@keepmecruisin I waited until after the June ACT. Our school ended right before Memorial Day (but we go back in mid-August, ugh).
Some people are helicopter moms. I’m more like Air Force One. =))
All is good in Guatemala. This service group has been going there for 20 years or so. So, they “know the ropes.”
My D is somewhere in the process of finishing the Common App and has written at least a 1st draft of the essays. I’m trying not to be that “helicopter parent” she always claims me to be. 8->
S plans to have the rough draft done by the 30th. I emailed his other college choice to ask about essays. Was told, “we don’t require them but we’ll look at them if you send them.”
I told my D that this weekend NOTHING is happening until we have a “college conference”. She has some applications that can go in July 1. She works full-time M-F and starts back at school July 25th. She needs a plan to get everything done, because once school starts she will be extremely busy.
I haven’t been too much of a control freak with this college search - but I’m definitely driving this train. In every other aspect, my daughter handles everything. I can’t hardly get her to ask me for help, but she just won’t take any initiative with this process.
Squeezed a non-essential college visit in yesterday. Stopped at Sam Houston State University on the drive home from HS cheer camp in Dallas. It was a big NO. It really wasn’t a contender to begin with but more like an “I guess we should give it a look” school. DD said she likes SFA or UTSA more, so no reason to pick SHSU.
^^^I think it is just as valuable learning what you don’t want in your search of finding what you do want!
Re: helicopter - S says I’m not nowhere near a helicopter parent, but he knows he can call in air strikes if necessary. 
@labegg – DW went to UTSA!
Not nowhere? Ugh!! 
This is what happens when you can’t decide if you want to say “nowhere near” or “not anywhere near” and you’re not careful during editing.
My daughter just finished finals (had to double up since she’s missing her last week of school) and is getting ready to head off to Girl’s State. It’s a great opportunity, I hope she uses it to its fullest advantage and pushes herself out of her comfort zone. She feels good, finished her final quarter with straight A’s and will end up with probably one B+ for the year (not complaining, she had a rigorous schedule). She has not started her Common App or her Pitt App yet…I’m allowing her to take a breather since school just finished and she’s immediately off to a new adventure, but it will be her priority particularly for Pitt which is arguably the school that will be the biggest challenge to get into and happens to be her 1st Choice at the moment.
S has finally settled on his summer schedule. Earlier in the spring, he was talking about taking 9-12 hours at the CC, and I’d been arguing that this was too much. He’s decided to stick with just 6 hours - his EMR class and US Government, which means he doesn’t have to take AP Gov next year.
He will also be getting his driver’s license and attending a couple of lectures for UCR’s Future Physicians program. He was fully accepted to the latter, but it partially conflicts with the EMR class, so he’s only doing half of the program, and will participate fully next year.
I think that’s plenty for him. 
We had to do his fall registration paperwork for the CC before school let out, and in order to do that, we dove into core and degree requirements for UNM with an eye toward positioning him for greatest flexibility at UNM.
We’ve since learned that the EMS degree he was interested in isn’t a good choice for a pre-med student, so he’s letting that go, albeit with a few regrets.
Instead, he can do any of the following:
- Graduate in three years with the major and minor of his choice, plus an Honors concentration. At the moment, that probably looks like a Psych major, drama minor.
- Graduate in four years with a double major, or a major and two minors. A second major is probably more helpful career-wise than having two minors.
We’re not sure if UNM allows him to use leftover scholarship semesters for grad school. We think not, so there’s an argument for doing the double major even if it takes longer because it’s free and gives him options. We like options.
I know I’ve said similar here before, so please forgive the redundancy. I’ve gone down so many rabbit holes that writing things down helps solidify it in my own head.
@DiotimaDM , I looked at the EMS degree at UNM and came to the same conclusion.
Our S18 should be getting his license soon. He didn’t have a great end to the year, although I don’t think his gpa dropped. His tendency to procrastinate makes me think that a LAC like McDaniel is probably a better match for him than Fordham, where we’re visiting next week. Fortunately he liked McDaniel. I’m not sure his gpa would be good enough for Fordham anyway, despite an SAT score near the median.
Also, it might be nice to take a lighter course load when taking science classes and labs.
My D took bio and chem with lab, and a language class. Although it only added up to 13 credit hours, the labs and recitation for the two science classes added another 7 hrs per week of class time, not including lab reports.
Having AP credit for some of her pharmacy prerequisite classes also enabled her to take some ASL classes she was interested in.
OK, I just need to rant. D has about 25 kids over here right now, hosting a party for a friend who is moving away this summer. I was talking to some of the kids and learned that a girl that D has gone to school with since elementary school, and who gets grades comparable to D’s, has been taking classes at the local CC just to boost her rank. I knew this was happening with some kids, but not to this extent! This is a really smart girl who should be taking AP Physics at the high school, but is taking regular physics at the CC because she’s sure to get an A and it’s weighted like an AP course.
I’m just so angry about it. I just think it’s wrong, so I have not had my D play that game. This girl should be taking the AP Physics course offered at the high school. It’s taught by a great teacher. But no, those in the know are taking this route to get their kid’s rank up and into selective schools. I wish the AO’s would recognize what was happening and stop rewarding it.
Rant over.
If a school offers AP Physics and some of the kids are taking CC classes for the same course, then that’s looks like an obvious “avoidance” of the AP class to me. I’d think an AO could sniff that out when comparing transcripts from the same school. To me, there’s a right way and wrong way. And I think your D is doing it the right way.
That’s discouraging. At least you know your D will learn physics really well, which is the point of school after all. I’m glad our school stopped ranking. The last year they did ranking was when D18 was a freshman. I’m not sure what problems they were having, but it was probably something like that. They want the kids to focus on getting a good education, not on acquiring certain stats for college.
@suzy100 , this also happens at my daughter’s performing arts charter school. The school just expanded to a high school and my daughter’s class is the 2nd graduating class. They have dual enrollment at Drexel, Cabrini and community collage. My daughter trains in ballet/modern as a major and also after school 5 days a week, so she cannot take any of the dual enrollment, but does take all honors and the offered AP. Despite having a high GPA, she has now fallen in to the mid 20’s in rand because dual enrollment gets a boost. I understand your frustration.
Our school doesn’t rank so can avoid this game, but college physics at the CC would be a much harder (and better!) course than AP Physics at my son’s school. How could university’s possibly know this about every school around?