@MassDaD68 If it makes you feel any better about the 80% of kids changing majors, that includes kids who added a double major or moved a minor to a major or switched to a different emphasis within the same discipline. Not everyone makes a drastic major change 
My older 2 each “changed” majors by adding a double major.
Well @MassDaD68, not sure if it helps, but my daughter plopped down next to me at 11:00 last night and said to me, "I think I’m interested in astrophysics. An NU grad student came and did a presentation on black holes this past week, and he did such a good job explaining them. When you have a minute, Google: ‘Neil deGrasse Tyson death by black hole’. Then she bounced away to go watch some Tyson videos.
I whimpered, inaudibly, as she disappeared: ‘Does this mean Neuroscience is out…?’ :-B :-t 8-}
@MotherOfDragons I’ve had the same “animated discussion” with all my kids at various points. In good news, the college senior has internalized that very important adulting skill. I predict I will need to revisit the topic w D after an event Tuesday night.
(Please excuse the serial posts. I’m on mobile. Sigh.)
@MotherOfDragons - Lot of colleges give credit for IB HL subjects for scores of 6 or above (some may give for 5) also. Check the colleges your D is applying.
@MotherOfDragons yikes! That is a lot of $$$. Would she use the Bio credit if she got a 5 or 6? And also do all of her schools accept IB Bio HL? I guess I would look at the tuition costs and make the decision there. It has no impact on admissions like you said… So the credit and using it would be the main issues.
I guess I take it for granted that Ds school pays for those tests!! I had no they were so spendy!
@MotherOfDragons - Interesting that a single test is that expensive. I just wrote a check for about $500 for my D17 to take the remaining four IB “papers” (i.e. tests) as part of the IB diploma.
@MassDaD68 Based on that logic, I hope wherever he chooses to attend offers lots of different majors other than business that he likes since he will only have a 20% chance of staying a business major.
@hadmeathello Astrophysics is my ds’s love. Couple of thoughts…do NOT let her think that she needs to find schools with an astrophysics UG major. It is a ridiculous filter. Astrophysics is a grad school focus, not UG. Physics. That should be the focus. Most physics depts offer a few UG astrophysics courses.
But…it is not a very employable field. Even though that is what my ds loves, it is very unlikely that is the direction he will pursue. He is hoping to do a nuclear REU this summer. He is still processing his choices. He has enjoyed the particle research he has been doing, but again, employability is a question.
D is taking the IB Spanish B exam. $223!
@hadmeathello Well astrophysics is a really fun subject.
I think it’s fairly typical for kids this age to still be making up their mind about what they want to do. It’s really hard to “make up your mind” what you are going to major in at 17. Encourage her to go to school where she can’t declare a major till she is a sophomore. (Rice would be a good example.) Or can change majors either. My son had no idea except “somewhere in STEM” until this fall. Now we are working on a CS or maybe CS/linguistics major direction. But I’m not counting my chickens yet and am still pushing schools where he can make up his mind once he gets there.
You are all quite lively this morning.
@motherofdragons The visual of computer flying out window, sulfur floating from nostrils, $314 test…I want to go hide at cross-fit. =))
@hadmeathello =)) Add another tab to the infamous excel. Don’t you love it when you think you are going to be getting some sleep and they bounce over with a thought then bounce back off all gleeful? We, on the other hand, get to sit there shell shocked for a couple of hours wondering what just happened to us.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Very logical advice you provided. I agree with you completely on the employability aspect. Our kids are all going to have many different areas that interest them and some of the interests I believe they will have to accept as hobbies. They go off to college, make friends and become exposed to another area they had not considered. Suddenly, it sounds very interesting. I saw this happen to many of my friends back in the day. Suddenly all the other majors seemed more interesting than their own and kids changing majors like crazy. Smart, creative and curious kids want to explore the world. I do believe it is important as kids try to navigate their way through this process that they take into account their employment options.
H returned with doughnuts from the very over the top super huge sized doughnuts place. The dragon is now in a happy sugar coma.
Finished the midterm, got a 92. Finished the powerpoint and submitted it. Still want to throw the computer out the window but it did not disconnect during the midterm so I am thankful for that.
D17 asked me how to send a transcript for one of her friends (she’s on full-blown helper mode for her friends now) and I remembered I hadn’t sent the request for the Northeastern transcript, so I showed her how I do it and she went to show her friend how to do it, so that was a win-win.
