@youcee every Revelle requirement other than the 5 course humanities sequence she has already met via AP/IB credit.
Warren has the “2 ares of concentration besides major” requirement, but unclear how much she can AP. Thinking we should move that up. But is is very far away. Ugh.
@nocturne21 I enjoy and don’t generally mind the comments from our young reader friend. She is always super friendly and polite and is an amazing kid. But it does feel a bit intrusive sometimes…especially when I can see she posts on the Class of 2015 board, 2016 board, 2018 and 2019 boards also. There is a reason the parents have their own board and the kids have their own boards.
I’m sure we all read each others stuff at certain times, but we do generally refrain from posting on those boards as a courtesy unless we belong there really. For instance, I was reading through the 2016 board today but would never post there unless I had a pressing question or concern.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I took a similar approach but looked at avg SAT score. If my Daughter is below then it is a reach since you know if you extract recruited athlete’s numbers then avg SAT would go up another xx points. I don’t factor in GPA since my daughter has a 4.0. Then I look at acceptance rate and anything below 30% is still a reach.
The bottom line is if you are applying at a school with less then 20 or 25% acceptance then even with great stats you might not get in and it’s not that you are not good enough it is that they did not see it in the application.
@NCComputerNerd Or they are applying yield protection…
Silly me I encoded my D12 to take a Clay class her last semester at college. She needed one more general art course. She really enjoyed it. But I didn’t think it through till mid way through the year when I realized we would need to ship home across the country all her artwork. Didn’t do a good enough job of packing it and ruined her best piece. 
@nocturne21 Many universities around here on the “quarter” system and they don’t start until the end of September. So still lot of soon to be college kids around.
@payn4ward Ha! I love CASPer - I am definitely in your distinguished company. :))
In the case of my D17 it’s either A for Apathy or A for Anxiety. Maybe it’s anxiety-induced apathy, which has added yet another point in the matrix for us - checking to see if schools will allow admitted students to defer for a year before attending in case she really needs to do a gap year. My D is quite young for her grade - she doesn’t turn 17 until November, and while some kids are raring to go away to college, mine bursts into tears whenever she has to talk about it. 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I think my understanding of reach vs. out-of-reach is pretty similar to yours. With D17’s 33 ACT and 4.0 unweighted, I still just assume that her status as white female from unremarkable public high school, with no sports recruitment or legacy status and nice but not earth shattering extra curricular activities are going to leave her lost in the shuffle with 10k similar kids at the high reach schools. MIT is probably not a realistic reach with a 33 Math and HS math that doesn’t go past Calc AB. This is no knock on my kid, just how I read the lay of the land. For my D, I think Georgetown = reach. MIT = out of reach.
@fun1234 …did you make it up to Tulane? Hope you had a safe trip.
QOTN — Does anyone know or have experience to share on this – I am wondering id a student submits the common app to some EA/ED schools and later wants to revise the essay, EC activity list, awards or other things – is that ok - at least for submitting to schools at later dates? Can you change some of the entries on the common app even after submissions start & do schools that already got a version of it get notified of changes being made? thanks for any advice!
@VickiSoCal My state rep has a bill to cause the CA community college system to have a uniform AP credit policy. Wonder what that would do to the UCs when they get transfers with AP credit that they don’t grant? The bill says if they don’t come up with a policy by 2017, they have to use the CSU policy.
@CA1543 QOTN: Yes, my understanding is that you can make changes like those. The changes do not affect applications already submitted. There previously was a limit to how many times the essay could be changed, but they removed that limit this year.
I actually think we all sort of agree that my D reaches (ND, Vandy, BC) are out of reach unless she raises her ACT to 32+. If that happens they become reaches to varying degrees. But the problem is if she doesn’t raise that ACT score then the matches become reaches (I think) and the safeties stay safeties and we are left without matches. Which will just mean she may apply to all her safeties on her list instead of 1 or 2 just to have options. As long as she likes them all we’ll be good.
Now that I have drug you all into my over-analyzation of my D’s list we should probably just sit tight for a bit and see what the ACT and safety school visits in Sept brings 
Thanks for all the input though. I really do enjoy this thread.
@Ynotgo - It sounds like the bill “…calls for community colleges…to adopt the same AP exam credit policy that the University of California and California State University systems use.” This implies that the changes will affect CCs, not UCs or CSUs and that the UCs will continue business as usual when it comes to granting credit for APs, so I’m not sure how/if this will change anything.
@LoveTheBard - 2 of the Stamps offers at Michigan in 2016 went to recipients of TASP scholarships in summer of 2015 and one of them was also admitted to Harvard. The point I was supporting was the accomplishment level shown by the recipients.
The problem isn’t getting credit for AP Exams so much. That’s mostly the same at various UC’s.
It’s does the AP also give you a GE requirement. That varies a HUGE amount.
My kiddo will have a 3 or higher, in the end, hopefully in the following Social Studies APs:
Euro (done)
HUG(done)
US History(done)
Micro Econ (TBD)
Macro Econ (TBD)
She could end up with 24 credits in Social Studies and still have not satisfied her SS GE requirement!
I’m not sure that I like the “out of reach” category. I think it’s a fallacy that only URMs, athletes, first-gen, legacies, development kids, and other hooked applicants fill up the bottom 25%ile at elite schools. So long as a student has a few safeties they like and are affordable, I see nothing wrong with shooting for the moon at a couple of mega reach schools.
@texaspg - thanks for the clarification. As is the case with many of these types of things, correlation is not causation. Both TASP and the ivies tend to attract (and admit) some very bright, very high achieving kids, it is not surprising that these are the sorts of students that Stamps and their affiliated schools might also recognize.
It is the case, however, that certain programs tend to be pipelines (or maybe just hooks) for other programs, and I was wondering if this was the case with TASP and Stamps, and, if so, if it was Michigan-specific or general. It’s probably data that only the Stamps Foundation or their partnering schools would have. It wouldn’t be surprising if there were a connection, given that U. Mich houses two of the four TASP seminars and is home to a Telluride House.
@itsgettingreal17 – I do agree - it is possible – seems that the strength of the school curriculum and the student’s accomplishments based on that as well as ECs, essays etc. I know a number of students who were not winners of Science/Math Olympiads or Intel etc. semi-finalists (nor had major hooks) who have gotten in. No idea if there were any other connections. But the apps take a long time. Even some less reachy schools have significant app requirements (e.g USC). We are aiming for a few bc they match DS’s interests but certainly focusing much attention on the more "match’ schools - he should be very competitive for. Trying to squeeze in a couple more visits – but wisdom teeth come out in a couple days… so who knows! Reassurances from parents of kids who had this recently are appreciated - we are nervous about it.
@CA1543 What are you nervous about? The school choices? Or just this lovely process? 
@ca1543 or the wisdom teeth?! I’d be nervous about that. I’ve never even had my own out!