@CT1417 S17 says he is done with tests. His GC says that most colleges are probably going to ignore the writing score on the ACT, anyway. (We hope!)
QOTD1: S17 has only two years of Spanish because of his schedule for other classes (STEM-focused program).
QOTD2: S17’s board game favorites are Catan and Diplomacy. D15 says college kids these days are playing bridge. Who knew?
@2muchquan, if I could be so rude as to butt in, I don’t have any useful information but when we were driving DS '17 from Pittsburgh and stopped in Columbus for a 2 day ultimate frisbee tournament, we ate at Z Cucina di Spirito and it was really good. A bit pricy, but not completely ridiculous. We kind of treat these college trips as vacation replacements so sometimes we splurge on the food a little.
Website: http://www.zcucina.com/
@Dave_N —any Pittsburg dining suggestions? Ideal place would offer hearty dinner salad for me (with fish or some protein on the salad, burger for one son and maybe ribs or something like that for other son. I still need to book the Pittsburg hotel for next week but they look kind of indistinguishable on Trip Advisor.
Also looking for Chicago restaurant suggestions.
@CT1417, if you don’t mind the noise of a pub, Fatheads on the south side sounds like a possible match: http://www.fatheadspittsburgh.com/menu.html
If you or anyone in your party drinks beer, if has a great beer list too. Very informal and even a little boisterous, but we like it alot. It is also a reason to visit the south side which is an urban neighborhood for young people. Not far at all from Pitt campus. If you let me know where you are staying and what your food prefs are, I might be able to give a few more suggestions. In general, the top places on TripAdvisor that we’ve tried haven’t disappointed.
For Chicago, being a resident of the suburbs, I might be able to help too. Staying North/South/in the burbs?
@CT1417 Chicago where? If you are downtown and not looking for snooty tourist food I would recommend “312 Chicago” or Petterino’s. It all depends where you are staying. There’s a nice Chinatown as well.
We r staying at the Wyndham Pittsburgh University Center on campus. I’ll let you know if it’s any good.
Can’t hear it enough. Post Of The Day [POTD]: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19530704/#Comment_19530704
After a very successful out-of-the country trip, partly with the husband and mostly with DC and two classmates, I don’t even know where to start with all the QOTDs. I was barely able to keep up with reading, especially because of my small international data package and intermittent wifi and general data deserts. Connectivity abroad is NOT what we are accustomed to here in the US.
Wisdom teeth - Got all four of mine out in my early 30s. Yikes! DC just has one barely coming in. According to the dentist, it’s too early to decide what to do.
Summer Camps - Mostly local camps and community theatre, but also two one-week academic camps in NYC to find out how it is to live far away and have a roommate.
Foreign Language - Four years here, one in middle school, three in high school. No scheduling room for a fifth year.
SAT 2s - One taken, one more to go in October.
College Apps - Common App essay is in the works, CA will be filled in after August 1. We agreed that we only talk about college on two days of the week, Thursdays and Sundays. Colleges will be looked at and filled in on a weekly basis - look up short essay questions on Monday, write them up, talk about them on Thursday, polish, proof-read and submit on Sunday.
Number of Colleges - right now the list is at 12 or 13 - six reaches, four matches and two safeties. As I mentioned in May, this list was approved by the Assistant Principal for Guidance and we all feel comfortable about it. Hopefully, NMSF becomes “a thing” in September and brings the financial do-ability/safeties to four. Everything else financial remains to be seen as the NPCs are not too helpful in our case (impending retirement of one parent, job change of the other parent).
Hopefully, I can keep up with the reading and keep participating more. Sure enjoy the jokes and questions of the day!
@CT1417 Thanks for the link. @longwood we’re in the same boat. '17 took the ACT twice and also took subject tests. Regardless of the ACT writing score, I think we’re done.
@STEM2017 I accidentally posted on another thread. Have you verified that the essay requirements are for 2017? Many websites still have 2016 info up. I have seen websites state ACT with essay or SAT. Those are websites that haven’t been updated. You can tell bc the essay isn’t explicitly stated for the SAT.
