ACT Writing - Low score with a respectable percentile, but both %-tile and score are lower than everything else.
So, I think we will follow @dfbdfb 's lead and gamble $50.
At least ACT gives you a %-tile, CB gives you nothing to help interpret the new SAT essay scores.
@itsgettingreal Good luck getting back to full-time corporate life. I have not let corporate life interfere with my CC time too much 
I hope you continue to visit often…I appreciate your contributions.
@CA1543 I wouldn’t bother with the SAT. Schools don’t have enough knowledge/history with it to improve anyone’s chance at admittance over the ACT. I wouldn’t take it in a million years, unless necessary for NMF. Just one opinion.
@BigPapiofthree You seem to know more of the Tinder-details than I do. The only swiping that I’m familiar with is that of Swiper from Dora The Explorer.
@Ghibelline2017 I totally agree about your comment re: senior year and APs. Someone made the comment that senior year course selection (or rigor) is a good indicator of the success of a student in college. This makes a lot of sense. I wonder if this means the rigor shouldn’t ‘go down’ from junior year, or should increase? I think D17’s schedule is about the same as last year, perhaps a little easier. All classes are at the HS, so she’s going to be very involved with school activities and friends, and hopefully have a fun senior year. That’s my hope. Junior year was brutal.
Re: Health issues, I think my D has given me HBP and premature baldness. She, fortunately, seems fine.
Wow… It’s going to take a while for me to get a real for the regulars here. And without going back and reading a lot of posts, I’m a bit lost. Lots of names & stories. Good luck to those who’s kid have heath issues, best wishes and I hope situations improve.
S17 is off being a CIT at camp and won’t be back till August. Then will have 3 weeks to take online health, a pile of AP Physics homework and two week of band camp. I’m very worried when he is going to fit in those college essays. He’s involved in marching band & it takes up a huge time in the fall. Plus any essay where he has to talk about himself is like pulling teeth. I’m not kidding… it’s a major block. UC essay has changed and it’s now choose a set of shorter answers questions to talk about yourself, OSU is the similar. At least two on his list want a more traditional essay. And luckily the Cal State schools don’t need an essay
I wanted to hire someone to help with the pre-writing & goal process and did get names. But he asked me not to call anyone. It’s really not going to work for me to nagging him. Curious how many of you are hiring a ‘writing’ tutor? Are your teens on board with this idea? With D12 we hired an outside college councelor who did that job, but I really felt except for the essay writing part it was money wasted.
@Atyraulove Crohn’s is the presumptive diagnosis for my DD as well; her GI just hasn’t been able to get a biopsy although symptoms and blood markers point to it. I suspected that day-to-day stress would be a factor in her ongoing health – thanks for confirming it!
@curiositycat333 Marching band is the reason I want DD to complete her essays in July. She’s got two weeks of band camp in August just before school starts, and it really is a time-sucking EC! By the end of the season, most of the early apps will be due. Intellectually, she understands that but, like your son, she hates talking/writing about herself. Also, although she’s a very good writer it is always done with blood, sweat, and tears.
I am not looking forward to the next few weeks…
Welcome to @curiositycat333, @NerdMom88, @lemetz, @BeeFriendly !! :-h
So sorry to hear about any kids being sick, and this is so many of them and with illnesses that can confound medical people. Not being able to wave a magic wand and make health problems go away for your kids can be the worst. I hope diagnoses are found and treatment plans that work arrived at ASAP. Hugs to everyone who needs them.
Sorry to hear about the teammate’s dad, @RightCoaster. Condolences to the family and your community.
Congrats on the new job, @itsgettingreal17 !
Hope your son’s team gets to Philly, @CA1543 ! Darn weather. http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/12/30
Kids alone: We haven’t so far, though it would probably be fine. DS17 is pretty reliable, but DC21 is a little too independent.
ACT essay: At this point if I were an adcom, I’d just skip looking at all essay scores for this application year. They’ll get scores for old ACT essays from 10th grade, this year on the 36 ACT scale, and next fall on the 12 ACT scale, old SAT essays folded into the writing score, and new SAT essays. So, 5 total scales! And, I’m sure some of them have heard that rescores can make ~1-10 points difference, and they can’t tell if an essay was rescored. How’s an adcom supposed to weigh all that? I’d guess they won’t and will just look at the 4 ACT components that make up the composite and the CR+M for the old SAT. Maybe I’m just wishing though.
We got DS’ ACT essay rescored and it went from 24 to 25. Not a big change, but we got our $50 back.
Commended: Our school didn’t notify anyone. I suppose they will notify both NMSF and Commended in September.
Summary of the year: That does look like a good summary, @BeeFriendly. Don’t forget financial aid forms, which I think used to start in January and now will open in October. Also, some colleges do interviews and for some you have to initiate the process of scheduling them in fall. Also, sending transcripts and scores to each college.
Senior photos: We just got mail today from Lifetouch that they’ve scheduled DS for an appointment. Of course, all their regular dates are while he’s still at his summer program, and they don’t know the makeup dates yet. But, at least I have info about how it works from them. No prices disclosed yet, but it takes about 45 minutes.
Proctors: That does sound creepy @MotherOfDragons – we just had to pay $50 per test for DS to take his online tests at a tutoring/test prep facility. DS does hacking competitions and advises covering the webcam when not in use.
Yale book: No book here. Feeling left out.
Re: @BeeFriendly’s list, I forgot to mention, but I see no need to wait until next summer to start the meningitis vaccine. It’s a series of shots over six months, I think, so you want to be sure to get it completed before your DC goes to school.
@BeeFriendly great list. Thanks for sharing!
We haven’t gotten our Act writing score, yet but I am not going to worry about it. On the Dec. test my D17 got a 22, which in no way reflects her ability. Only one of the schools on her list requires the writing.
Our college counselors just sent out an unsolicited memo not to sweat the writing scores…the buzz from their contact with various Admissions personnel (a group to which a couple of them used to belong) is that they’re not going to be giving any “cred” to the number. Just to add to the mix of data points…DS 34©…writing 27…he’s done…
Ok, this should be fun. Another item for @BeeFriendly 's list:
There was another thread on this a week or so back I know many of you saw. In our case, this will mean having D17 try a beer and maybe a punch drink or wine to see how it makes her feel. The idea being we don’t want her first drink happening as a clueless teen at a college party. We are pretty certain she’s not drank alcohol yet. With the stories in the news lately out of Stanford and IU and elsewhere, I think a controlled situation will help her understand her limits better. Should be interesting.
So, QOTD: If your C has not yet been intro’d to booze, will you do so before they go to college?
Be nice.
For the sake of @curiositycat333 and any other newcomers, to save them the torture of reading through over 500 pages, maybe we can all give a brief intro. (I’d like that for some people I’m not quite sure about and I’ve been on this thread for weeks!)
My brief intro: I am the mom of a physics geek, but my posting name is rather out of place now, I created my CC acct when my S14 was a sr in high school. He is most definitely a physics and math geek, but he is also only 1 of 8 kids. I had not planned on sticking around CC. I only created the acct bc I had a couple of questions I had wanted to ask about for him. My D17 (whom I refer to as my Dd (darling daughter, a habit from a different forum), wants to major in Russian and French. The difficulty we are running into is that she is already near college graduation goal proficiencies. (Actually, she is at that point in French.)
We homeschool (since the early 90s, before homeschooling was word a lot of people recognized.)
We are also on the merit hunt. It isn’t a “it would be nice” scenario. It is a “merit or attend a local school” scenario. My dd’s list of schools is centered around automatic merit and large $$ scholarships which are super competitive but are necessary to attend those schools. Our kids know the reality…cost drives where they ultimately attend. This Dd is our 5th, so she has seen older siblings go through the process and have great careers that have not been restricted by school name.
OK, I’ll play: I am the dad (may shock some, except that the ‘bald’ comment a few posts back may have given it away) of D17 and D20. I started on CC last summer (!) just stumbling upon it during a Google search about studying for the ACT, which D17 took last October. Large public HS in the Midwest with over 800 per class. Very racially mixed. D17 and D20 were adopted from China by the farthest thing from tiger-parents ever. Well, close. We are also in the hunt for merit, and D17 is increasingly taking the high-ranking schools with competitive merit off her list. There are still a few. She currently wants to get into medical research of some kind, and is looking at Bio or Neuroscience as a UG major, with the intent of going to grad school. She seems to like mid-tier, small/med, urban schools. A lot will depend on research options. We will be visiting 2 larger schools over the summer, and a couple more in fall. My hope is that she goes to a school with football 
You may see me reference my D17 not wanting to ‘wear pants’ at college. This goes back to when I suggested the first school to her last fall: UMinn. She frowned at me and said: “I don’t want to have to wear pants!”. OK, duly noted: wants to go somewhere warm. I also talk about ‘Fake Kid’ (DFK). I created some fake profiles on FB and Twitter to follow D17s schools, which has actually been very helpful.
@2muchquan we have the same idea about drinking. We are very worried about sending a naive daughter to college.
QOTD: I often refer to myself as a “new age parent.” :)) So yes. Already started. D will try different types. D was initially: I don’t party (she currently doesn’t) and won’t drink in college. Now she says she would like to attend some parties because she likes to dance and is no longer self-conscious about dancing around others and intends to drink responsibly in social settings (like her mom). D is too smart to take drugs or smoke so not worried about those. I will also be putting D on birth control before she goes off to college. Yeah, new age.
My brief intro for newbies
I’m the mother of a 16 yo dd who is our youngest (son 23yo college grad in cs working for a Big Name in Silicon Valley, daughter 21yo rising college senior English/French double major w theatre minor). We live smack in the middle of Mid-Atlantic sprawl in a proper university “town” (it’s actually a small city).
D has been homeschooled since she was in fifth grade. Her areas of interest are Arabic and international relations. Arabic is driving the bus in this search with Merit Scholarships as a backseat driver! She’s been studying at the university level for a while, so she will need a school with lots and lots of classes. Fortunately or unfortunately, that limits her list to 15 schools (Arabic), then 10 schools after merit aid (including competitive scholarships), ending with really only 4 schools after factoring in IR programs.
Her goal is to reach the Superior level of fluency (on the ACTFL scale; 3+ on the ILR (IRL?) scale) by graduation. She would like to work for the government or an NGO.
D will be applying for year-long fully-funded study abroad programs through NSLI-Y and YES. She would take a gap year if accepted.
Drinking D is acutely aware of the need to keep her record clean for future security clearances. She watched and learned from her older brother and his friends as they went through various levels of clearances during their senior year and graduation summer. She is emphatic about not drinking socially until 21 and will leave parties at which there is underage drinking. We have offered her wine at our home on holidays (she’s tried a sip of different types). She does not like the smell of anything else.
Introduction: I’m a single mom of 1, D17 (graduation year not age…she’s a fall birthday and will turn 18 in college). D attends a large non-diverse suburban public school and is interested in business and foreign languages. She wants to attain fluency in Arabic (which she hasn’t studied yet) and Spanish (which she has been studying since middle school). She is currently thinking that she will somehow combine accounting, finance, international business, Arabic, and Spanish. Her plan sounds crazy but she has enough AP credits for it to be possible with a lot of planning. She is most interested in the Arabic flagships. D will be applying to 15 schools that offer either large automatic scholarships or large competitive scholarships for which she has the profile to be competitive, offers a decent Arabic program, a good business school, decent sized Af-Am population, good honors program, and has strong school sports and school spirit (especially football and basketball). D does not want to stay in our home state - Texas. We are full pay but we are merit chasing as I’m not willing to pay $65k a year, and D will definitely attend a school where she gets a significant merit scholarship. D is very easy and will happily attend any of the very good but not elite schools that are on her list, so money will be a big factor in her final decision. We have our fingers crossed for NMF.
** QOTD: ** Booze - we have offered tastes of whatever we drink at home to both daughters. Neither has liked the taste enough to partake enough to feel the effects. They’ve had alcohol safety classes at school and know about best practices - always get your own drink, always attend a party with a buddy who will watch out for you and vice versa, etc.
** not so brief reintroduction: ** First time going through the college process. D17 hopes to go out of state and attend a LAC or a small university (5-8K undergrads tops), preferably in a suburban or small town environment, or a manageable city. We won’t qualify for need based aid but can’t afford 65K per year either, so like many here, she’s chasing merit. She hates extreme heat and humidity so the search has gravitated towards PA, OH, MI, MN, WI, where conveniently, merit and cross country skiing can be found. We live in the mountain west so some WUE schools are also under consideration.
