For those looking into Alabama’s Honors College, they do offer study abroad just for their students. DD15 is headed with 31 other students and 6 profs to study at Oxford this summer. They offer some wonderful opportunities in addition to the ones that most colleges offer.
@itsgettingreal17 When I look at different schools’.websites and read their study abroad descriptions, it seems like some schools offer small scholarships ($3000 to $5000) for study abroad. It is unclear to me whether or not those can be combined with full-tuition scholarships to cover all expenses or not.
UKy did tell her she could use the entire NMF full-ride scholarship money for 2 full yrs of study abroad. At this point, 1 yr abroad in each language is looking like it might be the best way to reach her language goals even though she does not like the idea of being abroad for 1/2 of her UG.
Their study abroad office described different levels of abroad based on how much direct support (as in functioning support, not financial support) the student received. Partnership programs offered the most direct involvement with the student, but the geographical options were more limited than some of the other options. I didn’t follow the entire conversation bc she threw so much at us so quickly and it was an unplanned meeting. The French professor set it up spontaneously after recommending the 2 yrs abroad. (I am so glad she did bc it is going to be vital to dd’s goals and is now a planned part of our college visits.)
We have a meeting set up with USouthCarolina’s study abroad office when we go in a couple of weeks. This time I am going to be prepared with questions and take notes. I think the individual university policies are going to end up being a major factor in her decision. Her Binder of Destiny might end up with so few options that it will be reduced to the pocket edition. (Actually, on 2nd thought, perhaps we should just upgrade it philosophically to the travel size edition. 
)
@disshar Thanks for the UA info. I do have the honors contact saved for setting up tours.
Happy Saturday everyone. It’s a beautiful morning here, and we’re so close to the end of junior year. (Congrats to those who are done!) It should be a fun summer watching as everyone gets closer to finalizing application plans!
did anyone here have a kid that took the Jan rescheduled SAT (in feb, east coasters due to snowstorm) and have the info update in naviance? ours is still blank-i’m going to try the tip above to see if we can edit our own, but you’d think by now it would have been officially done.
just curious since March updated.
@kac425 I’m not sure, are HSs notified of scores for tests that are not administered by the school? How and when scores are updated I think is school-specific so maybe call the GC? That’s what we did with D’s Oct. ACT.
@mtrosemom wrote
This is my older D to a T! When they’re building the animatronic she hates the wiring part, absolutely loathes it. She likes the sketching part at the beginning to design what the animatronic should look like, how it should move, light up and make noise, and the programming for those movements.
The actual building part is not her thing at all. They could not figure out how to get the neck of the dragon to articulate right, and younger D stepped in and suggested and helped build a design that incorporated red solo cups that were cut and wired together, and that worked perfectly.
If I could ONLY get younger D and older D to work together on a project, because their skills really compliment each other. Younger D loathes programming but is so good at seeing a sketch and creating something IRL that works. It’s a weakness on their team, because they have a girl who’s very good at wiring, but not the build, and their main builder is graduating this year and she’s headed to Tech.
Maybe next year…
@Mom2aphysicsgeek wrote
D17 wants to, DH and I are not really in favor of it. We’ve both lived abroad (in Europe and Japan), and it’s cool, but they can do it on their own dime. If she can make it work and it doesn’t cost extra or push out her graduation date, we’d probably say yes, but it’s not something we spend a lot of time on. She does not do well with hardship, and if she saw one of the squatty toilets at the train stations in Japan she’d probably freak out and want to come home, lol.
Oh my goodness, y’all, D17 just got her final grade in IB Physics SL-she made a B!!! Holy schomolies! She worked so hard on it, too. I need to send her tutor a thank-you note for helping her so much with understanding it. It means that if she makes the NMSF cut off for our state, that she’ll only have 1 C ever (in honors precalc her sophomore year), so hopefully won’t be out of the running for NMF… yay for her! (does mom happy dance).
I signed up for the Fitbit step challenge, but it’s truly gross out today so I think I"m going to help the girls declutter the SuperFund site that is their closets.
I have found that there can be quite a lag between the time the student learns of his score and the HS receives the master file from CB. My son’s GC has always been able to just go in and update his Naviance to reflect his new scores if I ask her to via email.
