@picklesarenice congrats on the ACT score. <:-P
Hugs to everyone missing their kids who are away.
@4beardolls Wow, that is a lot of time for a photo shoot! Its great that you will always have them for memories.
Quiet weekend here on CC - thanks, I actually was able to get into my book!
Happy Summer to all our rising seniors!
:bz :ar! 8-} ~:> B-)
^^So fancy!
Son17 had senior picture day last week. Early morning photo session, he wasn’t too happy. But now that it’s done he’s happy that it is out of the way.
Good info on Northeastern, thanks!
@PengsPhils – thanks again so much for that info about the course with Racket - it sounds pretty cool to me really! And having all students get a common intro course that is tailored to NEU. You are clearly such a great proponent – hope you give prospective students tours - you’d be a great ambassador!
@snoozn – love those emojies! At my house the guys are sleeping in & I am trying to get them moving by 10 or 11. I-) :!!
Boo on @PengsPhils for sharing how great NEU is! I shared that link with S and he spent an hour poking around the site. I am 90% sure NEU is beyond us but it is good to see something pique S’s interest. Keeping it on the list for now though (this was actually the 2nd time we’ve heard NEU from CC so taking it as a sign).
@flatKansas If hearing about a school on CC was a sign, we would be in debtor’s prison! ;))
My son can take two sciences with labs and they fill up all the spaces in his schedule. He also could take one less science and take AP Psychology. The two sciences are AP chemistry and anatomy and physiology with is a level 4 so he is taking 4 AP classes and one level 4 class and two labs. The college says it recommends 4 social studies requires two, but he is really interested in sciences. So he will end up with 5 math classes and 5 sciences classes. Will the college be alright with more science and less social studies. He still could take the AP class on line, but feels like it would be too tough since he always studies Academic Decathlon. Plus he really doesn’t have a study hall each day so the tests would be hard to fit in. Some of his study halls are the same day. What have been peoples experience who have had other kids do this?
What are his other social sciences? Many schools want at minimum an American history and a world focused course, and gov’t. Econ, psy, geography, etc all count as social science. I personally think only 2 credits might be problematic.
I would do a social science, even if it’s not AP. A&P will have to be taken in college again anyway if he needs it for his major. AP Econ might be a good choice or psychology.
My D took 4 AP soc science, 5 math classes (if 8th grade Alg 1 counts), 6 science classes (no AP offered, but honors), 4 English (1AP, 1 DE), 4 years of same foreign language.
She is prepharmacy and able to use AP credit for English, Calc, history and econ, which enables her to take fewer prerequisite credits per semester, start a new foreign language, learn ASL, and other courses which interest her.
Something we ran into with social science credits was my older DD’s district only required 3 credits to graduate. She was planning on 3.5. We realized (just in time) that her college of choice required 4. Make sure you check the requirements of all colleges your student is considering.
I think the best plan to cover all bases is 4+4+4+4+at least 3. (English, math, science, social science, with at least 3 foreign language.)
Would colleges consider AP Art History art or history…or both?
Well, I’m baaaaaaack ya’ll. We were glad D and I ended up in KY and not WV after seeing all the coverage of the flooding there. We had a great time in Appalachia, but no time for an App State tour (sorry @dfbdfb). We came back with all our fingers and toes, so very happy.
Skimmed all the posts about Senior Rigor. Lots of rigor going on in this group. I won’t bore you with D’s schedule. It seems to fall somewhere in the middle of what I saw. Senior year will definitely be easier than junior year, but that may just be the perception because of the lack of standardized tests. Looking forward to her closing out HS fairly stress-free.
Back on the bus. D seems to have moved back to the middle seat again, way behind fake-kid who is towards the front. (you newer peeps, my fake-kid has FB and Twitter accounts which are used to follow schools on ‘our’ list.)
I saw lots of good info from @Mom2aphysicsgeek and others regarding taxes on scholarships. When you see some info you want to remember, are you bookmarking it? I copy and past a link to the post (from the #nnnnn in the corner of the post) and paste it into a spreadsheet, and give it a description so I can find it later. It’s good info, but I won’t need it for a long time, except in budget prep work.
For those of you waiting on NM announcements, how confident are you in the posted ranges by those test prep companies (names escaping me)? I would have my kids planning on NMF based on those, but I haven’t been paying close attention lately. I’m sure it does get tough if you’re a single point below the projected cutoff. We’re 2 below, so not counting on it, and moving forward. I’d hate to look back and have not taken advantage of the summer lull (well, ours is a ‘lull’, anyway. LOL) to get apps moving forward.
Wow. Senior portraits are a big deal. Just looking at signing up D (should have taken CC’s lead weeks ago), and I see most of the sittings are already taken through August. We are gonna pony-up the big bucks for a 15-minute sitting, rather than the 3-5 minute freebie.
Bolding Congrats to those who have mastered it (and more, @snoozn).
@2muchquan Welcome back! Glad all fingers and toes are intact. 
I am going by Compass Prep. http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/ We are proceeding as if she will make NMSF bc she is above his range predictions. If she were in the range, I would be far more trepidatious. As it is, we are definitely incorporating a couple not based on NM just in case everything is far more compressed than predicted. (If every state merges toward 220+, she won’t make the cut.)
Would colleges consider AP Art History art or history…or both?
that would make an excellent college app eassay :-*
Regarding Northeastern: it seems to have gotten a lot more difficult to get in the last few years. I talked with a few folks whose kids were rejected there this past spring and they were pretty good students. Maybe they applied to some competitive majors? I know they want very good ACT/SAT scores now at a minimum 31-33 on ACT.
For what it’s worth my son looked at Northeastern and BU recently and liked BU better. He liked the vibe and location of BU much more. He liked the diversity of BU, but I’m sure Northeastern is diverse too. He also liked the living arrangements at BU. I think the co-ops at Northeastern are very valuable though. He countered that BU has great internship programs and it’s so easy to get to many of them. Both very good schools though. Can’t go wrong.
I don’t know if he’d get into either of them anyways. Both presentations stressed how competitive it was there last year, and he is right on the bubble of test scores/GPA. Both very expensive as well, and with the kids being in the city there will be extra entertainment costs I predict, going out for food, shows, etc.
@2muchquan we are going by Compass Prep as well. Art’s estimates are the highest I’ve seen, so seem the safest to gamble on. (S still makes the cut with Art’s highest values.) Still not putting all our eggs in that basket as anecdotally the scores are really weird at our HS for 2017 kids.
D is in the range of Compass Prep. As much as I would like to believe the other lower predictions, we’re going with theirs.
@2muchquan I haven’t chimed in much, but I have been reading the NM 2017 Cutoff thread with great interest. I think Compass Prep’s estimates represent the best analysis of the available information. We are in a historically lower scoring state, so D17’s 220 SI should place her comfortably in the NMSF range. Also, D19 and I are headed to Kentucky on Thursday for gymnastics camp, and will do an info session and campus tour on Friday at UK. I have also scheduled a meeting with someone from the business college to get additional info for D17. Will post a trip report for those interested.