Definitely putting AP Award and NHS and wondering if you can somehow list awards that won’t be earned until graduation by writing “expected” next to them.
You can’t get in to nhs until end of junior year at our school. 90 inducted out of a class of 700. Not sure what is involved as you are only in it senior year but it seems low key
I have been looking at OOS Merit for DS17 LSU has this listed on scholarship retention.
“Additionally, retention of all University scholarships is contingent upon available funding.”
This has made me think twice about DS applying there… I wonder if any other colleges have this wording…
@MichiganGeorgia: I suspect that even if they don’t have that wording in a public-facing spot, every college has that policy—at any school, pretty much everything is dependent on continued availability of funds.
About listing all awards- our current leaning is to “smoke 'em if you got 'em”. Probably will prioritize based on how much D17 values the accomplishment. (I’m on my mobile because my laptop is misbehaving, and I’m running a restore on it, which takes forever. Save me from crappy old electronics that should have been taken it into the field and shot years ago…)
@eandesmom I agree with @4beardolls. They definitely should be included. i haven’t been through the CA since 2013 when my son filled it out. We haven’t dug into it that far this time, so I can’t visualize the options. I would have him go through the sections and put the awards where he feels they fit who he is the best.
I read Applerouth’s blog last night. I am so glad I don’t have to worry about testing again for a few yrs. Ugh…I wish universities would re-evaluate the purpose of testing. The SR section was not my ds’s friend. It was his lowest score every single time. The irony! This is a kid who made a 5 on the AP chem exam in 10th grade and had a 4.0 in every physics DE class he took in high school via DE, including 300 level classes. He still has a 4.0 (across the board). But, by the time he hit the SR section, he could not maintain his reading pace any more and he would crash during that section every single time.
Based on Applerouth’s assessment, the reading speed crunch is going to be even more of a factor. I am not sure reading speed is an accurate assessment of what colleges think they are assessing. I would personally find far more value in having assessments which required complex reasoning skills (like Putnam style questions at a more appropriate level) than rewarding fast reading on an easier skill set.
He did great on the SAT. His scores on the SAT were the equivalent of 5 or 6 pts higher than his ACT scores.
I feel bad for the kids that are going to have to start to deal with 2 tests that are morphing with little distinction between them. He was able to do better on the SAT bc of the alternating sections. He could “recuperate” from his reading fatigue during the math sections. Now that both tests are longer, single section focused, there isn’t much difference.
I’m coming up with a new test: The SACT. It stands for Screw All College Entrance Exams (name or acronym still work in progress). It’s a color-by-number. The picture changes each sitting.
@2muchquan I am willing to be an investor!
Then maybe we can branch into SACT-GO
While I cannot argue with Applerouth’s assessment of the changing ACT, the conclusion of their opinion has me a little suspicious…
“The evolving tests raise the bar for students, just as they raise the bar for tutors across the country. The testing giants are effectively driving tutors to become teachers versed in a much greater breadth of content and pedagogical strategies. This also isn’t a bad thing. A more rigorous test demands a more skilled instructor. We’re certainly ready to rise to the occasion and help our students attain their best outcomes.”
In other words, “the test is getting really hard and we can help. Hire us.”
I felt the same way after my son scored a 20 on his first [big name test prep company] diagnostic ACT practice. Alarm bells went off…just as they planned.
Just my cynical opinion.
@STEM2017 No doubt. The entire testing and test prep industry is all about the $$. Every time I have to pay CB, I cringe. They are everywhere…from SATs, to subject tests, to APs, to CLEP, to IDOC. All for a company I dislike but have no option of avoiding.
Oh, you reminded me @Mom2aphysicsgeek @STEM2017. Proceeds from the SACT will go to filling the donut hole.
@MichiganGeorgia wrote
I think that might beat out my D’s “Dankest Memes in Marching Band” superlative. Maybe she puts on her app, can’t be worst than Clam Farting.