While meeting with my son’s GC for his college planning meeting this week, I pointed out that his 9th grade AP score was missing. She just went in and added it on the spot. Our school’s transcript only includes grades, but Naviance captures all standardized testing.
Quite a while back someone asked how the Class of 2016 data is updated in Naviance. I think this one varies widely by HS. Our school schedules a ‘homeroom’ session before the Srs all depart for their internships. Srs are asked to fill out their college application results on a piece of paper that someone (Guidance secretaries perhaps) then upload into Naviance. The students are not able to update Naviance data themselves.
As you can imagine, not every student shows up for homeroom, and further, the form does not perfectly capture every transaction. My older son applied and was accepted ED but he had already submitted to Guidance his list of RD schools. He went into Guidance in mid-December to tell them that they would not need to send transcripts, LORs, etc to his RD schools. The response was something to the effect of ‘Don’t worry; it all just goes automatically’. So, who knows if his non-apps to these RD schools appear as apps in the # of applicant counts?
All that to say that Naviance is not 100% accurate. A good tool overall, but some glitches.
@CT1417 That’s interesting how different schools do Naviance. What does Naviance do with AP Scores? We are waiting for our first AP results, but I haven’t noticed a spot in Naviance where I would see them. Not sure how they are useful in there, but never really thought about it.
@2muchquan – I believe that each school purchases whatever parts of Naviance they want to use. I say that because I have viewed other schools’ Naviance pages (with friends) and the available data varies by HS.
Our Naviance has a Tab across the top ‘About Me’. A bunch of links I have never assessed follow, but the one ‘Official’ contains Test Scores.
I am guessing that this is where Naviance pulls the SAT scores to plot the student on the scattergram. Our HS does not report testing on transcript, so it is all for internal use. It allows the GC to see the student’s performance at a glance, perhaps helpful in writing LOR, but otherwise, just internal, AFAIK.
Since my son’s 9th grade AP score had not made it to Naviance, I don’t know how this ordinarily operates.
I was gone couple days, and it is probably impossible for me to catch up. #-o
I’m not sure what the discussion was about, but I don’t think DS’s colleges in (still, my) list have Fine Arts requirement. I hope not. None are in Pacific time zone, but they are mostly in Eastern time. Couple in central time.
DS17 has not taken any FA in 6 years, that is, since Elementary school, which I am not that happy about. HS Graduation requirement can be fulfilled by either Visual or Performing Arts. He will have had 7 years of secondary school orchestra and 4 years of youth orchestra.
The About Me page on S’s Naviance is where he inputs all of his scores, including his AP scores. At S’s school, the kids are responsible for updating the test scores, not the counselor or other school official.
@payn4ward my S has no HS art (performing, visual, musical, etc.) of any kind, and that will be a barrier if he decides to apply to public universities in CA (and I think Washington State, too). He will have to take a community college class while still in HS to meet the art requirement. His HS does not require any type of art, and he has chosen to spend his time pursuing other interests (after 3 years of both band and chorus in middle school…I was disappointed that he didn’t continue with his instrument, but it was his decision). I had no idea that this was going to be an issue until a few months ago when I learned about the California requirements (we live in the Midwest, but have family in CA, and DH and his two sisters and one brother-in-law and my sister-in-law all went to UC Santa Cruz, so the UC schools have always been on our radar). I believe that orchestra would meet the requirement, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about if your S ends up applying to west coast public schools (which it sounds like he’s not planning to do anyway). I don’t know if other schools have art requirements for admission but imagine that orchestra would be sufficient (assuming it is listed as a course on his transcript).
@2muchquan (re post #5354) thanks to clarification provided by other posters (@Ynotgo , @eandesmom) I now understand that Cal Poly’s 5th year of English is a recommendation, not a requirement, and that not having it won’t affect my S’s chances there (he has maxed out on recommended extra coursework in math, science, and foreign language, and wouldn’t benefit from additional bonus points even if he had the extra year of English). This is great news, as Cal Poly seems like a good option for S. 
I just finally got around to reading this article that has been open on my desktop for a few days. I don’t know where I first came across it (perhaps on this thread!), but thought I would share, in case anyone else has not seen it.
