Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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@fun1234 Six credits should be fine.

@NCComputerNerd Thanks. I just wish we could get a definitive diagnosis so she could begin treatment instead of just addressing the symptoms! Her doctor is 95% + certain he knows what it is, but he can’t reach the area to get a biopsy. Anyway, we’ve started looking at nearby medical care as one of the prereqs for a school. She’s away at an out-of-state camp this week and texted me this morning that she’s vomiting… I’d take it from her in a second if I could! How is your son or daughter doing now?

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Just learned one of my son’s teammates dad died yesterday. He was diagnosed with an illness less than 6 weeks ago. Nice guy, huge bummer. 2 kids , one in college and one 17er. Feel pretty bad for the family.I’m sure they are going to have to figure a lot of stuff out in the next few months, and senior year is challenging enough already.
He was a young guy too, way too early.

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I just know the class at least AP stats on line had a good portion of the grade was homework and quizzes that you could do until you had a hundred. The tests you could make up 1/3 the points it was so easy and sometimes he did it all on the weekend. we also know someone who took it and she said it was just as easy as stats I am just think he will only have 3 social studies Hum they like 4 require 2 it just seems like he could do it maybe with not a great amount of sleep. I just don’t want him to get looked over because he didn’t take classes on line or at a community college. I know it can be competitive he needs the class for pre dentistry

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@RightCoaster That’s so sad, and a tough road at this point. Condolences to the family and your son and his teammates.

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@flatKansas Everything they ask makes me cringe.

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@nerdmom88 I missed the part about dealing with autoimmune. So sorry your Dd is struggling with that. Our Dd was increasingly fatigued and not feeling well throughout 10th grade and in May of that yr was so sick she couldn’t even sit up by herself for almost a month. After a gazillion dr ap pts and E ought blood tests to fill gallons, she was finally diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. They put her on prednisone which gave her severe brain fog. It took months for her to start to get her strength back. I would say it wasnt until Feb or March that she felt somewhat normal. Unfortunately, they started weaning her off her meds and some of her symptoms are starting to return, so we are going back to the dr. Unfortunately, her pediatric rheumatologist is the better dr, but he won’t see her after she turns 18, so I really need to start looking for another dr for the long run.

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@RightCoaster - :frowning:

**Home Alone ** - I am very lucky that both of my kids are very responsible. They stayed home alone for the first time last summer, for a week, at 16 and 13 years old. They did great… I even came home to a clean house and a “welcome home” dinner. I think they like staying home alone, and they figured that a clean house and dinner would make it more likely in the future. This summer, they’ve been home alone for 4 days at a time, and I have a 7 day trip coming up. I’m not sure that my son will want to stay home alone, once his sister is away at college. It’s a lot scarier without a sib.

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek did your pediatric immunologist have a recommendation for a doc to see when she gets older? At least in my kids pediatric office, they have a laundry list of docs they like once the kids get old enough.

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek I’m so sorry to hear that! I do know what you mean about finding a new doctor. She really likes both her pediatric rheumatologist and pediatric GI, and she’ll have to stop seeing them just as she heads off to college. That means finding two sets of doctors; one wherever she ends up, and one locally. Bleh.

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Once again, cannot keep up with this thread.

Not in order of importance…

@RightCoaster – oh, that is terrible about the father. Wow. Sobering moment for all of us.

Yale book: have not seen it in this household, which is kind of funny as son has visited Yale, has participated in two rounds of a national linguistics competition, and has recently started on some CS research with a prof. Guess he is not on their radar!

@fun1234—I am having trouble following your posts without commas! I would not advise foregoing sleep, but that is just my own opinion.

Leaving children home alone: S17 also in the fraidy camp group. He is 100% reliable, but does not want to sleep in house alone. Have left S14 & S17, and both survived.

@NCComputerNerd and @NerdMom88 – so sorry to hear about the illnesses and lack of diagnosis. Son has also struggled with something for almost a year and a half, but think we are closer to managing the condition.

I do not understand the ACT essay scoring but will happily remain ignorant.

Transcripts: two semester grades per year, + and - and both are calculated in the GPA, but no A+. GPA is listed as weighted, but only cumulative, so for my older son who had that upward trend, I think he listed his GPA per year on his resume.

NMSF Commended: not only does our school not notify anyone in the spring, when I mentioned to the head of guidance that the cutoff was 209 this year (based on CC reading), he was surprised, saying that they usually receive a letter but had not this year. (Hoping my comment prompted him to go look for that letter!) We have 15-30 commended each year and four to five NMF. Everyone is left to his own devices!

Staying with pediatrician past the teen year. There was an article in the NYT about 26 year olds still seeing their pediatricians. I have considered the same as I scheduled my rising college Jr to see his pediatrician again.

Saw this last night. I don’t think anyone is considering Haverford, but if so, no longer fully need blind. They are not alone in this position, and I have wondered for years how some of these small LACs can continue to operate.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/27/haverford-college-shifts-need-blind-need-aware-admissions?utm_content=buffercbd76&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer

Sorry for whatever I missed. And congrats to those happy with ACT scores.

