I’m still getting emails from schools I didn’t even show any interest in! @me29034
@sseamom: “…with aplomb.” What a wonderful way to put it.
I stake my flag in the smallest senior class of 2016. Thirteen.
PSA: Even students with top IQ scores might have a disability that requires special education. Now, back to our regular programming.
@dyiu13 I can’t like this post enough! PM me if you need to vent 
D has received some mail as if she is just starting her college search and we have received some email from colleges that haven’t filled their classes quite yet.
S did receive an email today from the other school he really wanted to go to. Even though we emailed admissions of his decision to attend a different school on decision day, the email said they wanted to update their communications and if you’re still deciding…
I got a phone call from an admissions officer at my college today asking if I had any questions before deciding because they didn’t have the fact I enrolled in the computer.
oh no- @readingclaygirl - were you able to straighten it out?
Yes @bookmom7 I was
Congrats, @LKnomad ! Also, I think you win for largest school AND largest class! I can’t even imagine.
D is still getting emails from some of her colleges. A friend of hers got emails from one in particular all through the spring and summer with the same message, “It’s not too late…” her financing went REALLY wrong at the last minute as she was getting ready to go to London for an engineering program. Her parents couldn’t begin to make up the difference. She called that stalker school and not only did they admit her, they gave her a special minority scholarship (it’s not a very diverse school), in addition to the other outside scholarships she had, AND the merit they gave her. She is thriving there, it’s far cheaper than the other school would have been, so she won’t have to work all through school. I’m sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen often, but that’s probably why schools keep sending those emails.
Anyone else have valedictorian drama? I know we have discussed in the past all the different ways our schools decide upon whom to bestow that title. I am sad to say there is a feeling here that the chosen system can be “gamed”. I just wish all the ingenuity put into figuring out how to achieve the title ( other than pure, hard work to earn the grades) could be put towards something more productive. Here it sounds like it will be a battle ending in bitterness for more than one student. What a waste! Changes are coming to the process that sound subjective to me. I do not think that will help lessen the plotting. I blame WLs and pure individual pride for the continued stress over “who will it be?”
@Cheeringsection I was thinking about this yesterday as I attended my DS19s award day. His class is very smart , and while his GPA is very good, he may be in the top 10%. I’m not worrying about Val or Sal, but I did find myself plotting in my head how we’re going to make up the difference in COA for colleges that we will most likely be losing in state scholarship money that his brother received for being in the top 6% which ads up to 10,000 dollars over 4 years. I know some of you may be thinking that it may be slightly premature to be worried at this point. Frankly , I’m actually glad that yesterday served as a stark visual reminder that I need to start planning now. It will be here before I know it.
Our HS has no valedictorian drama. They only have unweighted GPA’s, so if there is only one student with a 4.0, they are val. If there is more than one, then they “weight” each AP class as 4.2 just to use in a formula to determine val. There is really no way to game the system here thank goodness. We attended the graduation of a friend’s daughter at a very large HS. We were shocked when we realized that they had 24 valedictorians.! We have no idea how those were determined…but perhaps everyone with a 4.0 was given val status?
@4kids2graduate My son will have 452 graduates in his class next month. We do have weighted GPAs , but the students are ranked. The only way do us to have more than one Valedictorian or Salutatorian is for the student to have the exact GPA to the hundredth setting . My son would have benefitted from the situation you described as there are minute differences in GPA between the top students in his class. He is ranked 4 th and for that I am extremely grateful and happy, but every now and then he gets the “if onlys”
We have no rank officially, although they use this bizarre point system to determine “top 10” students. It is your GPA times your “laude points”, which are awarded for harder classes. So taking additional hard classes is pretty much all that seems to matter. One of the "top 10 " kids got a lot of Bs and Cs even. (8 laude points x 80% is better than 6 points x 100% by way of illustration.) I am not a fan of this method. I think grades should count a lot more than they do in this system.
Anyway, you have to be in the top 10 to get to speak at graduation. They have the option to put their name in the pool, then the class as a whole votes. 10 kids eligible–most of them do NOT want to speak. My D is not running, so no drama here.
@cheeringsection, this is how S wound up number 2. In 8th, the counsellors randomly met each kid and signed them up for freshman year of high school. Parents weren’t told about it. It was fall of 8th grade year. After filling S’s schedule with required classes and foreign language, he had one slot left. He was told of possible classes and computer science was mentioned, so he chose that based on his interest in it. At our school it is a first semester “regular” class (not weighted) and a second semester honors class. This one semester of one unweighted class is the difference between #1 and #2.
We didn’t expect S to be in this position, so never thought to plan ahead and fill that slot with an honors or AP class. S is driven and self-motivated, but was not planning and strategizing to be #1. At some point, maybe sophomore year, a teacher explored what it would take for him to catch up to #1 - and it just was not possible, if #1 continued her straight A streak. He was a little frustrated at that, but oh well, he got over it.
I told him he should have written an application essay (kidding here) about how his choice of college major, an interest in computer science, kept him from being #1, yet without taking that class, he wouldn’t have known he was interested in pursuing CS in college.
@carolinamom2boys - It is never premature to plan. In Texas, from the day kids start high school, they are told to aim to be in top 10% in order to have a guaranteed seat (not in UT but everywhere else). All they are guaranteed is a seat but not a major, nothing else.
I see that orientations will have segments on sexual assault and Title IX. Students also might have to sign a document saying they won’t sexually abuse anyone (along with won’t commit academic dishonesty and will pay tuition and fees). I suspect students will just tune out the SA messages.
Just finished reading this and a mind-numbing number of similar stories: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2015/06/12/sex-assault-during-college-is-common-and-life-altering/?tid=a_inl
At this point, I’m determined to make sure over the summer that my kid is prepared to deal with this fact of sexual abuse in our society, especially as it relates to the college community. Because she intends to be a dorm RA and go into a school social work career, she needs it just as much as a soon-to-be college student as a some-day professional. Learning about substance abuse is also a big part of the SA story.
At her ped annual appointment last year, her doctor talked to her about sexual activity and told her that teens and young adults basically have almost no skills or knowledge about healthy, much less pleasurable, sexual relations. So, just stay away until you and a partner are capable of a healthy, pleasurable, loving sexual relationship. At least, that’s what the message sounded like to me.
These stories of how college students, especially freshmen who might be drinking, experience sexual assault and harrassment are chilling. The abusers are from the same academic community population – they too are our children. The abuse is everywhere. Even the “smart” kids. The “good” kids. (I’m always amazed when our ER fills up with the freshmen from a tippy-top uni who have poisoned themselves with alcohol to the point where their hearts almost stop the first week on campus.)
Because I’ve alway “sung an honest lullaby” to my DC, I am committing to making sure she knows about and is prepared to respond to these dangers as well as to understand what a healthy young-adult sexual relationship is. Ditto on substance abuse. She already knows that I hope she’ll be a straight-edge, and why.
@dyiu13 It is scary. Risk of sexual assault as college freshman is so high. I still remember my health teacher telling us in 10th grade that the most sexual assaults happen to freshmen before Thanksgiving. Are you planning to talk to your kids about alcohol? My mom has already told us multiple times not to drink until 21 and never get into a car with someone who has been drinking and I expect we won’t. I’m not going to parties and that’s where the alcohol is and I couldn’t drink anyway for medical reasons. Neither of us can even stand the smell of beer.