Some folks who are not in the “donut hole”…
Kurt Landgraf, now the former president and chief executive officer of the Educational Testing Service, earned for the 2013 fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2013: $1,307,314 in reportable compensation and $42,210 in estimated other compensation from the organization and related organizations.
Jon Whitmore, the chief executive officer of ACT, earned for the 2013 fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2014: $672,853 in salary, plus a bonus of $150,000, and other reportable compensation of $12,949, plus retirement contributions of $57,152, plus other nontaxable benefits of $18,109. That’s a total of $911,073.
David Coleman, the president and chief executive officer of the College Board, as well as a trustee, earned for the 2013 fiscal year ending June 30, 2014: $690,854 in reportable compensation plus $43,338 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations. Total: $734,192.
Source:Washington Post
@jeepgirl I attended a RIT graduation in May and the first thing we noticed is that they have a really nice indoor track. You know you’re a T&F family when that gets you excited, LOL. For @jmek15, I was impressed with the campus. It’s a bit spread out but pretty, and the buildings we saw were modern but artistic and well kept up. The range of majors was pretty fascinating: the ASL interpretation, the engineering, the furniture design (my DH’s major in college). We ate a graduation brunch at a cafe plaza, where our graduate said the sidewalks are heated to melt off the snow. I’m not sure if all sidewalks are that way though. If it weren’t out of our price range and if it were D1 it would be on our list.
Awards: Hmmm. Honor Roll. And lots of sports awards. Art student of the year in 8th grade…and then DS refused to take another art class ever again. Good thing SUNYs aren’t super invested in ECs, lol.
Yesterday was a crazy stressful day for DD but I think we’re OK. Have I mentioned that for a smart kid, DD can be a bit ahem absent-minded? Turns out that while the down payment for her semester abroad was payable by us, the actual tuition is paid through the university so they have to deal with the FA internally. She would have known that if she had communicated with the semester abroad people earlier rather than stressing out. Folks, letting kids be responsible for their own business is a good thing but it sometimes leads to drama. Though maybe I should have been hovering a little more? Ack, it’s hard to know where to draw the line sometimes.
Then yesterday she broke out in a rash and we immediately thought Lyme disease b/c she had a tick last month. She got prophylactic antibiotics then, but you never know. She’s away for work, but was texting me all day with updates about her doctor’s visit (they didn’t think it was Lyme). Then later that afternoon her entire body exploded in hives and it was clearly hives, not lyme. That’s a relief but she was miserable and clueless about what could have set them off. (Stress, maybe?) Then she realized that while she had the email all ready back in May to buy her airplane ticket to China, she never actually sent it (did I say absent minded?) and so she was in a total panic over that. But tickets have actually dropped in price since May so I helped her buy one last night. And then her hives went away.
Did I mention yet that sometimes I wonder if I’m a little TOO hands off? Yikes. I think I’ll hover just a bit over the next month and a half.
"No doubt. The entire testing and test prep industry is all about the $$. Every time I have to pay CB, I cringe. They are everywhere…from SATs, to subject tests, to APs, to CLEP, to IDOC. All for a company I dislike but have no option of avoiding. "
Let’s also not forget that the CB has recently entered the curriculum business. This seems like such a conflict of interest to me, but hasn’t seemed to get much media attention.
As an aside: How do you quote on this site?
[ quote ] text to be quoted [ /quote ] but taking the spaces out from within the brackets
An interesting article that I saw on the Parents’ Forum, and that I might use in my first class come fall. I’m making decisions about these things now as I work on my syllabi. @dfbdfb, what is your policy on computers in the classroom? I’ve allowed them but I have a small class and can (and do) walk all the way to the back several times each lecture, but I know that some kids are quickly changing their screens before I get there. How much hand holding should a intro college course engage in?
Edit: The link would help!
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/07/11/485490818/is-it-time-to-ban-computers-from-classrooms
@STEM2017 D took the April ACT and the June ACT with consistent, persistent practice focused at the math sections. For each test she said there were exactly 1-2 problems that she had never ever seen before, that weren’t on the ACT online prep test module and she pretty much had no clue how to work.
So I would say her experience is consistent with that article.