IB for credit-yep, that’s something we’ll have to weigh, I didn’t think about that. Probably still not worth it. Ok, off to sleep off the doughnut…
Can someone summarize the feedback that you can get, WRT submissions of LORs and transcripts etc? Either on the common app or naviance.
Does it change once you’ve submitted your app, and/or marked it as submitted in the common app?
Currently, we have a bunch of “colleges I’m applying to”. But none are submitted yet. So I’m not sure if there’s any feedback we can get yet.
If I click on “detailed status” on naviance, it just says all apps are “pending”, with no check marks anywhere.
Would the “letters of recommendation” page change when a teacher uploads a LOR?
Also - what’s this talk of “portals”, I guess where the school you’re applying to will show you your app status? I assume that’s only after you submit. Is it easy to find the portal / do they tell you about it?
Thanks!
@thshadow In Naviance, you need to go in and manually change status to app submitted. Then school materials can be processed (school report, transcript, etc). On the LOR page, it will tell you if the teacher has submitted the requested LOR. Once the school submits their materials, it will change to submitted under those items (something like initial materials and transcript). You also need to specifically request an transcript to be sent to the school. It isn’t automatic. Some schools charge a small fee for each. You should be able to order in Naviance, but pay through school’s payment system.
Shortly after the college receives the app, they will email portal log-in instructions so that you can check the status of the application.
@thshadow – We are using common app not Naviance for LoRs. When you “assign” a teacher etc to be a recommender, they get an email & then they can log on to the common app - you should see “Assigned” and then Not started, Started or Submitted - regardless of whether you have submitted the common app to a college.
@itsgettingreal17 - what about actually submitting the app? 
I would have thought that LORs etc would get uploaded, and could be ready to go, independent of when you submit the app. So I could imagine that somewhere it could say “LOR uploaded”, even before you submit your app. But maybe that’s not how it works.
@thshadow We obviously don’t use naviance, but as a counselor I could see that LOR had been uploaded before hitting submit. So if your school doesn’t use naviance, they may already have been uploaded.
In our school, LORs get uploaded as they are received by GC, as long as transcript request has been submitted by student. The GC doesn’t wait until the rest of app has been completed. D has about 7 schools listed on common app, none of which have been completed or submitted, but her LORs have all been uploaded. You can see it in the common app when you click on a particular school in the “my colleges” section. It lists all the elements needed for the application such as “writing supplement” (marked “incomplete” for D) and “Recommenders and Ferpa” (marked “ready” - i.e., LOR has been uploaded.) But again, this is how it is in our school. It is dependent on the GC uploading the rec.
Our Naviance doesn’t show whether LORs have been uploaded.
@thshadow I thought the same thing about LORs and other material being ‘ready to go’ before the app is actually submitted. For us, nothing will get sent from the school until the app is sumitted (caveat: If it is not a CA school, then our transcripts, etc. are sent as soon as they get to the transcript request). Also, for us, we do not move schools to “Schools I’m Applying To”. That is done by our HS when we submit a paper transcript request to the GC office secretary. So, you see, it seems like no 2 HSs are the same, and it is probably best that you talk to your kid’s GC for the specifics. This is also a good reason not to wait. But, once you get the first one through, it will all a little more smoothly.
For portals, it’s as described above. Pretty simple, and this is actually where I go to look for feedback and what’s missing. Some will send you emails when something has changed, signaling you to look at the portal. Others seem to like you to find out by chance.
It’s all sufficiently confusing.
@Aida - thanks for that. So in the common app, when I see a green checkmark by the “Counselor” report, that means she’s uploaded it. For the other references, I have a yellow circle.
For people with Naviance - once the LOR is uploaded, does the common app actually list the teachers that have done it? Or does it just change that circle from yellow to green when you have the number of required LORs?
D is taking 5 IB tests and 4-5 AP tests, so we are looking at around $2K in test fees. Every college in our state gives 24+ college credits for the IB diploma, so it is considered a good deal relative to college tuition.
If it were a single course vs. the diploma when planning to attend a college with free tuition/fees, I might skip it as well. Also I think HL science over prepares students for 1st year college science but doesn’t cover the exact same material like AP does. So, Bio 101 (or whatever #) would likely still be needed if required for the degree program.
@MassDaD68
What about the smaller MA public colleges?