@mdcmom oh no! Sorry about your son’s pain and glad he is feeling better with the nice meds.
@paveyourpath The number varies.
I do not understand the second question. Is the GC suggesting to apply to 75% safety schools and 25% target schools?
For me, any school with 20-30% acceptance rates is a reach school.
We were discussing that ideal safety/likely schools are guaranteed/automatic admit schools based on your GPA and test scores. I will not call any school with less than 70% acceptance rate (from Naviance data of my school) a safety/likely school.
The seniors in our school on average, they say, applied to 6 schools. (was it 8? I don’t remember now.)
@mdcmom Sorry to hear about DH’s pain. Hope he recovers soon.
Glad to hear about S’s taking charge and making progress 
We do have the 50 hour driving practice requirement with permit. A neighbor dad is driving to California with his 15 yr old and plans to have his S drive. Theoretically, he could satisfy the 50-hour requirement with that trip. I probably will not be comfortable doing that.
@payn4ward Thanks! Very helpful. You actually answered my question. The GC was saying anything with an acceptance rating below 25% should be considered a reach school so it’s in line with what you’ve stated.
@paveyourpath We have been considering any place with a less than 25% admission rate as a reach, regardless of where our kid’s stats fall. Anyplace with a 50% or higher acceptance rate where our kid comfortably falls in the upper quarter is a safety. What falls between could be match or reach, depending on stats.
@payn4ward I don’t know if one can take drivers’ ed in school here or not - our kids’ school didn’t offer it. Most everybody I know takes a course at a free standing school and it costs money. They get a minimum of 7 hours with an instructor, an hour at a time, minimum of three weeks apart, and in the interim, practice with mom and dad. Highway driving is emphasized in the last two lessons. It ended up being decent value for the money.
I also know somebody who knocked out a bunch of hours with a road trip to CA, ending in LA! Not my preferred method.
@RightCoaster My friend’s son said he got the exact same test too. I can’t believe the CB is doing that. They really should cancel the scores for anyone who got the same version as it gives a huge advantage even if they didn’t look up answers they still got a lot more time to think about the reading passages, etc.
Well @eandesmom our kids share a birthday. I didn’t realize it at first, it seems like we’ve been celebrating for a week in our house! Happy birthday to our kiddo!
So, that means D17 has had her license for 1 year now. Wow, time flies. She was driving to/from dinner tonight, and I can tell how much more confident she has become. We had a 50 hour requirement as well. I’m pretty sure she surpassed that number while she had her permit (we drove to/from Yellowstone that summer, with her doing a good chunk), but we never logged most of it until the day before we went to the DMV to get her license.
@mdcmom Sorry to hear about your H and car had such pain today. Bummer. I love stick shifts.
@paveyourpath D17 will probably apply to 10-12 schools. If all those are EA/Rolling by Nov. 1, then we may throw a few RD schools in if she feels like it. I am anticipating a change in heart in either a)major, b)location, or c)weather in the next 4 months, which could wreak havoc on our list, and then who knows?
@mdcmom my mom had dealt with kidney stones (and eventual transplant) many times. She said it was worse thank labor pains and giving birth. I hope it passes quickly!
I hope I don’t disturb anyone trying to fall asleep but I made another post
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19731788/#Comment_19731788
@paveyourpath, my D15 applied to about 11 schools, all private LACs using the common app. A few were definitely reaches with <20% acceptance rates. S17 will probably apply to 6 schools, all state publics with high acceptance rates except Cal Poly engineering. He should get into most of them. Then he will apply to the honors colleges. Some of the honors programs may have lower acceptance rates. So basically, they are mostly safety/match schools even with the honors college part. So much less stress <:-P
@payn4ward – very interesting. I wonder why CT is left out of the discussion. Dollars too small to bother?
The move to in-school administration of the March SAT was announced during August of 2015. Much of CT is away on vacation at that time, so I do not think the timing was coincidental. School staff were provided no info, and it was not until the very end of Jan that the schools learned that students could sit for the test and then immediately cancel the score. This kept the score off the student’s score report but allowed the HS to have the score reported for state testing purposes.
Once I read of the announcement in August, I was sure that someone at CB had cut a deal with our governor.
I am more bothered by this repeated exam from most recent testing cycle.
Yay my daughter pulled an A in Pre-Calc. She was on the bubble with a 89.8 or so and got an A on the final so she got an A in the class. So happy for her as math is always her weakest subject and she works really hard in that class.
@paveyourpath I think DD is applying to 14 schools. However, she is applying ED to one and EA to a few so she’ll do those apps first (and will do UC apps since they have a Nov deadline) so she may not need to do some of the RD apps if she gets in. However most likely she will unless she gets into the ED school which is a long shot. She’s only applying EA to qualify for some scholarships/merit aid but would probably still want to see what schools she’s accepted to and see what they have to offer in FA and compare before making a final decision.
@paveyourpath, an admissions podcast I was listening to mentioned the average number of apps and I believe it was in the 10-12 range. They then mentioned that at one high school the average number was 28 (might not be the exact number, but something like that). Which seems crazy, but it’s a NYC school for high-achieving financially disadvantaged kids. All the students get fee waivers, so no cost to apply and more finaid packages to compare. I just hope the kids don’t drop from essay fatigue – can you imagine 28 supplementals??
D has been licensed for about 8 months, has a cheap little car, insurance increased ~$100/month with good student discount.
For a well balanced view of schools, I really like the - ‘What’s bad about xxx school’ threads on CC.
@nw2this I’m jealous! 
D has had her license for nine months and had a permit for a year before getting her license. She has a small 2007 model sedan. Even after the good student discount, our insurance more than doubled. Insurance for teens here costs more than insurance for 2 people and two cars. D is paying for her own insurance. I’m hoping she gets a lower price when she hits her 1 year anniversary with no accidents or tickets.
The kids here must take drivers ed, then a mandatory number of driving hours required broken down by day and night hours. I thought the drivers ed was quite good. D exceeded the minimum drive time multiple times over as we had her drive at every possible opportunity for the experience. She was a very nervous driver but gained a lot of confidence over the course of the year. I remember her still being nervous even on the first day she got her license, especially about parking. But over the course of the last 8 months, she’s become s very confident and good (safe) driver. I still worry, of course. People here are generally bad drivers and we’ve known personally 2 teens who died in terrible car accidents during the past 5 years.
D actually had a bad scare last week near a major accident site (not her fault; she over corrected to avoid being hit and lost control of the car). Thankfully she was not hurt but she was very shaken up.
@payn4ward So glad your S was not hurt! Very scary!
Hope all the kids with recent birthdays enjoyed their special days.
(Those strawberry pancakes sound amazing! We are all about pancakes in our house.).
Totally random question: Are we the only ones already talking about graduation presents and dorm room decorating? lol D is much more interested in those discussions than the admissions process. We’re putting needed/wanted dorm items on my sale alert list to buy over the course of the next year.
We haven’t started talking about graduation presents or decorating. I did broach the subject of the party though; when I asked DS whether he wants to have his party in the park (you have to book graduation weekend a year in advance) he said “NO PARTY!” Oh. OK. We’ll revisit it in a few months because there are so many people who want to celebrate. Maybe if he has permission to stay downstairs in the game room the whole time playing with his friends? Or we may just go out to eat with close family.
Granted, graduation parties can be a little overwhelming here because the whole church turns out for them. One of the perks/perils of being the pastor’s kid.
@itsgettingreal17 glad your D didn’t get hurt, but boy to spin out is quite scary! Happened to me once on the highway, luckily no one was hurt.
We are talking about gifts and dorm but only because I am in the thick of it with my D16. Dormify is a great site for stuff. I’ve been buying a few things here and there. Bed bath and beyond is having a college day sale in July of 20% off your entire purchase and they will ship to the store by your kids school so i am waiting to buy some things from there.
We are not talking about graduation because I’m going to be really sad. Truth. I try not to think about it.
No dorm talk yet. I guess that’s OK. Not sure if D will be a car-ride or plane-ride away yet. I do want to get her a new laptop, though, but we’ll have to hold off on that for a bit. I think you guys on the 2016 thread, @greeny8, were talking about those individual hammocks (ENOs?). My D would love that…
@itsgettingreal17 Wow, glad your D didn’t get hit, and your insurance didn’t get ‘hit’ either! That’s the best type of ‘accident’ to be in, when nothing and no one gets hurt. Good, but scary, learning experience.
@RightCoaster I think D2 will be very sad when D1 goes to school. She is going to have to deal with her parents by herself for 3 more years! :))