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@MotherOfDragons We are driving over 50 miles to see the pediatric rheumatologist. We had seen the local Dr (no local pediatric specialist) when she was first incredibly ill. His course of action was to put her on heavy duty drugs…ones that there was no way I was entering into without seeing a pediatric specialist first. The ped said no to those drugs. But, he eventually weaned her off everything which based on her symptoms was not a good idea, either.

His recommendation is the dr we were originally seeing. (These Drs stick tight and won’t say anything negative or not recommend each other. Too few in our geographic area I guess.)

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t want her on the heavy meds, but she apparently needs to be on some sort of maintenance medication to keep the symptoms at bay.

@CT1417 This dr has already told us he won’t see her after she turn 18. Her pediatric cardiologist (yes, this poor kid has lots of issues) otoh, has told her to always insist on the pediatric cardio bc her issues are congentital heart issues vs heart disease and that most adult cardiologists are too focused on disease. (Said this is especially true if she should ever become pregnant.)

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We also are driving around 50 miles to see her pediatric specialists. I’m just glad she has the opportunity to see them.

In response to the poster asking for general info, my D2 is looking at aerospace or mechanical engineering. She is considering, and would get full tuition or better at, UMD, UAH, UMBC, and Bama. Other schools which have an aerospace major were selected based on potential for competitive scholarships worth least full tuition merit. They are: UVA, Ohio State, South Carolina, North Carolina State, IIT, Georgia Tech, and Case Western. We’ll be looking at these schools more closely and narrowing the list before she applies.

She’s also looking at Princeton and MIT, but doesn’t know if she’ll apply.

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@nerdmom88 Wow I hope they get something figured out I know it is awful thing to go through especially the unknown. As for my Daughter the illness finally went away however they believe the lungs were damaged and so we now what to see if here lungs can heal themselves naturally. If not then she can still function each day but she cannot really exercise since when she does she has difficulty breathing. Once it starts she cannot recover for 12-24 hours and no drugs provide any relief. We are just thankful it was not something worse like they thought we she first got sick. She can at least learn to deal with this if it permanent.

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The only thing I can think of saying to the specialist when he recommends you back to the original doctor is “we don’t like him, can you give me a few more referrals?”

Sometimes the nursing staff has the real skinny on who the good docs are, as well, and they’ll tell you if you ask them. I get all my good recommendations from my nurse friends :).

I just sent 8 act scores off to the respective colleges. Northeastern does want act with writing, so here’s hoping that the essay score isn’t too big of an issue. I really don’t think D17 will want to take it again, so there’s no sense in waiting, and it’s nice to have that box checked off when she goes and visits next month. I don’t entirely think the school will care, since it’s so huge (I’m still trying to figure out demonstrated interest), but we’re trying to be meticulous about checking all the boxes.

Ok, I have a big online CS midterm in two hours and I’m procrastinating about reviewing. One more cup of tea and no more playing on CC…

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I saw this being posted on anther thread.
The ACT is changing its essay scoring methodology (again!): http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/Writing-Test-Score-Change-news-release-June-2016.pdf

I think changing back the scoring to 1-12 will help reduce the confusion. However, I feel so bad for all of our '17 students as they have endured so many changes this year.

It looks like my D’s earlier ACT writing will remain in 36 scoring system.

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Home alone - I would leave S home alone with no worries. He probably wouldn’t even notice we were gone until he ran out of frozen pizzas.

Transcripts - the one we can access online shows class rank (which is both new and about to be removed, haha), semeseter grades, +/- grades, and includes at least part of middle school.

National Merit - our school didn’t say anything about commended. I am so thankful I found CC for soooo many reasons. While I kvetch endlessly about the wait until Sept, I think it would have been a much worse situation to have our first clue of NMF potential come from the school in Sept (or even later, I’ve heard horror stories).

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@saillakeerie Is the 209 Commended for all states? Is this just a guess? If so DS would make commended. I’m guessing our school doesn’t announce till fall. High School has a huge number of NM Semi-Finalists, so it doesn’t really make a bit deal of Commended though.

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209 is official commended for all states.

Ok NOW I’m going to go study…

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My kids have not yet been alone overnight in their own home. For me, it was nothing to do with responsibility, but I am too much of a worrier about emergencies, I guess. My boss was the one who told me about kids not waking up to the sound of a smoke alarm and that voice prompt systems might be better. Kids can sleep very soundly (I do not, so it’s hard to relate), but it may be something to consider adding into your homes.

So sorry to hear about the untimely passing, @RightCoaster. Also, sorry to hear about kids dealing with autoimmune disorders and other chronic conditions. That adds another layer of consideration/concern to what is a busy time for our seniors.

With commended, our school has said nothing, but I know my D will be, at 211. This score is too low in CA so we looked at it as a happy reason not to need to take the SAT. I’m not sure when/if we’ll hear from the school, so I’m also thankful for all the info here!

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We went through some super-duper scary medical stuff with D over the past year. Thankfully, all genetic tests just came back negative so we can breathe a sigh of relief over the worst-case scenario. Her ped GI specialist at the children’s hospital will see her until age 21.

No fun! Hugs to everyone with chronically- and acutely-ill children.

ACT writing I am so annoyed with the scoring! Both of D’s writing scores were very low, especially compared to her other scores. What the heck? We’re philosophical: if a school decides not to admit her based on that one silly score, then it’s inflexible and not the school for her.

:smiley: