Stuff:@whataboutcollege@srk2017@CT1417 – I’m also joining your no stuff camp. DS hasn’t gotten any stuff – no t-shirts, frisbees, or books. Mostly just postcards and brochures. But, he unsubscribed from a bunch of college emails. I recently filled out the interest forms for the schools on his list to subscribe him, in case he had unsubscribed from any of them. I don’t know what’s in his email, though. He says he filters some to a separate folder that he doesn’t really look at.
ED: I don’t like it, but perhaps I’d think differently if DS had a top school that offered it. His top school has EA. He will apply to 2-3 schools EA. 15-17 schools on his list. Still deciding whether or not to apply to USC (the CA one) and UChicago. Haven’t visited either. USC would be easy to visit when he is back home. UChicago has a local thing in our town just after he returns from his summer program.
Books: We all like ‘em. CC is cutting into my book reading, just like school cuts into DS’ pleasure reading. (Well, maybe not “just like” because CC is optional, isn’t it?)
For California parents, there are some good webinars on UC applications available through UCSB applications. http://admissions.sa.ucsb.edu/visit-ucsb/webinars (scroll down for freshman applications).
I listened to one on the new Personal Insight questions. There were only 5 people in the webinar, and I was registered as DS. (Forgot to make a fake kid!) So, I answered questions as I thought DS would. Since it was a small group, the adcom took a lot of questions and offered to read and comment on essays through Sept. 1 and answer any other questions.
There is also a webinar they give on general UC applications and another on what admissions is looking for at UCSB. They give them frequently.
@VickiSoCal Don’t know how “So” you are in Cal, but you mentioned recently that your D likes UCSB.
P.S. Is there an achievement badge for most posts in a row?
We talked with DS tonight (well, last night technically now). We hadn’t talked with him since Saturday except for texting him AP scores and answering laundry questions. I’ve been kinda lonely, since DC21 is also out of town at an LGBTQ leadership camp this week.
We were happy to hear that things are going well. He says he’s doing pretty well at “drinking from the firehose” and has finished the last two problem sets 2 days ahead of the due dates along with about 5 other kids (who then help the other kids). He’s amazed at how much work they do and how much they learn! He says one of the TAs said his code was the most beautiful they’d seen at the camp. (Cool, coming from MIT and Caltech grads!)
His group still hasn’t spotted their asteroid, but neither have the other groups. Hopefully tonight!
The food is still great. Collared shirts are still not something he likes. He is getting some sleep. They had an interesting speaker tonight from the New Horizons and Juno spacecraft projects.
He really likes the other kids. A group of them did a 8-9 mile hike up somewhere into the Flatirons, and that was fun, even though it rained on the way down.
@2muchquan Interesting percentages, I think if you do a popular one really well, it will be memorable. I think if you do an unpopular one and don’t do it well, it will be stand out even more in a not so good way.
Humor, when natural, is fabulous. I would make sure the prompt is answered, though.
I am pretty sure Dd chose #1 bc she can use it for both the CA and the Coalition (CO…need a different acronym for it!)
@dfbdfb Thanks for the insight. That is the way we will ask the translator to do it. Do you think it is OK if the translator is the one to upload it?
UF didn’t use the common app, only it’s own custom app, so when they made the switch, it made sense that they would switch to only using the Coalition App. Other schools that use the common app, likely will continue to use both (at least this year).
Here’s the list of schools (56) that plan on accepting the Coalition app in 2016/2017, and the schools(38) that are planning on accepting it in 2017/2018.
Up half the night…craziness and sadness here in the North Texas area.
And then D texts me that the group flight plans are messed up. Instead of flying into Newark they are flying into JFK. It sounds like she can take AirTran to Jamaica Station and then connect to LIRR.
Super glad in our last two trips to DC and NYC I made her do all the subway navigating. I think she will be fine.
@carachel2: Yes, very sad and disturbing … It will be interesting to learn about the perpetrators.
And 30 pages later on here …
My family is travelling out of the country and we safely made it to our destination after 30 hours by car, plane, and bus. DC took two friends and I sincerely hope that I will bring them back home in one piece.
AP scores were as hoped for with 5s in Calc and Lang and a 3 in Bio. That will be enough for AP Scholar with Distinction. Will have to remind DC to add that to the Common App.
re: Math Instruction: Fabulous math teachers here but for 8th grade Geometry. Needed an outside tutor for that one. All others either used “understanding concepts” only (Alg 1) or used a mix and match system of concepts and memorizing formulas. Looking at the passing rates, I tend to say the winner is “understanding concepts/problem solving”. Algebra 1 had a full passing rate at level 5. Alg II state and PreCalc district testing had good outcomes (over 75 percent passing) and AP Calc AB has 90 percent at 3 or above and AP Calc BC full passing with most everybody at a 4 or 5. Very grateful to those teachers! Of course, a lot is preselection after 7th grade for the fast math track; the general school results are a bit different. But still, having so many hormone-riddled students pass speaks for skilled teachers.
@carachel2 So your daughter is coming home from Germany? How did she like her trip? My daughter comes home next week. So far it sounds like she is having a great time. Told us she is speaking more German than when she first arrived and understanding a lot more of it. Will be interesting to talk with her in detail about her experiences because we have only exchanged several texts and seen a handful of pictures.
@saillakeerie …yes, she is in flight right now from Zurich. Hopefully she will navigate the air tram to the train from JFK to Newark ok!!