U Alabama - My observation was that many of those oos students were from other southern states. Folks from TN have their own TN twang. But it was a short visit and our impression may have been skewed by the staff and people in the community. But you form your impressions from these little visits (accurate or inaccurate) and go with it.
D was also put off by the palatial greek houses signifying their huge presence on campus.
Still a pretty campus with great programs (STEM-MBA, Blount, Co-ops, CBH, etc.) and the main draw - big macs!
ACT writing rescore - We are waiting with an expectation of losing the $50 as D knows what she did wrong. She only did one timed practice test, so on test day she ran out of time before she could add a summary and things like that. Still the %-tile was ok, so the rescore request was point greed.
School Visits/Mini Vacations - I kind of want to visit ASU for a side trip to Sedona for spa hotels and maybe a hike in the grand canyon.
This seems like a safe place to ask a stupid question. Most IB HL classes are 2 years long, but next year DD is taking HL Chem as a double block for one year. So is her grade in that class counted twice in her GPA?
@VickiSoCal …that is a good question! I think double blocked classes at Ds school count for two grades but honestly I’m not sure.
Feeling the pain of the EE at our house. Anyone else?
@2muchquan and @CT1417 for food suggestions at Pitt:
I really liked The Porch at Schenley. It is just below the Cathedral of Learning and I felt the food was fresh and good. Nice atmosphere too and kind of looks down into the park.
http://www.theporchatschenley.com/
We also ate at The Yard b/c D is a Mac and Cheese fanatic and our regional Pitt advisor included it on his Mac and Cheese recommendations for Pittsburgh. We liked it well enough but we were in a rush so that kind of makes it not so memorable.
I hope your tours go well! After the general tour and the engineering tour we had lunch at “The Porch” and then went to the Phipps Conservatory. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. https://phipps.conservatory.org/
@carachel2 what does EE stand for?
Extended Essay. Basically senior project for IB. My kid’s topic is Chemistry. She’s in the lab Aug 3-10 to actually do her experiment, so writing can’t commence until that finishes.
At that point the pain will kick in, big time.
@VickiSoCal…what is her experiment?
She stored aspirin from the same bottle in various places around our house (glove compartment of car, refrigerator, freezer, first aid kit in hall closet) and has been recording temps in all those locations daily. Then she’s going to test each for percentage of aspirin vs degradation to salicylic acid.
Want to add that may sound very basic but the standards and solutions she has to make and the technique and description of the project are sized right for an EE according to her adviser who is also her hl chem teacher. The ee has very strict parameters. So it’s less about some big project like curing cancer and more about designing a doable experiment and understanding and describing all the processes and techniques used.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I called (no answer) then sent an email to SUNY Binghamton asking if the website was accurate and ACT + Writing was required. Their answer will be our decision.
I did get in touch with SUNY Stony Brook and they said ACT Writing is not required but recommended for placement in English seminar courses. For me, recommended = required.
Thanks for your excellent suggestion. I hope I can use it!
@VickiSoCal …oh I get how complex it is going to be! I think it will be close to a graduate level paper.
It sounds like, for the EE, checking all of their boxes, is the most stressful thing. It could be a great paper, but if it isn’t exactly the way IB wants it, too bad.
Sorry about all the allergies; they are a pain to manage. That sounds like a scary list of allergies, @Mom2aphysicsgeek. So far, no severe food allergies for our kids.
My sister is allergic to peanuts, and has had to use her EpiPen several times. I’m allergic to coconut milk/coconut butter (but not coconut oil thankfully). I don’t carry an EpiPen, because my reactions were never that fast, though I have gotten the shot at hospitals. DS and DH are allergic enough to cats that they need to leave the area. DH’s entire family is allergic to sulfa drugs, so we avoid those.
DS says he’s become vegetarian on weekdays at his summer program. So the dog and I are the only full-time omnivores left in the family.
@mamaedefamilia Thanks for all the great college tour reports!
@RightCoaster I think the activities section of the Common App could take almost as long as the essay. The rest of the common app should be quick. The activities section requires boiling 4 years worth of activities down into 10 tweet-length summaries. The boiling down is the part that takes awhile.