Thanks everyone for the well wishes and kind words. I guess I save my whininess for my family 
@Sophmore1 AP Calc BC and AP Physics is kicking my sonās butt this year . He currently has Bs in both of these classes, his first in HS. He overloaded with 5 AP classes his senior year which I cautioned him against, but he felt prepared . I think heās second guessing at this point. Good luck to your daughter.
@lvmjac1 My S13 finished off four years of Catholic high school and promptly declared he was an atheist. Heās very respectful of our faith and he did learn a lot at school, thankfully, about various religions. Weāve always wanted our kids to make their own way and not feel like they have to pretend to believe for our sakes. I think, and this is just what I recall, there was a lot more going through the motions of things just for the parentsā sakes in our generation and many of my peers do not want their kids to do that.
@carolinamom2boys My son definitely regrets taking AP Physics. Somehow he eked out an A - 90.00 - last semester but I will be surprised if that happens this semester.
@lvmjac1, I think lipsticks have gotten quite expensive! Maybe we need a virtual seminar on making your own. My D21 would be happy to lead it.
Good luck to @GoodGrief16 and @carolinamom2boys. After a minute I knew Carolina was talking about her USC, but for just a second I thought, āNow, where are the Columbia dorms on the Trojan campus?ā, just like @Mysonsdad did.
@Themommymommy, hugs to your daughter and kudos for her bravery. Itās amazing to me how mean high school kids can be sometimes.
I totally agree with you @CAMidwestMom and I really like that idea @EastGrad!
Re: AP coursesā¦I can relate that D initially needed a little bit of extra tutoring help with AP Physics last year but overall most of the courses she took last year and this year have not been overwhelmingly difficult. This year I barely see her do homework and what she does have it, it is done pretty efficiently without much drama (and believe me my D really knows how to put on the drama when it comes to something she doesnāt understand or doesnāt like) but once application stress was done with, she has been pretty even keeled about her 5 AP courses work load. She isnāt even complaining about AP Calc AB (which is where she would have the least confidence) so I now know that she definitely should have taken BC but in the end the less drama and continued good grades may be worth that minor slack on her part. I think after mid year grades are sent to colleges she may slack off in honor of senioritisā¦
D16 took AP Calc AB last year and we were worried because she struggled with pre-calc/trig as a sophomore, but she had an amazing teacher who reignited her love of math and she pulled it off really well. Our school doesnāt offer Calc BC, instead they have some advanced math course that is as hard as an AP course, but has no AP credits. She originally signed up for that, AP Stats, Psych, Euro History and one of the AP lit courses, honestly I canāt remember which one, plus takes AP Physics online at school since there werenāt enough kids interested in it to teach an entire section by the school. She actually took AP Physics because the Honors Physics teacher she would have had otherwise has a really wonky reputation.
By the end of the first week this year we convinced her to drop the non-AP advanced math course, which took a little ego bruising to do, but it made her Senior year so much better. AP Physics has been a ton of work and probably cured her of any desire to become an engineer, but her grades are good in it. Calc BC would have really knocked her silly this year and she wouldnāt have dropped it like she did the other math course, so I am glad they donāt offer it.
āThanks everyone for the well wishes and kind words. I guess I save my whininess for my family .ā
Awww shucks. Maāam.
@CAMidwestMom Unfortunately in SC a 90 is a B. His Bs that he has is an 88 in Physics( we are happy with that because he initially had a C at the beginning of the year ) but his 92 in English is what hurts the most. Heās always had very high English grades , and I think he was kind of counting on English to carry him so he gave it less attention. He still has a potential for an A in the class for the semester .
@lvmjac1 DS16 hasnāt had much homework either and has been doing fairly well with the course load except AP physics and AP Calc BC. He did pull his Calc grade up to an A though, so heās very happy about that
Iāve been reading about the SAT ātemplatesā that the CC students talk about in many of the threads, and finally decided to look into the author/designer/creator of one, and I have to say, I want to throw up.
I guess I think we are all (Americans) out of our minds with testing and acing the tests, and working our kids into a tizzy like their lives depended on it. There is an active thread going on which would be better suited for this comment, I know, but I really am disgusted.
How in the world have my kids lived and thrived without jumping on a wheel and running 'round and 'round? What a loser Mom.
SAT templates? Iām lost. I think maybe I should be glad to be.
Count me in as having no idea what a template is and also glad to be done with the testing for the foreseeable future.
Glad Iām not the only one who doesnāt know about SAT templates. I had to Google it.
D took only the ACT so maybe thatās why Iāve never heard of it.
Nope add me in as one who has never heard of SAT templates and D took SAT three times and three SAT Subject tests.
Iām a kid and Iāve never heard of SAT templates.
I also never heard of them!
Maybe they are new, to go with the new SATās.
Thanks for all the well wishes. Itās an exceptionally competitive scholarship for full tuitionā¦only 6 awarded, and Iām guessing there are maybe a couple hundred eligible. Seems unlikely she will get it, but who knows? Good to see the campus though, and she got to run, not āwithā the track team exactly (NCAA rules), but on the same hill they were practicing on. The cross country coach was very enthusiastic about her, which was flattering. She was very cranky during the AM part of the event, which is par for the course for her. She liked the school after lunch
Tomorrow we fly to L.A. and quick tour a school during our layover.
I have few questions on FAFSA and CSS and I know I will get expert advise here. Maybe I am thinking too much into itā¦
We have applied at few CA public (UCs) and few private colleges. I am not expecting any FA, but hoping to get merit scholarship at some of the the private colleges. Starting 2016 private colleges will NOT get access to my college list and its ordering from FAFSA.
Thanks.
SAT Templates? Never heard of 'em. Neither has S. He took the SAT once, the ACT once. Did well, but with one weaker area on each - math on the SAT, English on the ACT. On the other test, he did extremely well in each of those areas. Go figure. He didnāt do any test prep, and heās never been in schools where standardized testing happened much, if at all. It was all I could do to get him to do each one once, and then he was done.
HS classesā¦ yeah. We had a little bit of drama around the AP Physics final. Evidently everyone walked out of it feeling utterly doomed. New teacher (at the school), not a lot of experience with the content, and not the strongest Calculus skills. Physics was once my Sā favorite area of interest, long before he took it in school, but 1.5 years of HS physics and counting seems to be killing that off. Since heās loved nearly all of his other HS classes, I guess I shouldnāt complain, but this is bad.
He found some AP Physics videos over break and watched a few, and realized how ill-prepared he and his classmates were for the test. Heās now mostly self-teaching for the AP exam. He got a 67 on the final, which was the highest score in the class, and with a curve he made an A, but he knows that wonāt work on the AP exam.
My son discovered SAT writing templates when he started to study for the SAT writing section. Basically from what he told me, form rather than content is what they are after. You can write what you want to, even make stuff up, as long as you are writing a good essay. The template (as well as his knowledge of grammar) must have worked because he got an 800.
This is one of my sonās favorite examples of how to write a great essay, even if your content is BS. Read the actual essay āShould we look to our elders for wisdomā which is slightly down the page. It is interesting and really really funny. It got a 12.
Whewā¦also didnāt know what an SAT template wasā¦ What happens with the new SAT then?
All this talk of grades tempted me into logging into the gradebook portal to see what was going on with the marking period so far. I try to avoid it because it makes me crazy. Sometimes the teacher is behind in entering grades, but the system still average the grades with the missing one as a zero. Almost had a stroke when I saw an F average! So I try to resist taking a peak these days.