Our yearbook photos for seniors are just the standard photo. We can buy a page in the yearbook to customize for the graduate, which we will do. As for private senior photos, for D we did a series of family photos and then singles of her. I’d like to do the same for S since it may be one of the last times we will all be together for professional photos.
I am nearly three full days behind, so am typing my responses as I read. The OPs have probably moved on from their original questions by this point.
@Ynotgo —what to pack for six week summer program…… Send laundry detergent in pods. Just toss a handful in a ziploc bag, and mention to only touch with dry hands.
In case room does not have hooks for drying towels, a couple of Command Hooks could be helpful.
For cold and/or rain, if he will use the two together, North Face makes these ‘system’ coats where each piece functions completely on its own, but each piece also has clever snaps or loops for securing the inner layer to the outer layer. So, a regular fleece inside a hooded rain coat. I own one and love it. Son has one for rain and one for snow/cold.
@262mom — Interview attire—East coast preppy here, so take this for what it is worth. My son wore navy blazer, button down shirt & tie, khakis, and cordovan loafers with matching braided leather belt. Probably overdressed. Imagine younger will wear the same as he is used to wearing that exact outfit to debate. Substitute bucks during summer months. These are boys who wear khakis & hoodie to school during cold months and khaki shorts and tee shirts during warm months. College son has developed a style of his own since leaving home, and never wears the basic Bass loafers and braided belt now.
My older son’s on-campus interviews were conducted by either full-time admission staff or summer hires, who were usually rising seniors. Since the interviewers dressed professionally, it seemed appropriate for son to dress neatly also. Interviewers tended to provide business card so the only difficult part was forcing son to hand write the thank you notes. No one knows how to write cursive.
@eandesmom — Re: AP scores. I think most people self-report scores on apps, although I have known some who paid to send the reports in a situation where the applicant wanted to demonstrate her mastery of a subject where the school’s reputation was not well-known. I am guessing that home schoolers would be more likely to send the actual score reports. Our school profile lists the # who scored at each level for every AP test, so a glance at the school profile would alert the Ad Com to the rigor of the program if she were not familiar with the HS.
@paveyourpath — I also agree that AP scores do not fall under the ‘report all testing history’. My son will be applying to several schools that require all scores, and I have not seen AP scores mentioned.
Also, if your student is admitted ED, he can use the free report from his Sr year AP exams to send the score to the school he will be attending. That was probably posted on this thread earlier…or somewhere on CC.
@vandyeyes — how did the Cornell visit go as the hungover Reunion-goers were still straggling off campus this morning? The Saturday night Arts Quad tent parties were cancelled due to the massive thunderstorms that never appeared. Such a bummer as the tent parties are not quite the same while held indoors. All outdoor tented class dinners & photos were also scattered all over campus…and it never rained a drop. The grounds are probably a bit cleaner this morning than they would have been if the tent parties had run until 1:30am, but if the place looks like a ghost town, you will know why.
School profile is on Guidance section of school website. It is updated when school resumes, and then again after NMSFs become NMF or Presidential Scholars are named. They don’t seem to bother with AP Scholars (or whatever those AP designations are). VERY detailed info on mean SAT, ACT, & Subject Test Scores; exact reporting of AP scores for every AP exam; bar chart of GPA distribution, but no ranking; demographic info on school district, # of faculty with doctorates, names & emails of school GCs; list of every honors and AP course. 94-95% attend four year college.
@MotherofDragons — ACT vs SAT score report timing. SAT had issued scores 19 days after exam date but that has all changed with the move to the new SAT (because they do not know what they are doing, IMHO). ACT had always been 12 days (I think 12….several days sooner than SAT), but ACT essay scores might arrive weeks after the composite score. Some students received essay score with composite score, but some waited weeks. I hope I have my terms correct, but the composite score + the essay score = the complete score, and w/o the essay/complete score, students could not send scores to colleges. ACT really dropped the ball on this one last fall, with the Sept results still not making it on time for Nov 1 ED, but then SAT could not guarantee their rush score reporting even though they released the scores at 19 days, so many were in the same boat.
Now, why CB has delayed release of subject test scores….well that is beyond me! The SAT IIs have not changed….so no excuse.
@Sincererlove — pay app fees on CA when attempting to submit the app. Am not sure how non-CA school apps operate.
Sr portraits—photographer shoots at school in front of awful colored backgrounds. Boys wear jacket & tie and girls wear simple dress or top. We wore those black drape things in HS. First round of photo shoots already took place and son is signed up for late June. May as well get it out of the way now. I was underwhelmed by quality of older son’s photos, but very impressed with the photographer who managed to snap everyone on graduation day while filing in. Ordered more from grad photographer than Sr portrait photographer.
Now here is something to start working on this summer if your school offers it: Sr yearbook pages. I did not do one for my older son but some people really love these and get really into them. The required template is so not user-friendly, so layout is a hassle even after you have spent hours searching for the ideal photos. The deadline for these pages comes up surprisingly quickly as the yearbook folks want to file away as many pages as they can early in the year.
RE: Zee Mee & supplements. I think it is MIT that allows students to upload samples of their coding. I don’t even want to know how they evaluate that.
I think I may be caught up….on this thread alone!
Around here, we do very elaborate senior photo shoots. A mom was appalled at a $800 quote. Couple of parents are photographers, and they share their clients’ photos on FB. I am loving beautiful photos of seniors. They are like wedding photos minus a bride or a groom =)) Still beautiful. Some do family package. I would like that. :x
All boys in my family hate being photographed, so I don’t know how to broach the subject. =(( [-(
We also do Sr yearbook baby photo page as a fundraiser. $$ for whole page, then less for half or 1/4 page. I did that for middle school year book for D19, chose toddler photos of both D17 & D19 in it. :x
Agree, on un-user-friendly upload template. Huge wasted space with 2 or 3 boxes for photo and text box. Why can’t we submit the entire box/page with photos and text arranged as we like it with photoshop, powerpoint, etc. 
D actually dabbles in senior portraits with her own little business and has done about five sittings over the past year. She wayyyy undercharges but still gets a nice profit and I think her pics are great and very natural.
But now it’s time for her to get on the other side of the camera and I’m not sure how that will go since she despises the over edited pics that seem to be somewhat favored by the local photographers.
Ok so U Rochester merit =$24K/$48K, still too much. I’ll check the common ap next time, thanks for telling me where to find this info.
We went shopping for senior photo outfits this weekend. The tradition here is a 2+ hour photo shoot with multiple outfits and settings. D wants her shoot done by a photography student instead of a school recommended pro, this is highly irregular.
Hmm, I’m not sure if senior portraits are a “thing” at D’s school. D11 went to a different school and I don’t remember senior photos being any different from the other years. She performed (dance) at her HS graduation, so the photos and videos from that are great senior portraits for us. I guess I’ll find out if D17’s school does things differently. I would like to take some photos of her with her favorite teachers. I wish I’d done this with D11.
For yearbook, using the professional photo company became mandatory for seniors from D17’s class. They will take photos of seniors with two different poses free of charge. You can add more poses for fees. Seniors have to use one of those photos for the yearbook.
I can see why it became mandatory. This year’s yearbook is full of senior photos that are not up to standard. Some are clearly selfies that chopped off the top of the head or in weird angle, some are so dark you cannot make out the faces, some are too far away that the faces are so tiny.
When D13 was senior, the photos were more in uniform. The face had to be at least so-and-so size or you couldn’t use the full body photos. I don’t know what happened but this year’s photos are all over.
I don’t think the senior photo shoot is a school thing. It’s more of neighborhood thing. They do photo shoots over summer and submit the photos early September for year book, I think. Of the ~130 graduates, about 90% are of varying professional shoots (I’m sure some are done by student/amateurs) outdoors and the rest are simple selfies. The percentage may vary by school and unfortunately shows lack of socioeconomic diversity at school.
Senior pictures: They’re definitely a thing here in our school district generally, but not really at my daughter’s school, though if you want, you can put one of your senior pictures in the yearbook instead of the regular one going there. Also, each of the graduating seniors gets a slideshow of eight pictures (it’s a graduating class of 28, they have the time) as they enter. Most families do either shots of activities with the family or a babyhood-through-graduation thing; if senior pictures were taken, one of them goes into it, of course. We have a photographer we used last year for family pictures and really, really like him, but are going back and forth on whether the expense of senior pictures is at all worth it.
Thank you @Ynotgo I will read that.
@beardolls…we have the senior portrait thing here as well. My daughters is set up for August 1st. A 2 hour shoot with multiple outfit changes and locations. If I can get a couple of excellent photos out of it, I will be happy.
@4beardolls Senior portraits are a big deal here in Atlanta, especially for the girls. They often are straight up professional-level photo shoots. I am minorly grumpy about it as an amateur photographer (and retired model). On the one hand, it’s nice to have those photos and they’re beautiful.
On the other hand, it’s a bucket of money and I’ve been photographing my daughters since they were fetuses, and could do almost as good of a job as the best professional ones. I may do a “let me try and do your pictures, if you don’t love them we’ll go to a professional”.
@CT1417 that is pretty cool about MIT allowing kids to upload their code-I’ll tell D about that. She’s got some cool code that does something weird with punnet squares (I have no idea what punnet squares are or even if I’m spelling that correctly, but according to H it’s pretty neat). Although if her scores on the ACT and the SAT don’t crack 700, I don’t think she’ll apply there. Which is fine, either way.
Off to school I go. Monday mornings, ugh…
For those of you into tweets and have AP test score distribution curiosity, AP Trevor has started tweeting about test distributions: https://mobile.twitter.com/AP_Trevor?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
You can also look here. The chart will fill in as they finish scoring the different tests. You can also compare to previous yrs’ distributions.
http://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Service/2016-AP-Exam-Score-Distributions.php
Canadian onion equivalent: http://syruptrap.ca/2014/11/coyote-in-debt-21000-after-wandering-through-university-campus/
Our district requires each senior to have a senior picture taken with one photographer. Those pictures are used for yearbook and the senior collage picture hung up in the school. If you want more pictures, you can go to that photographer or a different one. Some kids do that and others do not. When graduation announcements come out, some kids use their official photo and others use ones from the other photographer (pictures out in a field, in sports uniform, with a pet, etc.).
Fancy senior photo shoots are popular here too, but they cost $$$. The cheapest package I’ve seen was over $100 for a single pose and just a handful of prints. But we have a nice camera and so we take them ourselves. They aren’t quite as artistic as what other people get but I’m happy to put them on my walls 
. The school sends out a very detailed description of what is allowed for the yearbook and as long as you follow the rules, they’ll use it.
I take a billion photos of my kids. Too many. Like when I used to travel, I would rather capture a picture of the animal in their natural habitat. Bad hair, sleeping in the car with their mouth hanging open, opening presents, doing an aerial, playing in the band.
I think the one sleeping in the car would make an excellent yearbook photo! :))
senior pictures some people do them but it’s not big around here. For my D16 when she had her yearbook photos taken, you had the option to add more to the basic package with different outfits etc. We opted for a slight upgrade but not all out like some. They actually came out great though. I just received a postcard for D17 to book her yearbook photo. And I received another postcard for D16 to buy her graduation photos from 2 weeks ago. I don’t have a break!
@CT1417 I dropped the ball and did not do a senior page for my D16. She didn’t care so that was a relief. The good news is now I don’t have to do it for D17! Saves me time and $$
@2muchquan Great idea - I have plenty of those sleeping in the car, drool out of the corner of the mouth photos. But I have been saving them for when the first date comes calling at the door (insert evil laugh here…).
@nw2this U of Rochester does have scholarships that go as high as full tuition. I think it is the Renaissance & Global Scholarship that gives that much. It is obviously very competitive to get though, and most scholarships they give are for less. Rochester has been on and off our list a few times, just because it seems unlikely it will end up being affordable. My 20yr old just accepted a job in Rochester though, so I think it is back on the list, at least for a visit. It seems like if we have to move her to Rochester we might as well stop in for a visit while we are there.
As far as senior photos, ours are during the summer from a specific photographer. We haven’t gotten the information yet but I think it’s the typical a few poses and they cost a fortune scenario. I think they have to take one specifically for the yearbook and they can do others. Not sure yet if they have drapes or what they wear. When I took mine (many moons ago lol) we did drapes, feathers, and cap/gown. We are eagerly awaiting the info as my DD would like to do them before she leaves for UPenn on 6/29 and I promised she could get her hair done before the photos.