Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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D will need to show leadership for honors colleges and merit scholarships. I think she’s fine on that front though not anything close to the level of what I’ve seen some gunners post on CC. VP to Pres of the environmental team, multiple part time jobs throughout hs that require leadership (ref, lifeguard, swim instructor), first chair orchestra while she participated, and participation on a non-profit youth board. She’s also looking to pick up another extracurricular to replace one that she is dropping this year and will run for a position of that club.

Leadership is not just officer of X club. Colleges recognize that a lot of those positions are popularity contests and the officers do nothing. That’s why it’s important to not just list officer of X club if that’s the leadership role being listed, but to also describe the role and accomplishments in that position.

Like a couple of others, we are looking for top merit scholarships with the intention of paying out of pocket for significant study abroad if no study abroad scholarships are won.

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@SincererLove regarding leadership, my son has only been captain on lax and soccer in early years, but won’t be in senior year. He instead organized a food drive for each sports 3 teams fresh/JV/varsity and donated food to the local food bank. He refs soccer once in a while as a job. He’s in the Deca/Model UN club, but does not have a leadership role in those. Maybe he can do something there in the fall, I don’t know. So, not really a whole lot, but I don’t think it will make any difference at all in his safeties, and only a slight bit to his top reach school.

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Totally random rant: So D is doing some volunteer work this summer in between summer programs and work. Everyone keeps asking if it’s for school credit as if there is no intrinsic value to volunteering. I hate the focus on doing the “right” things solely for college admissions. We are so not about that in our house.

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Busy Busy around here!

For all you Arabic Major folks (and my, there seems like a lot!) fun fact. I am not sure if any of your kids are looking at Swarthmore but one of our more recent grads is there, dual major Arabic and Poli Sci, just won the Truman Scholarship (and last year the Boren). Seems like a strong Arabic program.

Re: Graduation gifts. I kind of forgot about S17’s trip. He will get a “big” trip after graduation as well. He requested someplace he could speak spanish so we booked that part a while ago and will have some disney/universal on one end or on each end. Hmm maybe I can stall on the watch. It makes me nervous to consider a very expensive watch on an 18 year old wrist!

Re: GPA recalculation by colleges.
I like @mtrosemom’s idea! Each school should tell you what they do instead of the blanket statement of “considering rigor”. Whatever!

My understanding is that your own naviance does not recalculate, it should show GPA’s as they are for your school. However, it is my understanding that colleges do recalculate according to their own methodology.

They have to really, how else could you level the playing field when each school reports so differently? +/-, weighted versus unweighted, core versus non core, a 3 year HS, a 4 year HS, dropping off the first year because it is freshman year as the UC’s do? Honors, AP’s, DE, IB, etc? Rank/no rank? % only and no letter grades? I have visions of some poor sap entering all these grades from transcripts and a magic number spit out at the end. Of course that isn’t what happens but…I do have to believe there is some recalculation going on. The question then is, what is reported on the CDS?

There is a thread for that!

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1894471-common-data-set-gpa-vs-how-the-college-computes-gpa-p1.html

We do +/- (but no A+, only A), do not rank and do not weight. 4.0 scale. We show grades based on the =/- in published charts but it is definitely calculated per class on a % basis. However since that % isn’t shown on a transcript other than it being used to calculate GPA not sure it matters. I suspect schools have to recalculate on a straight A/B basis and then add weight for rigor. Whether that weight is noted separately for admission or included in how they report GPA’s of entering classes or applications received is anyone’s guess and is likely all over the board. Bottom line is they don’t have to tell us.

However Naviance by itself seems both good and bad. I just reached out for our GC as the data is incomplete and I’d like to understand where it comes from and why it is incomplete. I think I know why but want to confirm. Had a nasty shock looking at one of S17’s schools that has had very high acceptance rates and did not perform as well (not even close) in 2016 and I want to understand what happened and the data is not all there!

Re: **App fees **

@MotherOfDragons yeah, $1003. I hope to cut that in half. Heck I figure if he sticks to the 3 schools we know he plans to apply to and the 4 free app LAC’s…we could get it down to $181 and maybe only $141 if we apply early at one school as it sounds like it might be free if you apply in July ( I didn’t know you could do that). LOL! Of course that isn’t how it will play out.

I did budget 1K to be safe but plan for a lot less, he will not be applying to all on the list but, some of that 1K may go to travel depending on how it all shakes out.

I do agree with @2muchquan it is the cost of doing business. It was just semi entertaining to add it up. I’d also agree that we (collectively ) are not normal parents.

Re: Leadership
@SincererLove likely not much different than this year. Mid level management. LOL! A couple of club VP positions. Student Council, Band Council, A senior level theater crew position, band section leader. Nothing earth shattering but I suppose at least shows involvement at some level.

Question. I see folks saying 2-3 weeks for CB to send scores. Is the same timeline true of ACT? General rule send scores 2-3 weeks ahead of anticipated “send” date on an app? We have never exercised the free scores for ACT. Does that have to be determined before the test date or can it be added after within a window (I seem to recall that but it’s all fuzzy now as we knew we weren’t submitting before).

** Other random thoughts**
@jmek15 Good luck with both LAX and ACT and that the 2 schedules play well together!

@Mom2aphysicsgeek I can’t open the quad thread as I was afraid I’d see exactly that and it would make me nuts. We have four too! Except I can’t count two and so…yeah. Whatever. Your 6 year old is cracking ME up. 6. Gah. Power power to you!

S17 survived the precalc final with the fractured wrist, all written with his left hand. Sigh. Sounds like they gave him an extra 10 minutes for the wrist. 3 hours of that wore him out! They did 3 practice tests for this and he said this was significantly harder, according to his teacher the hardest one (or close to) that they’ve ever given. Great. We are expecting a drop in grade, the question will be…how far. It didn’t help that he forgot the one page of notes he was allowed to bring in. Dork left the entire class folder at home thinking he didn’t need it. He doesn’t think that made a huge difference other than slowing him down. Because you know, the wrist thing wasn’t slowing him down already. I do admire the way he is rolling with the punches though.

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@itsgettingreal17 that would really really bother me as well. S17 volunteers for a ton of stuff and rarely rarely even tracks the service hours. Do it because it’s the right thing and it interests you.

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@itsgettingreal17 Re: your post yesterday about what to teach your kid before your K graduates (or, goes to college). You’ve probably seen this thread:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1769222-checklist-for-parents-of-incoming-freshmen.html

I started reading it last year, and it has really good stuff. Our short list:

  • make a doctor/dentist appointment
  • use debit card (check!)
  • fill car with gas (check!)
  • call insurance agent
  • know what medicines to take, and when
  • take a bus/train/plane (check-ish)
  • do laundry (check)
  • cook Ramen noodles & Mac 'N Cheese (check)
  • order pizza and pay for it
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An example of one school’s recalculation. U of South Carolina converts all non South Carolina students to the South Carolina uniform grading scale. You can search it online. I converted D’s grades to make sure she’s competitive for their top scholarship.

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I need to get a fake Twitter kid too!

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I didn’t really quite understand the fake kid thingie :?

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^ creating an account not using your real kid’s information to stalk colleges on Twitter.

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The “leadership” thing, oy. D will be captain of the varsity dance team next year, and she’s vp of the art club, which is actually pretty good for her considering how shy she can be about putting herself forward. Student government at our local HS is very clique based though, so she’s never wanted anything to do with it.

Ah, the list, the list. Ours is still very much in flux. More solid at the safety/match end than the reach end, though D will be more able to really concentrate on all this stuff once her term is actually, finally over. She’s still dealing with the remnants of her cold and struggling through finals today and tomorrow, then ACT on Saturday, last 2 exams (Regents) Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Poor thing is so worn out, I feel terrible for her. This last stretch of junior year has seemed ENDLESS.

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@whataboutcollege … Glad you have a plan and are thinking about safeties.

I’m not clear from your post though because you still mentioned a merit scholarship at Columbia? Or is she looking at some sort of outside scholarship that would cover the $62k per year there?

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http://cc-seas.financialaid.columbia.edu/eligibility/facts

This year they are stating it to be 72k.

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@endesmom

Some folks recommended to send scores a month before “send” date. So I plan to do that.

Yes, there is a window. ACT a few days. By Thursday(?) after the test. I think I sent it on Wednesday. DS17 has been pretty accurate about his own score prediction, so I used free score service after learning his prediction after Saturday. At a practice test at school, he said, oh, my watch malfunctioned so I totally ran out of time and missed a whole text box (bought him a new watch!) Thankfully, such incidents didn’t happen at real tests.
For SAT, the window may be longer, 10 days. You can send the scores for free until June 13th for the June 4th test.

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On kid quotes,
a kindergartener (not mine) said,
“My mom does not follow Don’t Drink and Drive law!
She drinks COFFEE while driving.”

:))

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We will be sending score once all are reported and S’s list is final. That will probably be some time in August. And that way I spread out the financial pain. Test score payment in summer, app fees in fall. I think that all of S’s schools have app fees.

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@whataboutcollege Sorry about Columbia dilemma.
Thankfully, our DS’s do not have qualifying stats to our alma maters :smiley: >:)
A friend’s D just graduated from Columbia.
The D once said “(everyone knows that) Columbia is THE most expensive school” (among ivy/selective schools.)
The D actually graduated one term/semester early.
Her mom said that saved them $40,000. :open_mouth: b-(

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@2muchquan wrote:

The first couple times, I misread this as what to teach your kid (to have them prepared to go to college) before they graduate from kindergarten.

Of course, I know some people who probably do think in such extremes, so…

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@carachel2 what I meant was debate between Columbia full pay vs. merit based at schools like UMichigan (they have shipman and some other); Georgia tech’s president scholarship and other ( our neighbor’d kid got some last year); lehigh’s trustee scholarship (? Forgot the name), etc. Duke has great scholarships but not the major D is looking at. We are debating amongst these possibilities. The dilemma is do we want to do ED for Columbia? If admitted we are locked in with full pay and not able to consider other merit based. If we do RD for Columbia, we risk of not getting admitted. And potentially not getting good amount from these merit based either. That is why the list is in total flux.

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With you @mtrosemom. We have all our scores, so they will go out as soon as we identify schools that are ‘for sures’. Already had to send to one school in order to participate in an Honors open house. We could probably send to 4-5 more right now, but I can hold off until the end of June or early July. No reason to wait longer.

@whataboutcollege I think most of those on this thread started their list with a ‘budget’ in mind. And we have folks with budgets all over that map. But, that one piece of data is very helpful. It’s gets more difficult when you say our budget is $X, except if kid gets into schools X, Y, or Z. But, many people handle it that way too. Either way, it’s good to have a budget for the non-super-reach schools, IMO. And, to let your kid know this #. Then you can gauge whether the merit available at school J will be enough to make it affordable (based soley on budget), and if so…then you can investigate how competitive the scholarship is (Shipman is an example, which looks like it is very EC-based, especially service work), and whether you want to pursue it. At least, this is our basic approach.

Your dilemma re: Columbia is exactly why we cannot/will not do ED. We cannot comfortably (or uncomfortably afford) full pay at most any school. So, those are out, and D knows it. There’s always grad school :slight_smile: