QsOTD: My Dd worked the past 2 summers on layout design and editing 2 homeschool books. This summer she is not working for pay. She is working on her own book project. She plans on self-publishing, so maybe she will make a little off of it.
Our oldest Dd is not as socially conservative as we are but is politically. The rest of our older kids are more socially conservative than we were when we were their ages. All of them are also more politically involved and aware than we were and lean conservative.
@jeepgirl - Thanks for the heads up about Alabama’s application being up – I guess it’s go time We weren’t expecting it up until much later in July (I thought I had read that it opened in August but sometimes came a few weeks earlier).
D17 has been reading CC and liked the ideas of the Binders and white boards – she started a google doc last week with admissions information/deadlines/scholarship info/ etc… She will be very excited to see that UA opened today - she is currently at driver’s ed. but when she gets home I know what we are doing today :-bd
JOBS:
D has a job at a local sandwich joint and hopes to continue it this year.
The kids who play a varsity sport or who participate in band tend not to work. Band here in Texas is about 20 extra hours per week…I can’t even imagine a kid being able to work. Most of those kids will pick up a summer job at least at a local camp. D has done that for the past two summers but did get a part-time job this year during the school year. She worked about 8-15 hrs per week. We told her she had to have some skin in the game for her trip to Germany and she found a good gig. Her grades and time management skills are MUCH better when she is working.
POLITICAL/SOCIAL LEANINGS:
She is more conservative with her social life i.e. doesn’t party or hang around those who do. Both her dad and I had done a bit more in that area by the time we were her age. She has a good mix of conservative/lib leanings but overall I would say she is more liberal.
@novicemom23kids The app takes like 2 seconds! Now getting our darn GC to send her transcript:( They won’t be ready until closer to when school starts(Sept.), but I am working on being his worst nightmare!
@jeepgirl – Thanks – Do you have any idea what UA will do with the application w/o the transcripts? We are worred specifically about getting top housing priority. We will not be able to get transcripts until the fall.
D tried to talk with her GC last week because she needed a transcript for a scholarship that she was trying for through a local service organization. The office told her that NO transcripts would be sent until after school resumed in September @-) D tried to explain that they needed her end of junior year transcript by the July 1 extended deadline (school had just ended) but they would not budge. I called - and didn’t get anywhere. They did sign a form indicating her rank and GPA and put on the school stamp/seal (a requirement if you school had not calculated "official transcripts by the 6/15 deadline) but would not release an official transcript. She will not be getting that scholarship (not big $ but some recognition). The deadline was June 15 (although they allowed transcripts up until today) and we have already heard that she was not chosen to go through to the next round.
I am eagerly awaiting the D’s return. She had a 1.5 hour driving lesson today and was not excited about having the first spot of the morning. She will feel better when she gets home and can do the UA ap! I am happy it doesn’t take and hopefully she can finish before I have to go into work for some meetings later this morning.
I talked with one school and they said 90 and up was considered an A is that like that for most schools or is a 95 considered an A and 94 A-. At my sons school a 92 is a B+ and a 93 is an A- but according to that school it was an A. They said my son’s school was a hard high school. What have you found when they recalculate GPA?
QOTD: I am a moderate (fiscal conservative, social liberal) and my DS has same views.
QOTD2: kids in my ethnicity usually don’t work in high school and typically parents pay for college. In summers (in college) most go for paid internships (related to the major).
@fun1234 That is not what recalculating GPA means. Recalculating GPA means that they select which courses that they want to include (for example, some schools might include PE or band in their GPAs, but recalculating might only incorporate core subjects like English, math, etc.) It also means they recalculate based on their own weighting formula. (For example, some ps give up to 6 GPA pts for an AP course. Others might give a 5. Others still might only give a 4.5 or no increase at all and only give a 4. Schools recalculate using their own methodology in order to put all GPAs on the same scale.)
What they do not do is go in and alter Bs to As. (At least I have never heard of any such practice.)
**QOTD - Jobs - ** D14 got a job the summer before senior year and worked on and off until she left for college. D17 tried to use his lack of license as an excuse to not work but I made him get a job anyway. He is planning to ask his job for a “leave of absence” for marching season (they have other employees who only work when they are home from college so they seem flexible). As for other kids, we’re in a $$ area, so relatively few work. Everywhere is hiring here because of that.
@novicemom23kids our GC told me at the end of school that the transcripts would not be done until September as well. UA will not process the App with out it. The GC told me that once the currents graduates transcripts were done, then they would start for the incoming seniors. We are hoping that this will happen by the end of August. The first set of acceptances went out around September 8th last year, so I am hoping it will be close to then. I just sent an e-mail to our GC and will follow up at the end of July. As I explained to our GC, the sooner this is done, the sooner he can be done with my daughter because UA is her first choice!
@srk2017 …wow that’s interesting! Even kids around here whose parents will be paying for college still tend to work, just for the value of the work experience. Is it a cultural or social preference that kids not work?
We also live in an affluent neighborhood where most kids work. D has been swimming instructor, camp counselor at ice rink (she doesn’t want to be a lifeguard as most of her swimming friends, “too hot, too much sun”, so picked the opposite), hostess at a restaurant. This summer, she may not be able to work with her schedule.
Related to QQTD…if somebody came across the Islamic Museum and said you probably need to wear a burka to get in. Do you consider that comment racist?
@fun1234 We just got S’s transcript last night and looked it over. His HS had the same grading scale as yours until this most recent year. We found that his transcript listed the letter grade (including +/-) and there was a separate section for grading scale(s). So it showed that a A- was 93-95% for fresh/soph years but 90-93% for junior year. Very confusing, but the information is on there, which was a relief to me. I’ve heard a rumor they’re changing the grading scale again for next year. We’ll see. If so, those poor 2018 kids will have 3 different scales on their end of junior year transcripts.
QOTN: Both kids definitely do less socializing/partying than either of us did at their age. I’m not sure how to describe them politically as their liberal tendencies started to change a bit when they started collecting paychecks and seeing first-hand how the tax system works. :)) I find in general that they and their peers are a lot more open-minded and accepting than some might expect from rural/suburban Iowans. Times they are a-changin’ and in this instance I think it’s a good change.
QOTD: Part-time jobs are the norm here. Part of it is that lunch periods/study halls are more common during the school day, so that allows some homework to be done ahead of time. Balance that with fewer advanced class options and there’s less homework at night all around I think. S spends an hour or two on homework at night during the school year, does band (marching, jazz, concert) year-round and plays spring, summer and fall soccer. He works summers at a regular job plus does soccer refereeing periodically during spring/fall. He could easily work weekends and some evenings during the school year, and most of his friends do that.
@fun1234 How GPA’s get interpreted can vary by school, but in general…they will want to convert your GPA into a 4.0 scale (possibly with weighting some classes, giving a weighted GPA).
If your transcripts has letter grades, that’s what the college will use (and they will ignore the numerical grades).
Numerical grades would be converted to A-F grades based on your high school grading scale that can be found on your high school transcript or school profile. If that’s not provided by the school, then the college is likely to use it’s own scale.
If you have numerical grades on your transcripts, you should ask each of your targeted schools, how they would handle them (or you can find the info on their website!).
QOTN – More cautious kids: So far, definitely more cautious for DS17 and probably not for DC21. I was a rule-follower until about senior year. DH messed around with drugs in middle school, but mostly straightened out in high school. I drank a fair bit in college some weekends; the drinking age was 19. We haven’t told the kids that, though.
Politically, I’d say that both kids are as liberal as I am or possibly more liberal.
QOTD – Jobs: DS’ research professor offered him a paid fellowship if he didn’t get into a summer program, so that was almost a job. (Though perhaps “unearned income” to the IRS from what @Mom2aphysicsgeek said.) There was also talk of a short software contract, but that didn’t get hammered out in time before his summer program.
Of his friend group, the ones who get paid do either cybersecurity research at the UC or software development at a local company. The friend who has a job at a software company is having trouble with grades, because he thinks he doesn’t need a degree if he can already get paid $50/hr.
I’m sure a lot of HS kids have jobs in food service or retail, but the kids I see look like college students except the ones working at a family-owned restaurant. There are a lot of UC students in town, so I suppose they get hiring preference.
We have a 60-hour community service requirement with 200 hours preferred, so the camp counselor positions around here are mostly unpaid volunteer hours. DS has done that for a few weeks of LEGO Mindstorms camp.
Hmmm, UA was not on our list (sadly IMO) but I now have this fresh, new transcript laying around with nothing to do. Maybe fake-kid should go ahead and apply
Well I called up the University of San diego and they said all grades 90 or above are considered A’s so my son would at least have a 4.0 and then they weight the other classes .5 I believe and 1 for AP. He said even though your school says a 93 is an A- they count it as a A. So I guess most schools don’t do that then.
He has the % listed which is his unweight average is 96.7, but in the corner on the top it says 93-100 is A and 85-92 is B. He has no grades lower than a 92. Then they also have a weighted grade of 105.76. All his grades though are listed as percents as semester grades
We weren’t expecting it up until much later in July (I thought I had read that it opened in August but sometimes came a few weeks earlier).