asks if they would like their scores reported to their HS. If they mark yes, the HS receives a sticker with official scores on it that goes onto their transcript. Most of the colleges my D13 is currently applying to will accept this as her official ACT scores and it saves me from having to pay the $11 fee per score to send them to the college. For 10 applications this adds up fast. If you don’t want the score sent to the HS just have them mark no. Then you can pick which to send at application time and pay each fee. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>S13 is currently doing a PSAT practice test. Otherwise he would be mowing the lawn. LOL.</p>
<p>Yay! D2 finished her submission to ABA Young Birder competition. She’s been working on it for months, and the deadline is today. She had a little trouble with the submission process (it’s the first year they wanted everything sent in my electronically), and had to break up some of her larger files into chunks. But she figured it out and finally got the email to transfer successfully. :)</p>
<p>Now she just has catch-up on everything else she let slide while racing to finish ABA. :p</p>
<p>GoAskDad - I’ll echo what Ezily said. When you register your D for the SAT and ACT, you don’t have to give them high school information. The HS gets the PSAT directly - they get it before you do, but with the SAT and ACT, they won’t send the score to your HS unless you give them HS info. I think that if you fill out the high school code and information, they will automatically report to the school. And with the SAT, if you enter the high school code when you first sign up, it’s hard to go back and remove it - you have to call them. With my older two, I did not fill out the HS code because I didn’t want them to appear on the transcript unless they were good, although as it turned out, our HS does allow us to request that the scores are removed from the transcript.</p>
<p>Pinot Noir, if the school preregisters the kids for the PSAT and gets the PSAT info automatically, is that information captured in the system for the SAT? Or is that entirely separate? I don’t think I’d want the SAT/ACT information directly forwarded to the high school at all. I didn’t realize these scores were automatically included on the transcript.</p>
<p>Funny thing about that though. My eldest, stubborn girl that she is, decided that test optional meant that she didn’t have to supply any test information. Since she’d made it quite clear from the start that she wanted control over the process and intended to work alone with the college counseling office of her high school, we had little to say. (When we tried to intervene, things became a lot more complicated and tense.) Well, it turned out that the test-optional school was not test optional at all. The option referred to the sorts of tests that were acceptable to the school. D sent nothing to the school. What saved her was the array of AP scores on her transcript that had been directly reported to the high school and were, I now realize, included on her transcript. We had no idea. She had no idea. She was very lucky.</p>
<p>Ezily & PN, thanks very much for your replies. I recall reading that both the SAT & ACT are in the process of changing their reporting requirements, based on recent SAT cheating scandals. It’s my understanding that, starting this year, students must release test scores to their high schools or, if the student is home-schooled, then there’s a special code that’s used - but the scores will be sent to the home in that event. Perhaps I misunderstood this? Have you heard anything about this? I believe it’s new this year - but I’m no expert, obviously. I suppose I could just call ACT - but somehow that feels weird to me…like my kid has something to hide. I’m overthinking this, probably ;-)</p>
<p>I do know that some top colleges will require reporting of all test scores. Not sure DS would be aiming that high. In our limited conversations about college, he’s indicated a preference to stay closer to home. He’s definitely my homebody and is quite shy. I’m pretty conflicted about whether to have him take the ACT in 10th (he wouldn’t want to, per se, but would do it if he thought it would be beneficial long term). He has taken the ACT in 7th and then again this Summer at our community center - and both times he did well, obviously improving a lot this past Summer. Math was his only relative weakness, but he has H Alg II this year and the teacher told the kids that once the student has had this class, then that’s the bulk of the ACT Math right there. </p>
<p>Thoughts? And, again, thanks for posting your replies.</p>
<p>^^ D needs to take either the SAT or the ACT soon, for a summer program. I’m thinking SAT may be best right now since what it covers is less advanced than what the ACT covers? (D is also in Alg 2 right now).</p>