We have only had a handful of messages and a few pics also. I do know she says she was speaking German entirely at her host home and only spoke English for an hour or so a day when the kids were all together in class at the high school. I think she is sad to go but a great experience all around.
I know it is hard to discover everything during a visit. My S is a rising sophomore at TU. He was invited to the Honors Program and offered a little extra money to participate.
https://utulsa.edu/academics/honors-program/
Here is a little information on it. Perhaps you were looking for the opportunity for the honors program members to live together like some colleges offer???
Also, while true that there are decorative gates and fencing around some areas of campus, the campus is in no way closed at any time.
As far as the cafeteria, I am puzzled. TU has a full time nutritionist who plans healthy and varied meals. I have eaten there 4-5 times, and always found multiple delicious and nutritious options. The main cafeteria is small, perhaps that is the issue. There is also a food court across campus where flex dollars can be used. My S is EXTREMELY disciplined in his eating and was always able to find healthy selections.
@deborahb Glad to hear your son is having a good experience at TU. It’s always interesting to me the varying perspectives regarding schools. That’s why visiting is so important. I’m sure it’s a great school. It just wasn’t a good fit for my D.
Btw, we sat down with the head of honors for a half hour, just the 3 of us. It wasn’t a true honors program, in my personal opinion, and wasn’t as strong as that of the other schools we visited. The gating runs around much of the campus and was off putting to me personally. And the food was meh, to me personally.
Please don’t take offense or feel the need to defend a school. No one school is a good fit for everyone. It’s not personal.
DS got a 4 on AP lang and a 5 on APUSH. I think he did well but I was really hoping he would have gotten a 5 on AP Lang because while a 4 is good for credit for 2 English classes at UA , it is only good for 1 at Ole Miss and Georgia colleges.
Comment/Question related to the discussion about shut-outs. H.S. counselors office is recommending students pay careful attention to choosing the safety schools. They said every year they have a few kids who show up in late April upset because they didn’t get in anywhere. Except most of the time it’s not strictly true shut-out, most of these got into a safety’s school but they never really dreamed it would come down to it. So our counseling office is advising student to only apply to schools they would honest want to attend, while still making sure there are safety schools on their list.
My question is how carefully do you select your safety schools?
This seems really tricky. In CA, many of the Cal State level schools are safety’s for my S17. And since he already wants to do that application for Cal Poly SLO (reach for him) it’s easy to just say… just pick a few other campuses and apply there without spending a lot of energy on it.
@curiositycat333 I would pick your safety school VERY carefully. When our college junior started the college application process, no way did I think that he would end up attending Bama. But he loved the dept, the UG advisor, CBH, and the price. I don’t think our dd will like any of her safeties as much as ds, but she is a much harder student to find an affordable option.
If you have applied to UA are you able to use the check admissions status? It’s still not working for DS. We want to make sure the transcript and scores got there.
I think picking safty is harder for high stat kids like D17 who has perfect SAT in one setting. perfect subject test scores. Staller GPAs (a tiny bit more A+s than As) with good rigor (11-12 APs by end of senior year). The top tier schools are reach for everybody so will be her reach too. The next tier are filled with risk of Tuft’s syndrome. The true safety is pretty much the state flagship what will not turn away high stats in-state kids. But the state flagship is for sure not what she see herself happy with. She might end up happy if that is the only choice left. But certainly not out of the gate (she is not seeing that as a happy ending). Other state flagships who offer good merit scholarships are very comparible to our state flagship in acedemic ranking, But our in-state will be very cost effective for her stat, So why OOS. Delimma…Delimma.
Safety schools
Choosing a safety school (truly safe in admittance and affordability) you actually want to attend can be very hard. D11 was in this position. All her schools were small LAC’s, with state flagship as her safety. To stay debt free she chose the safety and I have to say she was miserable freshman year. Sophomore year improved. One reason her top school was tops was because of a particular dance teacher she wanted to work with. Through the effects of some kind of super-karma, that teacher moved to D’s big U that year, is now her adviser and things are good. But without that, who knows if she ever would have truly liked being at her safety.
D17 has one safety (sis’s school) that she does not want to attend, but we’ve all agreed to keep it on the list because it’s local. Another one (in-state public as well) we visited and she (albeit with little enthusiasm) said “Yeah, I could see myself going here and it would be okay.” We have one more safety but won’t visit unless we need to after acceptances. I think that’s not bad as far as safety attitudes and choices go.
I guess it’s easier in the big states because so many more publics are available. Perhaps kids from smaller states should also pick a few private schools known for being generous and where they are comfortably above the 75%. I guess it’s not technically a safety, but the NPC should show if it’s a near safety.
@whataboutcollege I disagree that simply having perfect test scores somehow makes finding a match school so much harder. Finding a school that offers what a student wants at a price they can afford is hard for a lot of kids.
Safety schools - we’ve ended up in a situation where most of the schools on our Lists are just different states’ versions of the same school. Our in-state school should be our $ safety, but it isnt. I guess its our geographic safety? Our current #1 is also our all-around safety. It is easier for S to “see” himself at any of them since they’re all just variations on a theme, but that makes it harder to pick a #1. (Hoping that shakes out once we can finally go visit)
I think its hugely important to have schools your kid WANTS to attend in your safeties, but thats hard if a kid has always had one dream school.