She is a far-ranging “life of the mind” kid and is likely to continue on to grad school, once she figures out what she’d like to study. Unlikely to specialize in physics/higher math/engineering/pre-med but everything else is up for grabs. She’s also a serious dancer and that has been a limiting factor as many LACs, due to size, don’t have the depth in dance that she seeks. She loves foreign languages and hopes to do some study abroad. She recently added Arabic to her wish list, but not as a possible major.
As a parent, my main gripe is the constant changes to standardized testing and the uncertainty about what constitutes scores that are “good enough” for merit. D17 has sterling grades and deep commitment to her ECs. Nobody seems to have a straight answer about how to interpret the new SAT scoring. She decided to register for the ACT in the fall after her SAT scores came in on the cusp, and now we learn that the ACT is changing its scoring rubric for the essay. Enough already! :-L
My intro: Mom of two kids - D17 and S12. We’ve been in the Denver metro for as long as we’ve had kids, though hubby and I are from the Midwest. He attended Michigan State; I went to U of Nebraska.
D17: senior, class of 2017, attends a K-12 college prep charter school. Excellent track record in school - 4.0 unweighted GPA, 3 AP classes and one community college class last year, 3 AP’s this year, always been an honor student. But, ACT score after two tries was reasonable but not noteworthy - 27. Seeking schools with decent merit aid, preferably Midwest or Western states (no California or Texas schools, kiddo doesn’t like either location). We live in Colorado, but she has no interest in the state flagship (CU) because of the number of kids from her high school who wind up there. She’s the primary reason I’m on the site - we know she’s not Ivy material, but we know there’s more than just the state flagship and landgrant schools, and she wants to get out of Colorado for college. We’ve got our fingers crossed for Drake in Des Moines because it seemed like an excellent fit during our visit, but it will come down to money for us.
S12: 7th grader, total gamer geek, identified as gifted and talented by the school district - right down to the lack of executive function. So, he’s an interesting kid and keeps me on my toes! Decent grades, loves tech and gaming. Just like every other tween boy, he wants to be a game developer. We’re hoping to apply some of the lessons learned from his sister’s college search when we start his search in a couple of years.
Another delurker here, trying to catch up. S17 wants engineering and winter weather (although the weather bar seems to be moving further south as time goes on).
A question- Has anyone looked at the Coalition App? Apologies if this has been discussed already. Our D15 did not have the Coalition app or new SAT/ACT, so it’s a whole new world this time around.
@NerdMom88 Yes marching band is a time consuming EC. But it’s been so good for S17 emotionally and socially I really can’t complain too much.
@coloradomom2015 Can you tell me more about Colorado Schools? We won’t get a change to visit before applying & I’m trying to get DS to add it to his list. How does Fort Collins compare to Boulder? Do student have trouble graduating in 4 years?
One minor note I was confused about what the SXX or DXX when I first started & cleared up a few days ago. On CC here, XX refers to their graduation from H.S. year not age. So, my 21 years old DD who graduated university a month ago is D12. (It feels odd to refer to her that way.) It’s confusing because S17… it’s his age & his year of graduation.
@WhereIsMyKindle Thanks for suggesting the intro’s. Should be useful. I agree about the testing changes.
Mom of 2 boys here. s’17 is our first going through the college hunt and our dear son is making it interesting. He is looking study Accounting and Russian and hopes to go into Intelligence someday. He is looking to escape out of the Northeast for college and is definitely looking for the right fit at the right price. HIs dream is to find somewhere where he can be involved in the theater and music as well as his 2 majors and he is considering going the ROTC route if he is offered a scholarship. The search continues but he has found some places he would be very happy if we can make the money/scholarships work. He has higher stats but not at the top and he will miss the cutoff for our state for NMF. I’m working on convincing him to take the ACTs again in September to try to get just 1 point higher. His fall is crazy busy with after school sports, drama, JROTC and music so I am really pushing him to get most of his college application work done before he heads back to school in September. Some days he would like to bop me over the head but he will get over it.
On the QOTD
We believe in exposing our children to alcohol before sending them off to school and being open in discussions with them about alcohol, what does, what it feels like, how to be responsible with it, etc. I don’t want to send home off with no experience.