Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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@Dave_N Thanks for the trip report! My younger D will be attending a computer camp that is housed at Boston College in July, so I’m planning to take D17 along with me to visit a couple of Boston area schools. I hope we get a better tour guide at Northeastern than you did! We also have Tufts on our list.

@Atyraulove I think there are a few of us on this thread whose D’s are looking at Smith. It’s one of the very few schools on my D’s “definite” list. She loved her tour there and Northampton seems like a great town.

@“What???!!” UChicago’s reputation is quirky, intense, and intellectual. Yes, they do have a core curriculum, but the actual spirit of the place is not as rigid as that might make it sound. My nephew went there and loved every minute. He wanted my D to apply, but she doesn’t want to be that far away from home - though she might be tempted by their brand new molecular engineering program, and those essay prompts :wink:

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** Googling ** When DS 17 was born, I wanted to name him after my father, but my father’s name combined with my husband’s surname creates the name of a very famous person. We didn’t want him to be named after this person, so instead, we chose my great grandfather’s very unusual and old fashioned name, with my father’s name as the middle name.

Later we discovered that the middle name of that very famous person is the same name as my great-grandfather’s! That is, DS’s name is FamousPersonMiddleName FPFirstName FPLastName. So now if you google DS’s name, you only get that very famous person. Pages and pages. I never did find DS’s facebook page even though he has one.

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I thought I was picking a name that is not used in South India that much, but looks like few other people thought same around the same time and now every competition I go I see few with same first name and on Google I see couple of others with same first name and last name but those seems to be younger than DS.

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I am trying to catch up and am still at least 10 pages behind! I am jumping in with a few comments though:

valedictorian/salutatorian Our school has about 150 kids per grade, does not weight, and uses a 4.0 scale, counting everything. Around 10-15 grads (so 10% of class!) had 4.0’s and were considered “valedictorians”, and two others (who must have each just gotten one B one semester somewhere along the line) were considered “salutatorians.” Not sure how often it happens that there are so many vals plus 2 sals. School profile says the school does not rank, so these are not reported to colleges, they just come into play at graduation. Since AP classes count the same as chorus and PE (which seem to be automatic A’s for students who show up and try their best), I think the meaning is diluted (still v. proud of my boy who has taken many accelerated and AP classes and has hung onto his 4.0 through junior year; hope colleges will recognize rigor of his transcript when they see the GPA, and realize it’s unweighted).

math tracking Our district has some very strange policies, but luckily there is flexibility. MS has an option for 7th graders to take a placement test at the end of the year to place into HS geometry (which they would then take at the HS during 8th grade), but no advanced notice about this or opportunity to prep. These students are essentially skipping algebra. I think kids who do it have been taking outside math classes because the MS curriculum (which is the same for everyone) doesn’t prepare students for this test at all. I spoke to the MS math teacher about DS taking the test and she recommended against it, pointing out that algebra (which she would be teaching to all students in 8th grade) is foundational to all other math and that it’s not a good idea to skip it. I advised him not to take the test, and I think he was greatly relieved. Based on his preparation in 8th grade, he took the same placement test the following year and scored high enough to take geometry and algebra II/trig together (two concurrent math classes) as a freshman, which he elected to do. That opened up 10th grade precalc, 11th grade calc (students take AB and then if they are doing well and want to, they can sign up for independent study BC after school in spring, and sit for the BC test in May). So now he can take some DE math classes next year. I’ll be forever grateful to that MS math teacher (who is the best teacher ever… I’ve posted about her before), and also for the flexibility at our HS.

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I take it back, I can find DS’s FB page, but it’s mostly track pictures so that works :slight_smile: .

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@“what???!!” My DS spent last summer at the University of Utah for the ballet intensive and loved it. Loved campus and all of the instructors. If he was going to study dance, it would definitely be on the list.

@Dave_N We did a similar tour of Boston schools but we had a great tour guide for Northeastern. Emerson, not so much. BU’s tour guides were great. It is one of his favorites so far. Agreed that it is too expensive at sticker price. We’ll see how it all shakes out.

@dfbdfb Your name doesn’t happen to be Michael Bolton, does it? An Office Space joke for those who haven’t watched it before. It would be hard to have the same name as a celebrity.

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@payn4ward (re: your post #7635): I am pretty good at math (always did better on quantitative vs. verbal SAT/GRE tests way back when, minored in statistics in grad school and teach college-level statistics now), but have always used my fingers to help with addition & subtraction.

