@2muchquan Just have her do lots of practice sets from prep books. The problems are pretty predictable.
On Trig., review addition formula, sin(2x)=2 sinx cosx, etc, signs of sin cos tan in 4 quadrants, triangle problems using law of cosines or law of sines.
Exponential problem - using Log to find years in debt growth - principal, interest, # years, or population growth.
Asymptote question. (how many asymptotes? vertical or horizontal)
Joint probability.
S often makes mistakes in the beginning. So I told him to review the first 10 questions and the last 10 questions (fatigue). He is usually done in half the time alotted in math.
I got ACT TIR (question/answer service) from April National test and he got 1 question wrong. The 2nd question. Something like 2+4=? 
College list is D’s and D’s alone. For example, I deleted Michigan as I think it is too cold. (Sorry everybody from Michigan 
) D said sarcastically “I didn’t realize that you are the one going to college.” So it is back on!!
@SincererLove make sure your daughter gets to do a college visit to Michigan in mid January 
Anyone else make this mistake / face this sticker shock?
D wants to visit a school in Boston that has a program she is interested in. I watch the airline sites, kayak etc and pounce upon a (relatively) cheap airfare. Evil grin, I am a genius. I’ve saved a couple hundred bucks.
I now casually wander off to book a hotel for our stay.
Yikes
Bye-bye savings…
Air B&B @Dave_N ?
So, 2 of the schools on the WBOD now accept and optional ZeeMee (zeemee.com) page/application when applying. Have you seen this? Anyone considering having their kid do this? I think it’s kind of a neat thing, but I would have to convince my D. A good way to maybe include a video supplement.
@Dave_N don’t stay in Boston during the summer. I would suggest staying within a 1/2 hour drive of downtown and just driving in. Or taking the train in. You could probably find cheaper lodging in the metro west are where there are hotels that cater to business travelers. You could look in Framingham/Southborough/Westborough for some hotels located right off the Mass Pike. Easy commute into town in the summer.
@Dave_N Did you try Hotwire? It’s often good for big cities.
Well, final grades are in, and my daughter got, for the first time in her life, a 4.0 (unweighted) for the year. She was sweating out her grade in AP Stats—she had an 89.2% going into the final, and the teacher rounds to the nearest percent, so she needed to raise it to at least an 89.5%. I’d told her that she should’ve run a statistical model taking into account her performance on different types of assignments and trends over time, and then give the odds from that of her getting an A just to see if it would convince her teacher she deserved one. Happily, she didn’t need it.
In other news, the Spreadsheet of Serendipity is being updated with the final stats for my daughter’s final review, adding in things like I know how to access but that are somewhat opaque to most high schoolers like rough measures of faculty treatment such as % adjuncts and so on (she’s the child of an academic, I’ve raised her to care about such things), endowment returns, enrollment trends, and so on.
Or, in other words: It’s gettin’ real.
I love it @dfbdfb. You can suffer along with me in analysis-paralysis this summer.
@DaveN
** PriceLine ** 
I like PL ExpressDeals better then HotWire.
There probably are other sites but first I check biddingfortravel.com for past prices
http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/forums/53/Massachusetts-Boston/Massachusetts-Boston#.V0Nzu5MrJ8
@dfbdfb and @2muchquan I don’t want you guys stressing me out with all of your data crunching and analysis all summer!!
We’ve used only a couple of data points to determine if a college is a good fit:
-
Does it have stuff my kid wants to study and would he like the people and experience there?
-
Does it have some fun and interesting things to do while he is there?
-
Most important: Will he get a job making real money when he graduates?
The school I’d like to see him attend said that for the class of 2016 they claimed had 99 % rate (as of last month) for kids finding jobs BEFORE they graduate ( or were going to grad school). That pretty much sealed the deal for me.
They have a really great job placement center on campus and they really tried to get all students the help they needed to get a job.
@Dave_N Continued… re Boston
I’ve stayed in Waltham, Newton, Woburn, etc.
If you can brave driving in Boston, that is.
I also stayed at downtown, Boston Park Plaza, Fairmont, Loews, Omni, etc for around $120/night using PriceLine off season. But then parking is $45/night.
