@RoonilWazlib99 Woo Hoo! Congrats to your DS18!
Anyone else’s kid taking the SAT tomorrow? I’m glad the testing site is our home school, but 7:45 is early to be anywhere on a Saturday.
Son and spouse at Miami OH today for “junior day”. I hate missing out on this stuff.
D and I (and my 19 year old son who is learning about colleges but is on a different trajectory) are leaving for the Great White North today. We’ll spend three days visiting McGill and three days with U of Toronto. My two teens will visit classes and spend as much time on campus as possible. We’ll throw in a little fun while we’re there. And maybe buy D an appropriate winter coat, as she’s very likely to go to school in Canada. I’m guessing now would be the time for end-of-season sales??
Good luck to the kids taking the SAT today, and safe travels for those heading out on visits!
D is going with a friend next weekend to visit schools around Chicago (which she has already seen and likely not interested in, but they will have fun), and then we will visit some schools in the south over her spring break next month.
I had a nice little moment of panic earlier this week when she texted me that she had forgotten to turn in her AP registration and $$, and the date had passed. (!!!) Luckily, they still let her turn it in. This child is aging me.
@suzy100 - I have had many moments of panic since October as we had to pay for IB exams way back then. The parents have to log in and pay from their accounts and I have had moments of wondering if I actually did it or just thought I did it. I finally went in and looked at my online receipts and saw we did pay. Now I’m just hoping I selected the right two exams for this year!!
Have just started catching up on this forum. Have a junior son graduating next year so DS18. Lurking on these forums was very helpful when my DD15 was doing her college search. Despite at first not knowing at all until end of summer of 2014 where she wanted to apply and for what, she did great and it all came together, and she was accepted early decision at the school of her choice in the major of her choice.
Trying to help my son navigate now is tougher, he is a very very quiet sort.
My son is doing great GPA-wise. Reasonable extracurriculars, for a quiet kid. He did well enough on PSATs to start the college junk mail, but may not make the local NMSF cutoff. He has not taken the SAT yet.
He is not taking the SAT this morning either.
@suzy100 @RoonilWazlib99 - your “did we pay for it story” of panic went the other way for us last night. DS18 took the subject tests in Jan and we all thought he’d signed up for March SATs at the same time. Puzzled he had no e-reminders finally last night he checked - and with horror realized - nope! And late registration was two weeks ago. My husband (DH?) had helped him register for Jan (since he doesn’t have a credit card yet), so partly blames himself for not remembering they didn’t register for both types of tests at once. So, no SAT for him today. Guess we didn’t even try to show up before 8AM, maybe we should have tried that.
Now debating advising him to take the May SAT (which is same week as 4 AP exams), vs June - but that then wouldn’t get scores back until July? And now there is the August option.
Feeling like horrible parents here! Know from my daughter they have to own the process, we can only do so much coaching and help tracking deadlines - so good as an early lesson for him? Fewer chances for a great superscore SAT though.
Best wishes to everyone taking the SAT today!
@MDSparkle, that’s totally something I would do. I feel for you!
@suzy100 DS18 points out he did register for his APs by himself last month. Sigh. Just too much to track I guess.
So my son took the SATs yesterday and I have a question. If most colleges “superscore” the ACT/SAT, what is the point of sending them the scores through the free score report? You will still have to send them the other scores, because I am assuming that being his first time, his score will go up and I will have to either choose or send all.
Why not send them when they are free? Some schools see this as ‘demonstrated interest’ also if your kid might be in the range for National Merit send the score now for free, one less thing to worry about later.
Not all schools will require that you send all SAT tests, so that’s why we never used the free report. We wanted to see the scores first and, where permitted, just send the one(s) we wanted.
I’d love to know your opinion of McGill. Just put it on our list!
S18 took the SAT again this past Saturday. Surprised he was up for it since he just came off third quarter exams, but no complaints from him. He felt very good about the test. His first SAT was plenty good enough, but he wants to bump the score up 40 points or so if he can. Now he can relax and enjoy the spring culmination of a number of his extra curricular activities. Only thing he still needs to do are subject tests I guess. Will have to look into whether any schools on his list require them.
go2boy took the SAT Saturday and felt pretty good about it. Then again, he’s the optimist’s optimist so we shall see! Anyone doing any college tours over spring break? We are heading to the midwest to look at Loyola Chicago, Marquette and Xavier.
@gotomom D and I are in Montreal, visiting McGill right now. U Toronto later in the week.
@transitmom This is our second visit. I’ll have more to report later this week, but I will say that Montreal is Nirvana for college students. It’s very sophisticated, with art and culture everywhere, yet the people are open and casual and friendly. It’s not that expensive as cities go, either. Public transportation is easy, food is great, and the city is very safe.
McGill is in the middle of downtown, and is very much integrated into the city. Students who thrive here are mature and independent, and housing is only guaranteed for the first year. Very international student body. You have to like winter, though. BRRRR
D & H are headed out at the end of the month for spring break to visit 3 schools in 7(!) days. I could not convince them to squeeze even one more school into that time frame, sigh… They like to take things very leisurely, with a day off in between each school 8-| I suppose the bright side is they will be really taking the time to see and explore the campus and surrounding area. They do have to do a bit of travelling though, they are going to U of Puget Sound, then to Western Washington U, and then to U of Denver. And, I’m plotting to pull her out of school twice sometime before the end of April to take her to see Occidental and U of Redlands, both of which should be doable in a day from home.
Meanwhile, we got her ACT scores back from Feb and, same composite, but a much more even distribution, compared to June’s lopsided score. Math, which she was supposed to be focusing on, only came up by one point, but science came up by 4. Of course that means her reading and english fell. So I can’t decide how I should really feel about it. Her superscore did go up by 1, and most of her schools superscore the ACT, and I guess she does show some level of consistency. The score is good for sure, I’m not complaining (except for math, I’m still complaining about that 
) I guess I just feel kind of ambivalent about it at this point. I don’t want to worry about it any more. We’ve decided she’s done testing. The score should get her what she needs at most of the schools she’s aiming for, but it also means there are a few schools we’re taking off the list because they don’t offer a lot of merit aid and her scores just aren’t high enough to make her competitive for the top awards. She is, fortunately, very practical in this sense. She only wants to apply to schools that are serious contenders financially. If they don’t work out, that’s one thing, but if there isn’t even a realistic chance? She doesn’t want to waste time or effort. No reaches for my girl.
So Mom has been back to the research bit, as I’ve been nervous that schools are dropping off the list, and soon the list will be too short. She is unconcerned as she can only go to one school anyway right? Right, yes, of course honey, just good to have options is all 8-}
@1822mom my ds16 only applied to one school. She was 100% sure that was where she wanted to go and it was affordable. She applied and was accepted early. If for some crazy reason there was a problem she’d still have time to apply to her second choice school where she was an auto admit. DS18 will only plans to apply to two schools he’s an auto admit to both and it’s the same application but one is more of a financial reach. So I don’t have an issue with ‘shot list’
@1822mom my D18 sounds similar to your D - solid English and Reading ACT subscores, Math lags but Science seems to be her real challenge. Any secret to the 4 point jump in Science? Hoping she cracks the code on the April ACT as she is flying back early from Mexico spring break to write it!
We are also from California and have a school budget that is in the UC range. Have casually visited SLO, SDSU, UCLA, UCSB, USSC. Waiting to lock down junior grades and ACT score before getting serious with potential options and further visits. My D’s also have Canadian citizenship so will likely have a look at McGill, UofT and UBC. @ShrimpBurrito please continue to give us your spark notes on the visits as they are very helpful!