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@dfbdfb, @Atyraulove and @thermom, My D is another potential Smithie. It’s the only women’s college with engineering and is D’s #1 choice by far (for now). We loved everything about our visit. Met with older D’s friend who just graduated while we were there and she loved it. I think D has a pretty strong chance of getting in, but I’ve heard they aren’t the most generous with merit. NPC shows some, but not enough. She’ll apply and we’ll see what happens.

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Thanks at @Mom2aphysicsgeek & @eandesmom – appreciate your suggestions and insights. We will look for both EECS & innovation/design product dev type programs - there are a few out there.

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Anyone has visited Duke? Would really like some feedbacks!

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@262mom Thanks for the comment ! :slight_smile:

I met a well-known physics professor who said that he was never able to memorize the multiplication table and still has to work it out. So I have no worries about DS19 :smiley:

When DH gave boys bath (I suppose DSs were little,) DH would ask DS17 and then explain how to do 99 x 101 and 98 x 102, etc. DS17 was multiplying double digits in the head, so DH taught him algebraic factoring while giving baths :))
So it was a surprise DS19 could not do single digit multiplication later. No worries now :smiley: Differently wired brains :))

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Still confused about UC fine arts requirement

I am finally caught up on the thread and wanted to follow up on a couple of posts by @Ynotgo and @CT1417 from a few days ago (about UC course requirements).

As an out-of-stater, I have been struggling to figure out the UC (and Cal State) requirements for a few months now, and am still confused (particularly about the fine arts piece). DS has not taken any type of art or music in high school (he quit band and chorus after three years of each in middle school to make room to pursue other interests).

When reading about requirements on various UC websites this past spring, I came across something called “admission by exam.” As I understand it, this provides a formula you can use to calculate an index score of sorts based on SAT/ACT tests. The website provides cutoffs for in-state and out-of-state students (more stringent for out-of-state), such that if you score above the cutoff your application will be considered even if you don’t meet their minimum entry requirements. I won’t know for certain if DS meets the cutoff until his SATII scores come back in July, but am 99% sure he will (based on ACT scores). As I understand it, “admission by exam” doesn’t mean the student gets automatically admitted, just that their application will be considered. (And I recognize that a school like Berkeley is still a long shot).

I even called someone a few months ago (can’t recall now if it was someone at Santa Cruz, or a more general UC admissions person) to inquire about this “admission by exam” policy, and she confirmed my understanding. But she also said that it would be “easier” to just take a community college class to meet the fine art requirement. At the time, I assumed she meant it would be hard to score high enough to qualify this way, but I figured that for a kid who already has the scores, it would be “easier” to use the scores than to take a whole extra class. In light of @ynotgo’s comment (not worth applying to UC schools without a fine art credit), I am second guessing the plan to rely on test scores in lieu of a fine arts class. (Maybe the admissions person really meant he’d have an “easier” time getting accepted if he had taken a fine arts class?)

Meanwhile, DS and DH are coincidentally on a tour of California colleges this week. They visited UCSC and UCB (both of which DS really liked). They specifically asked about the fine art requirement and the “admission by exam” exception during both visits. The admissions people they spoke to did not seem to know anything about “admission by exam” but also encouraged DS to apply without the fine art, explaining that they understand that OOS students may have slightly different high school preparation than students from CA (DH reported that the sense of encouragement was stronger at UCB, whereas UCSC seemed more confused by the whole question, but both said there is a place on the application to explain situations like this; I’m guessing UCB gets more OOS applications than UCSC). Also, given @ynotgo’s comment that California schools don’t actually require fine arts for graduation, the UCB person’s attitude toward OOS applicants seems a bit surprising (though I assume college-bound California students are likely to be advised of the UC college entry requirements at least, and they probably realize that OOS students won’t all have this information).

I am confused as to why UC lists this “admission by exam” policy on their website if the ad comms at their various campuses don’t know anything about it. Also, I wonder why UCB and UCSC would say it’s OK to apply without fine arts if that’s really not the case. I’ve heard that the UC system is “opaque” in their admissions policies, but I’m still surprised at how much contradictory information I’ve been getting. I’m seriously confused, and can’t tell if it’s worth the application fee for DS to apply to these schools.

Any information from people in the know about UC requirements would be greatly appreciated!

