QOTD: Not much reading for pleasure happening at our house anymore for D17. She used to read a good amount, though not as much as S20. She’s now reading her books for AP Lit summer homework and is enjoying it. That is really about it. I’m just hoping she reads some college websites at this point. She needs to get back on the bus!
re QOTD - My D17 reads all the time and always has. This past year she was a bit pleasure reading deprived because of the time required on her coursework. She is making up for it this summer. She will share her books with siblings but on a lending basis only - she loves to read and reread books over again and she has a vast library. She gets gift cards to book stores for holidays and birthdays from grandparents, other relatives, and friends. She also buys books in bulk at the used book sales around here. She lends books to friends but does worry about them returning in good condition. When she visits our county library she takes out a dozen or so at a time and the librarians all know her by name. If we had transportation, she would volunteer at the library but it is a bit of a drive and with our work schedules we have no way to get her there.
QOTD: D17 has been a voracious reader since 6. I cant tell you how many books she finished by the time we came back from Barnes and Noble (with a few stops for groceries and such). She would spend all her allowance on books. She has continued that habit even now. Add to that many books she downloads on her iPad. I have to say it has served her well.
What is the worm shack?
I am sure he will have fun maybe see some snakes or a bear. Last year some were seen. Though this year he didn’t mention any yet I forgot to ask
@fun1234 The Worm Shack is just a nickname for some research a professor at 'Bama (Caldwell) is conducting on earthworms. It looked interesting if my D17 were to attend: http://wormshack.ua.edu/
I asked the question about air conditioning and it is actually cold
QQTD: My son doesn’t read fiction as much as I’d like. Particularly during the school year he is so busy with school work, he mostly relaxes playing computer games. But he does pick up the pace during the summer. The past few years he has taken several books (Terry Pratchet) to read while at camp. He was a very early reader and loved books as child but that was when a whole book could be read in 20 minutes. I think too much homework & reading for school made it a lot less fun. And the internet, computer games have too much draw when he’s home.
D17 has been a voracious reader since 6… I have to say it has served her well.
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Amen to that! Most kids who enjoy reading for pleasure, whether they have time to actually do it or not, are on the higher end of grades and test scores. It’s a wonderful lifelong hobby as well!
My kids do read for pleasure. What they choose differs from kid to kid. It’s so hot outside right now that all of them are reading more!
My free reading time is pretty limited bc I read so much of my kids’ academic reading. Most of my time has been spent reading college info. I just started a book, though, The Shadow of the Wind. We’ll see if it compels me enough to finish it.
QOTD: My D is an avid reader. It started out with picture books to Harry Potter like many other kids. Now my hippy/hipster D reads “Mindfull meditaion”, “How to Love”, “Love and Astrology” … very trippy stuff. Others are mostly about social issues like memoirs of recovering drug addicts or how it’s like to grow up in the ghetto near Chicago. Also girl empowering books.
It’s a nice feeling that she requests some books as part of her birthday presents even now.
I don’t think is is like comparing apples to apples. I think this is comparison more of who is taking the exam. Physics C which requires Calculus is usually only taken by students who have really strong math & science backgrounds. While AP Euro is a much more popular AP course. Doesn’t mean Physic C is easier than AP Euro. DS’s hight school doesn’t even offer Physics C as a course in contrast AP Euro is one of the easiest to take often taken by students who aren’t the top students.
Best way to explain my point is compare the the two Calculus AP tests… Calculus AB 24.4% test takers got 5’s vs. 48.4% for BC Calculus. BC Calculus is the harder course that covers more material. (Some schools offer it as a 2nd. course.) Thus students who are less strong at math tend to take AB Calculus and not BC… Therefore in this case the reason the AB has a lower rater of 5’s is that it’s taken by more students who are less strong in math. It’s self selection.
A better comparison is APUSH to AP Euro. ~60% of students passed (3 or better) AP Euro and only ~52% passed APUSH. Although fewer AP Euro got 5’s.
@hades, @MotherOfDragons I I were King of the Forest (or at least of the Adcom world), I would create another ED option to have an option wherein students could apply for early binding admission with merit - ED-M, so to speak, which would allow kids to apply early to schools with named scholarships and merit and, if accepted with merit, have the admission offer be binding – otherwise, defer to the RD (with or without merit) pool.
@LoveTheBeard If it were my choice there would be less options. ED shouldn’t exist at all. They should all be EA. I don’t think ED is good for any student. It’s rigged to be good for the universities.
** QOTD: ** Expanding on D17’s reading habits. She reads fictions pretty much exclusively. She setup a book review blog when she was in 7th grade. She was told to be the youngest Blogger to go to the BEA (book expo of America) in NYC at age 12. With around 100 bucks for the ticket, she lugs home 3 suitcases (carry-on) of free books. She would come into the city with me for those 3 days. I went to work and she went to Javits center. We will then meet again on my way home from office with her heavy luggage. There was a reporter who wanted to write about her (the youngest blogger of BEA) and I gave her the permission. But I don’t remember if she actually wrote it or not :-/. DD’s favorite series was the Iron Fey. Her sources of books includes, B&N, Publishers (she wrote to publishers with her blog status and they would send her free ARCs), exchanges with her blogger friends, etc etc. I think I’ve read most of her YA books and enjoyed a good amount of them. I also remembered our vacation in Paris. She was busy fixing her HTMLs for her blog in the hotel while we all wanted to goto sleep :)). She decided YA book review was not her thing any more when she went to HS. So she had deleted her blog and have not looked back since. She still reads extensively till today.
I agree with @curiositycat333 , I am no fan of ED or anything binding. Give me your best offer up front, and I’ll make the decision from there. (Well, she will, not me, but you get my drift).
QOTD:
In general, DS loves to read certain authors/genres, but is very particular. (@curiositycat333 my DS and DH are both huge Terry Pratchett fans and were very sad when he died). If S finds a series or author he likes, he’ll blow through all of the available books in no time, but then he’ll go for months (or longer) without reading anything (other than reddit, LOL). He’s taking AP Lit this year, so he’ll have to branch out in his fiction reading, but I’m not holding my breath that he’s going to like it! (And he’s already dragging his feet about getting started on the summer reading list).
D19 is similar (the genres/authors she likes are somewhat limited), but she likes to re-read favorite series (and has done so over and over and over again in some cases… I think her favorite is still Percy Jackson, which may be the first series she ever read, but she still likes to re-read it from time to time).
DH and I both love to read, and I usually have a couple of books going on my iPad (I switched from “real” books grudgingly, but now I love that I can read in bed without an extra light source… I know the blue light is supposed to be bad for me, but now I don’t keep DH awake when I’m up all night reading a page turner! Also I usually reverse the iPad screen so background is black and letters are white… makes it put out less light).
@curiositycat333 and @MotherOfDragons -
My ED suggestion was only with the understanding that binding EDs do, if fact, exist. I agree, I don’t think they should. So, I’ll revise - we should eliminate all ED (and REA/SCEA, for that matter) and have early action deadlines for merit consideration and athletic scholarships.
As long as the practice of students apply to as many school as they wish exist, ED will not go away.
Anyone know anything about Swarthmore, and merit opportunities, or lack-thereof? It hasn’t been on the radar, except early on when I was looking at schools with Neuroscience. I believe I removed it from contention when I ran the NPC and looked at merit possibilities. D17 received a fly-in email “Discover Swarthmore” and wondering if we should ignore ‘applying’ for the trip in Sept/Oct, or go ahead a take a flyer (no pun intended 
) on it (good experience, even if rejected). We could decide whether to attend later…