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/05/17/implications-changes-sat-essay
I read it on the heels of reading a blog post from a test prep company which claimed that since the new SAT scores are coming in lower than the old SAT scores, students will need to adjust their target scores upward in order to gain admission to their desired college. My question is: how will the AdComs deal with this issue this coming admission season? They will have a mix of students applying with old and new tests. If the new SAT scores are really coming in that much lower (as the Wash Post article suggested–https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/11/why-your-new-sat-score-is-not-as-strong-as-you-think-it-is/)…how will the colleges handle this discrepancy?
And, for schools that are hung up on rankings, will they be tempted to accept the student with the 1500 on the new test over the student with the 1490 on the old test, even if that 1490 represents a higher score? All just in pursuit of rankings that weight the stats of accepted students?
Just musing…nothing I can do about it and no one will know the answer.
@mtrosemom – interesting. Students cannot change anything in our school’s Naviance. Yet one more way these schools differ in their use of Naviance.
I know a fine arts credit is required by SC bc I just looked at it a couple of days ago.
http://www.sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/undergraduate_admissions/requirements/for_freshmen/required_high_school_courses/index.php
OK recommends but doesn’t require.
http://www.ou.edu/content/admissions/apply/freshman/requirements-factors.html
@MotherOfDragons I agree for most students. It is why none of our older kids have studied abroad. But dd wants to reach a superior level of language proficiency and most universities only have the goal of int-high to adv-low. If she could attend a critical language flagship, so long abroad wouldn’t be necessary. She is willing to get creative so that she can reach her goals. But it has to be realistic financially.
@Ynotgo Is the Naviance brag sheet you spoke of the same as the ‘Resume’? I was logged in as a parent trying to add to the resume, and I couldn’t find anyway to add one. LOL. Needed to log back in as D…duh.
@CT1417 Thanks for the link, very interesting article. And I’m interest as well how this plays out, especially having an ACT-only kid competing against the new SAT applicants. And, we can’t add any test scores in Naviance (as Student) either.
Hmm. I have never looked closely at the actual requirements for incoming freshmen at any school. Maybe I ought to take a peek. I’m pretty certain there are zero 5-year requirements at any of them, and she’s a band geek, so…
@2muchquan I always verify what they expect. For example, I have never included PE on a transcript before. SC requires it. Dd was a die-hard figure skater who did off ice training and kick boxing before she got sick in 10th. Normally I would have left those for her to include as activities vs a PE credit. I’m going to make it a PE credit ( or maybe the kick boxing as PE and leave skating as an activity.)
Fine art, OTOH, is a common requirement. My kids have all taken art history.
Eta: dd has only taken the March SAT. She isn’t planning on taking it again nor is she planning to take the ACT. It gives me a headache to think about the mess that the 3 different score types will create. Dd is hoping that the holistic mentality will prevail over 10-30 PT spreads.
Totally makes sense from a homeschool perspective. D is at a pretty typical public, so it is what it is. I would still have her apply to a school where she was short something if she wanted LOL.
Wow, away for a couple of days and it’s hard to catch up!
Re: CWRU Tuition increases & Scholarships - @Mom2aphysicsgeek there are Alumni Scholarship who will provide a scholarship to accommodate tuition increase. We were told that students just need to apply and they will receive an award for the amount of the tuition increase. There is an alumni house on campus with the info (my husband wandered in there while DD15 was auditioning for a dance scholarship). I think they do track interest at CWRU. You should try to set up an interview when you visit. The admission folks are super nice. They asked my DD what her most significant travel experience was.
Excellent point about new SAT test scores being compared to old SAT scores in Naviance, but it’s such a limited database. It’s more accurate to find out the range of scores for the department of the school you are interested in (for example the engineering department may have different average scores than another department within any given school). For us it’s even more limited b/c they don’t track ACT scores. They use that field to track their Difficulty of Curriculum number instead.
I think Naviance is useful to see admission trends for students from your HS. For example, one of DS’s schools had two people admitted in 2011, neither of whom attended the school, and no one from his HS has been admitted since - even though there quals are similar to those accepted in 2011 and well within the college’s publicized range of acceptance from Fiske. That seems like a pretty clear trend and indicates to me that he has a low chance of acceptance.