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I took my DS to Duke couple of years back for a science competition in August and he felt it was too humid and told me he doesn’t want to apply!

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@262mom Hmm, I was unaware of this admission by exam application method. I searched and there are threads here on CC that talk about it, including one from 2014 where a parent says their kid with a UC score of 480 got accepted to Berkeley with one semester of music.

It looks like there are kids trying to do admission by exam to get around a low GPA, and maybe it doesn’t work for that but could work for the VPA requirement?

I’m sure you found the following pages, but I will put them here for other’s info:

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/examination/
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/minimum-requirements/examination/

My guess is that to be successful, a student would need a UC score significantly higher than the minimum, which is just to be considered. But, clearly I don’t know.

I got useful information about a different UC question by emailing ucinfo@applyucsupport.net. I’d try that.

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@262mom I am not familiar with CA universities in general, but homeschoolers in CA do talk about meeting A-G requirements by exam. I wonder if they might be the target audience for that info??

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For individual A-G requirements, there are ways to test out at http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/minimum-requirements/subject-requirement/index.html

Unfortunately for VPA only a passing score on an AP or IB exam or a 3 unit college course works.

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googling Where do I start…about 5 years ago some nut job found a bunch of pictures that I had online from years before (I would send albums to my family members who lived in NY, IL, TX, WA, etc. from when the kids were little - there were not many other ways to send pics back then). To make a very long story short, he was a conspiracy enthusiast and he fabricated stories about my family saying we were crisis actors, and we created these fake events that you see on the news. So, all of the terrible things that happen he claims are not real. They are just actors. Sandy hook never happened, Boston bombing never happened, even the latest Orlando shooting never happened according to him and his followers. They says it’s all my family who created this etc. etc. so, when you google my name, ugh forget about it. I’m all over the Internet. My D16 was in a lot of his conspiracy stuff but luckily for D17 she doesn’t have anything when you google her. At least it’s not sex pics!!!

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@ynotgo I had seen these “testing out” thresholds, and (pending AP and SAT II scores we will get in July) I believe DS would easily test out of everything except foreign language (hasn’t taken any standardized tests in that area), but he has all those classes (including 4 years of foreign language) on his transcript anyway. He could probably self study for art history AP and get at least a 3, but can’t do that until next May, so not sure that will work. If it comes down to it, he can take a DE college art history class (or similar) in the spring, but it would sure be easier to rely on the exams (if he aced the SAT II’s, he’ll be in the ballpark of the 2014 student who got into Berkeley, and if he didn’t he should still be comfortably above the cutoff…we’ll know in July). It’s just disconcerting that the admissions people at UCSC and UCB didn’t seem to know what DH was talking about when he brought this up (maybe if I had been there myself … LOL). Thanks for the suggestion to email them at ucinfo@applyucsupport.net. If DS ends up applying to the UC system, we’ll definitely be contacting them to get clarification about this!

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In case anyone is interested, I also emailed someone at U of Minnesota about their fine arts requirement

My question:
“I am a parent of an out-of-state prospective applicant for the entering class of fall 2017, and I have a question about the high school courses required for admission to U of Minnesota. My son meets or exceeds all of the listed requirements except visual/performing arts (he was in band and chorus for 3 years in middle school, but gave up these pursuits in favor of other interests when he got to high school). I am curious to know if the lack of an art class would be a deal breaker for his admissions prospects at the U of Minnesota. Thanks in advance for any information you may be able to provide.”

This is the response I got:

"Thank you for reaching out to me regarding our course requirements at the University of Minnesota. I understand that the visual/performing art can be a concern for students interested in the University of Minnesota. We conduct an overall holistic review, which means that not one fact or figure will determine a students admissions. However; we have a set of primary review factors that are considered during the review process. The primary review factors include coursework in high school, GPA, ACT or SAT score, and class rank (if available).

The coursework we see from our strongest applicants include, 4 years of Math, 4 years of English, 3 years of science (including Biology, Chemistry, & Physics if the student is interested in CSE, CBS, or CSOM), 3 year of social studies, 2 years of a single second language, and 1 year of a visual/performing art. Like I said before, it is an overall holistic review which means not one fact or figure determines a students admissions, and that it would be unlikely to deny a student due to a lack of a visual or performing art."

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@greeny8 that sounds awful! I’m so sorry that you and your family experienced this cyber-harassment (but glad that at least your D17 is not affected).