@Mom2aphysicsgeek I know 4 Pres Scholar winners for GT this year and they typically aren’t necessarily the top tiny percentile of applicants but rather they bring special qualities to the table–especially leadership. They have specific ratios for instate and out of state plus male vs female so some people really don’t have even that 1% chance. None of the 4 I know got into MIT or Caltech which I found interesting because MIT says they are holistic but they didn’t even accept kids who really stood out of a very holistic scholarship process. Each of the 4 also got into an Ivy or close equivalent. Only 1 of the 4 accepted the Pres Scholarship. They must offer way more than 50 to get the 50.
@HiToWaMom My S16 just graduated and both his recommenders gave him his letters at graduation. One used a lot of info from his resume as examples of traits she saw in class. For example she talked about how he was a leader in class with an example and then a specific anecdote of leadership in the school that went beyond what was on his resume the colleges saw. The other recommendation did not use the resume but it was a teacher that had a lot of specific classroom information and had a outside of class good citizen type type addition.
Our school offers all but a few AP classes which is great to have nice choices but they also have a huge push for every student to take at least 1 AP class in something they are interested in. They want AP classes to be for every type of student which I think is great. My D16 has a totally ridiculous senior year schedule. I didn’t sign the form intentionally but her counselor let her do it which makes me very unhappy with him. She is taking 5 AP classes and dual enrollment Math and Physics classes at a nearby college. She finished BC Calc as a junior so wanted to keep moving along in her math progression but is also taking AP Stats because she thinks it will be interesting? What’s wrong with this kid??? None of the 5 are known for being that hard at our school and we have strong passing rates so hopefully she will be OK. Only 1 class has a lot of projects and the rest aren’t even known for having much homework. I hope she gets some EA acceptances so she can relax about grades second semester at least.
@DCPlanner I absolutely agree that students winning those types of awards are outstanding beyond stats. No question about it. I do think they are top percentile students, too, though b/c they had to be accepted in the first place! My post was meant to reflect that even top students were receiving rejections. Those being awarded the Presidential are truly exceptional in all ways. Even if they offer 75, that is still a very small percentage.
@snoozn I’ll stroll with you and take a nap later with @MotherOfDragons You ever see the magnets on cars of 26.2, yeah that’s not me. I’m the 0.0. But I do like hiking, walking, and doing fun things. Watching American ninja warrior now makes me want to do obstacle courses. Looks like so much fun!
Edit: yay for jobs @HiToWaMom and @eandesmom
We went and visited Ole Miss today here is my take away:
- The Automatic Academic Scholarships with a 3.0 and a certain ACT/SAT are based on your unweighted core GPA. (They don't state that on the website that I can find)
- However the competitive Scholarships are based on your Weighted GPA.( again this is not listed on the website that I can find)
- They do not know what they are going to do with the NEW SAT scores. Which ever group that is over all Mississippi Colleges still has to meet and will decide for ALL the colleges in Mississippi.
I really liked the Ole Miss campus. I thought it was very pretty and DS thought it was prettier than UA. There are more trees and the academic buildings didn’t seem as far apart. Both the information session guy and the Tour guy really seemed to want to talk about Ole Miss. They gave us lots of information. I have been on a number of tours with DS13 plus DS17 and this one didn’t seem like they were reading a script, plus there wasn’t any power point presentation that someone just reads off. I know maybe I’ve had bad luck with some other tours but it just seemed more personal.
The dorms. Well what can I say they are dorms. The part I found really interesting was that in the contemporary dorms they have a person on staff 24 hours a day. You have to check in guests and they must leave by a certain time. You can not have your SO stay over…
It is remote. For the most part I didn’t mind it but since I was depending on Waze it was kind of a pain because for large chunks of Mississippi it couldn’t get my GPS location. However maybe it’s just a Verizon problem . Downtown Oxford was really cute we ate at a nice “local” restaurant. DS liked the old buildings.
I don’t know if it is the right University for DS but I think that it seems like it has it’s act together and it’s not too big.
He said he could see himself there but he doesn’t really know whether he likes it better than UA. Part of that maybe that we drove there and it’s around 6 hours to Ole Miss and it’s about 1/2 that to UA.
Senior Year Rigor My DS is taking a combination of Dual Credit, AP, and one regular class. He has decided to take a regular Astronomy class because it sounded more interesting than any of his other science choices. He doesn’t want to be an engineer and he is still taking AP Calc so I’m happy that he will have a break somewhere in his schedule. When I asked the GC if this would hurt his “most rigorous” class designation she couldn’t answer the question. His GC is less than helpful. The few times I have asked for help she says she is too busy with the kids that are failing. In a class as large as DS’s there are lots of motivated kids but there are also lots of unmotivated kids.
DS is working on his resume this week. We’ve found a couple of samples on the web but does anyone have any sites to recommend with more samples?
Celebrating here…I have finished all of her course descriptions except for 4 Latin courses, PE, and linguistics!! You have no idea how happy that makes me. I should be finished in about 3-4 more hours. (I need to fix some formatting issues. That is probably going to take me more time than actually writing the remaining course descriptions For some reason I am having a lot of problems with my cell sizes changing font size and centering after working on other parts of the document.) I’m calling it a day and will finish in the morning!! (This is like tomorrow is the last day of school exciting for me. I really dislike writing course descriptions.)
@greeny8, Ha, I live in the “fittest city in America” (depending on which list you go by) and yes I see that “26.2” all the time! I live here to drag down the stats. I sometimes watch American Ninja Warrior with H. We’ll be going on vacation to a place that has a giant zip-line and obstacle course. It sounds fun, but I hope it’s not ANW level!
Celebrating here too! Grades are in, changing by the hour today and my B+ gpa kid…had an A- junior year across the board and did not end up dipping down 2nd semester after all. Very very proud of him. He might actually get it to an A- gpa by graduation if he keeps it up!
I can only hope schools see the trend. It’s not the rigor, gpa or test scores of many here but I truly could not be more proud at the moment. Half day tomorrow and then officially a rising senior, late to the party with the rest of you!
@picklesarenice I’d love to hear about your daughter’s experience at Smith! We are very excited to visit there! My daughter is doing a 10 day program at Barnard this summer–the Young Women’s Leadership Institute. She is sooo excited for the program–her class has a very women’s studies/social justice/political science focus and it’s right up her alley. She’s also thrilled to get to try out the all-women environment (I think she’ll love it–I went to an all-women’s college as well). Stay in touch!
@MichiganGeorgia Thanks for the report!
Senior rigor- My DD is taking a heavy senior course load. We just switched from 5 to 4 AP’s, I thought 5 was just too much. All of her classes are the normal progression and she didn’t want to take an easy senior year like so many kids do.
I am a runner like so many and my fun marathon trips are not on the agenda anytime in the near future:( This college stuff is just too darn expensive. We will have kids in school for the next 9 years and are full pay, so we totally will be making different choices. My step-son is also getting married. Guess who is paying for the wedding? Yes, we are along with his mother. Not looking forward to that, but we want the best for him.
@eandesmom, I know you’ve had a hard row to hoe recently, so a truly huge congratulations to your S! :)>-
Does anyone else on the thread have a student still in school? Hmmm, do I look like I’m in a hurry to break out the Champagne??
Congrats to @eandesmom son17 for fine grades. Way to finish!
Summer is in full gear right now, kids still sound asleep at 8:45 am. Much better than waking up at 5:50 am all school year long. No plans for the day. Day of r &r for them.
My DS is still getting up @ his usual school day time (6:15 AM) to go to the research lab. He has 1hr 20 min commute each way. From next week he will shadow a doctor twice a week in the evening. So his day will start @ 6:15 AM and ends @ 10 PM! He is enjoying the research though and gets some nap during the bus ride back from lab.
Long day @srk2017 My kids, even the 23 yo, are still afraid of falling asleep on the bus like Arthur did on the pbs kids show :))
Great news @eandesmom 
@snoozn break out the bubbly in about 4.5 hours, i think @HiToWaMom and I are are the last ones standing and we are done at 10:40 PST. LOL!. Unfortunately at the moment I’m busy finishing up French Onion Soup for S19’s French 3 class fête and really really hoping he gets 2 missing assignments straightened out of his own before grades are final at 4pm.
I am SO ready for this school year to be over. I don’t expect kids to be sleeping in though, S17 heads to camp for a week on sunday and then starts work on his return with likely 8am starts although he doesn’t have his schedule yet. S19 will be a camp counselor next week so up at a relatively normal hour as well.
Still, like @RightCoaster 7am wake ups and 8am starts is a vast improvement over the 5:30 am daily jazz wakeup calls
@MotherOfDragons & @Ynotgo what you both said about AP comp sci is consistent with my (& S’s) experience (though his teacher was very good & knowledgeable, which is why I think he liked the class…his knowledge of the field was limited before taking the class). He is taking a DE data structures class in the fall…not so much to get college credit in the future, but to learn the material and (I hope) confirm or disconfirm his interest in the subject!
So the unwanted solicitations from colleges have changed from “Request our free guide” to “This is why you should visit us.”
QOTD: What is the most pathetic/desperate/funny reason a collage has given to visit ?
Case Western - spend the morning with us and the afternoon exploring Cleveland. Nothing against Cleveland, but when we are also getting requests from USC, UMiami, UChicago, I don’t think downtown Cleveland would be the deciding factor.
Oglethorpe - Visit Hot ‘lanta. (See above). Also, since they are encouraging a summer visit maybe they should avoid any mention of the word "hot.’ Another reason; “See where we buried a circus elephant in 1941”,…uh, no thanks.
Carleton - more funny than pathetic, “Only seven miles from the big steer!” Funny, but it did not help their cause.
D18 is on her last day as a teaching assistant for art camp-she’s had so many good stories to tell at the end of each day! Mostly she’s somewhat appalled at how badly behaved some of the kids are, but she loves teaching them how to draw anime stuff (she’s so good at it), and she’s getting a kick out of the entire experience. I asked her if she wanted to do it again next year and she said probably not, since she finds it incredibly tiring to herd all those kids (21). She’s off to her summer camp in a few weeks.
D17 is at camp doing 4.5 hours of software engineering a day. So far she loves it and is having a great time-I’m getting a lot of “this is so cool” and “send more ramen the food here stinks” texts. She’s doing ceramics as her “minor” and I can’t wait to see the pictures of what she makes. She referred to herself as an engineer for the first time ever last week, so I hope that means she’s enjoying it and can see herself doing software engineering in college. She’s been anxious about the brogrammer culture that she sometimes butts heads with in her high school, so I’m hoping this experience will be positive for her.