@petrichor11 Me too! I figured Ahmed should work the fifteen minutes of fame as much as he can. I would like to think that given the recent high-threat security training I just took for work that I would have been able to recognize that the clock was just a clock.
@NYDad513 Congrats to your daughter on her first check from writing! My S16 has found that elusive, but he’s still shy about submitting to things. He thought her piece was very good.
@NYDad513 very good writing. Thank you for sharing.
Nicely done, @NYDad513 !
Thanks everyone. DD does not plan to have career in creative writing but as a parent, it is a wonderful and satisfactory to see a kid find passion on something and shape the skill required.
There will be a mock admission at DD’s school today. It seems helpful to understand what’s going on admission office.
What is a mock admission?
It is like a mock trial. As I know at my DD high school, the setting is in an admission office. And they decide which student to accept using all the information they generally have. Counseling department distributed 80 pages of 3 imaginary applicants’ application to imaginary university such common app print out, teacher’s recommendation letter, GC letter, applicant’s essay, outside recommendation, transcripts and test scores with school profiles. They will discuss which students should be accepted to the imaginary university. I heard that parents and students are supposed to discuss in the process.
It helps students preparing what to emphasize when they fill their application and how to present themselves to the college. I think it’s good chance to see what is the adcom perspectives when they accepts a specific students from many applicants.
NYDad, good job by your D! The college summer class D took had a mock admissions. They used actual applications by actual students, with the name and other identifiers removed. D said it was interesting to see that the students did not choose the same outcomes as the admissions people had for the real students.
There are 3 college fairs coming up that D will be attending, though she already has her list. Her school is bringing a small fair to the kids, then a couple of days later is the HBCU fair in Seattle, followed by the ginormous national college fair that her entire school will attend (well, the high schoolers, not grades 6-8). Every time she goes to one of these she adds schools to her list. She’s already up to 9. Ack!
I am glad to see that many schools on DD list visit her school. Hope they see attending those in school sessions as demonstrated interest.
@sseamom Yes. I think it is important to understand adcom’s perspective. We focused on our kids a lot and as a consequence, lost what adcom think. I wish I and my daughter will be more realistic after the mock admission session.
This week I got several e-mail’s from DD’s school regarding college admission including mock trial reminder, mandatory senior workshop for college application (especially how to fill common app), workshop for UCAS for UK application, and couple of college information sessions. Everything is so real now.
My D had a “graduation and college planning meeting” with her GC this week. As far as I can tell, she told my D what her GPA is (it’s already on Naviance), gave her a copy of her transcript (which mysteriously lists the wrong Physics course for last year - it changed since she last saw her transcript in June), and told her that she is on track to graduate, as if that is the end game. She apparently nodded and smiled when my daughter rattled off a few schools she wants to apply to.
Actually, that’s considerably more input than I received from my own GC in high school, but this is supposed to be in the top 100 or so public schools in the country. Oh well, it’s not that hard to figure this stuff out.
As far as our district is concerned, “on track to graduate” IS the end of the game. Though in fairness, I think our county has a 72% grad rate, so for a lot of kids, it is. Still, as long as they ignore the kids who are trying for more, there will be relatively few of them. “Self-fulfulling prophecy” is not a concept they seem to grasp sometimes.
I was just thinking today: D16’s GC has offered one piece of useful advice to DC, and that was a recommendation to use the ACT results from a certain test date for her apps. We were unsure which of three dates to use. Also very useful: one comment from an adcom with essay advice during a mock admission session at the high school. But, everything else from the GC has not helped at all. Disappointing. My own obsessive research has been what we’ve used. Thank god, at least, for that. (And may I say that our financial planner has also been useless about college financing?)
Please don’t make this a political post. I want this to be understood in the way the teacher was trying to teach.
A couple of weeks ago the AP government teacher at S’16’s school challenged her students to see if they could use social media to get a (any from either party) presidential candidate to come to any of the week long homecoming festivities. She was trying to teach them the power of their voice and get them interested, because most (all?) of them will be able to vote in next year’s elections.
It was announced this morning that Donald Trump will come speak for an hour before the homecoming dance starts on Saturday night.
The government students were asking and hash tagging candidates from both parties and were willing for any one of them to be the one that came. They learned that teens have a voice and will be taken seriously.
I bet this is one homecoming that won’t be quickly forgotten.
Well, I think that’s great that Trump agreed to come talk to the high school - regardless of what anyone thinks of him… I’m personally not a fan, but he is a candidate for the Presidency, and this shows that someone of his stature and importance listened to the teens. I hope he gives a good talk and lets them ask questions.
That’s cool! @bajamm ! Regardless of what is thought of him, it is still a very unique and memorable experience. I wonder if the teacher ever thought it would actually happen!
@bajamm I am very impressed with your teaching staff and how they try to connect your students with the real world. I don’t think that would happen at S16 high school… not sure they would want to encourage students to have a voice, rock the boat, facilitate healthy debate or anything like that…it is very quiet and status quo at our school. Great experience for those students at your school, and a good life lesson…let us know how it goes!
A couple of weeks ago my son was commenting on the preliminary campaigning (in a general way…he hasn’t been paying much attention overall). I mentioned that he would be voting in the upcoming presidential election and he got this surprised, disgusted, confused and worried look on his face at the thought of voting… because he had not realized he would be able to vote by then! Hello real world…
S just let me know that he scheduled a tour of Howard on his day off next Wednesday. Half Jewish white kid tours HBCU on Yom Kippur and doesn’t really see anything unusual about it. Wife and I think it’s pretty cool that he’s thinking outside the box, and a big scholarship would be nice.
Mock admission is done. There were 11 admission officer including 3 from California (Pomona, USC, and Claremont McKenna College). We did it with admission officer from U of Chicago. After mock admission, there was information session and a lot of questions and answers, which we know already but it is very helpful to be confirmed.
@4kids2graduate Yes, my S16 will be voting too. In our state, because he’s 18 years old for the general election he is also allowed to vote in the primary, even though he won’t be 18 for that. He’s been paying a fair amount of attention (we talk a lot about politics and current events in our household and he enjoyed US Govt AP and an International Politics course).
What an experience,@bajamm! I’m sure it helped that the HS is in Iowa 
Guessing voting rates will be sky high among that group of teens.