Ha! @RightCoaster There is an “Ignore” button that will shield you from my nonsense posts! I would consider using it if I were you. It may otherwise be a looooonnggg summer!
Those are excellent data points, and we’re employing the same ones, just over a larger geographic area. Oh, and we’re looking for merit, which complicates things. Plus, it’s fun!
So another positive that comes out of D getting in the driver’s seat, she now realizes how much she needs to improve her time management skills to do everything she wants to do in college…which is a lot! Long discussions today after looking at the specific requirements of all the programs she wants to complete side by side.
Anyone have some good tips to help her work on her time management skills senior year?
@itsgettingreal …same situation in Tx with my D! So you said your more liberal daughter prefers A&M or does she prefer UT?
@jmek15 So ironic. We live in Texas and D has automatic acceptance into both UT and Texas A&M but she would much rather go to school in the NE.
Engineering: Both schools with very strong engineering programs. Word on the street is that acceptance into UTs engineering school has become crazy competitive. I have been in touch with a 2016 dad here whose D did not get into the engineering school even with amazing stats (Valedictorian, 34-35 ACT) etc. It truly opened our eyes at our house. D is automatic acceptance to UT but we really didn’t get that she may not get in to the school of her choice.
My D would attend there *maybe." It is crazy hot. She is tired of the great air conditioned indoors 9 months of the year. There is very little public transportation in Texas. I do understand there is a campus shuttle system though so that is good.
Texas A&M: I’m a graduate and am forcing D to tour there officially in a week so I can give you a full report from the tour. I had a good experience. It IS huge (as is UT) but the experience of a huge school in a small town was great for me. I always saw my friends as I walked across campus. Not a whole lot of cultural opportunities near campus but there was always something going on it seemed. As I currently understand, students are admitted into the College of Engineering as freshmen and most get their choice of major but it can be competitive and there are no guarantees.
Both schools would be great for someone wanting a traditional rah rah campus football experience. I think my D, even though she leans more liberal, will like the A&M campus better…but that is just a gut feeling and based on nothing concrete so I will have to report back.
@carachel2 D wants a pretty campus. So putting A&M and UT side-by-side on that basis alone, she prefers A&M’s campus. Of course, A&M doesn’t even come close to some of the really beautiful campuses she has visited, e.g., Notre Dame, Bama, OSU. She is also auto admit at A&M and UT, and I’m making her apply to UT since it is one of the few schools that meets most of her academic wants (Arabic Flagship, strong accounting program). It’s going to have to be her safety if she doesn’t make NMSF, since she really wants the Arabic Flagship.
SOS-lol! Unweighted 4.0-dude!
@Dave_N I agree with others to take the T in to Boston and stay farther out on the line. We do that when we go to DC-we stay in Crystal City. If your kid wants to go to school in Boston there’s no better way to get acquainted with the city and fellow Massholians.
I have nobody on College Confidential on ignore. Although I’d like to some days (nobody here, just one person really).
I will bet I’m in the highest percentage of people who are ignored on CC, though 
I’d love to peek behind the curtain and see those stats…
@MotherOfDragons Hmm, I didn’t realize you could ignore someone. But now I see that option clearly when you click on the person’s name. There is definitely 1 person in particular that I think most people would like to ignore (not on this thread either). Why people engage him in ridiculous debates, I do not know.
@payn4ward that stinks re: the basic algebra! That’s what happened to my D for the PSAT, she just blanked on the most basic stuff. But her SAT math from this April she got a 780 and never opened a book to study.
@2muchquan My D16 had the Dr. Chungs SAT math book and she got an 800. She said the book had a lot of typos and was way more difficult but it helped for when she took the SAT because then it made it seem easy.
@dfbdfb whew that was close for your D. Yay for the co tuned 4.0!!! My D has an 89.65 in Latin right now for the year but she has a final exam and she is not sure she can pull an A. This will be her first B ever. Her teacher is a real jerk and he will not bump you even if you have an 89.4. Fingers crossed.
@itsgettingreal17 my D when she was busy with cheer 3 days a week, she had great time management. Come home at 5:30, shower, eat, do homework. Then when cheer ended after February, she had so much free time on her hands she didn’t know what to do. So she would take a nap. (
Oy vey