That’s one (the only?) area of stress our family does not seem to have to consider - retaking standardized tests. My S18 flirted with the idea of retaking the SAT for novelty reasons but that notion went nowhere. His initial sittings taken long ago for ACT and SAT will stand, and he has taken all the subject tests that he will take. Conversely, essays are going to be incredibly painful. Incredibly. Painful.
Thanks, guys. I just hope they are released soon.
She is listed as “check your registration” like she hasn’t taken it yet. I sit here and I think “I know she took it. I drove her there. I actually even watched her walk into the room, and saw them check off her name.”
@TexasMom2017 My daughter got the same composite twice … only the subscores changed. I think most if not all of her schools superscore, so that does help a bit. As I’ve said before, I’d DIE for some of the scores people are disappointed in, lol.
I feel like I’m in Vegas … “Come on, XX!” :))
@bearcatfan – try to hang in there – it was frustrating to wait for us too the last 2 times. Hope things work out nicely.
Even though I posted here yesterday I still forgot about the ACT scores until a few minutes ago, and I am quite sure S18 has not checked them yet. Can you tell that he is done with testing? But he got what he wanted from this test. He improved enough in science to bring his composite to a 35 and superscore to a 36 (just barely, with rounding up)! A bunch of the colleges on his list superscore so hopefully that will give him a boost.
@3scoutsmom, at our high school, DE US history is the same course as APUSH taught in the exact class by the same teacher. THe DE kids don’t take AP exam. That is the only difference.
And any course taken at jr coll not on the very limited DE list are not counted towards meeting high school requirements. She could take the the non dual credit jr college course and CBE credit but it is not weighted. No CBEs get weighted.
@BingeWatcher our school does not weight DE classes either so this class didn’t factor in into DS18’s GPA. It didn’t matter because he took a different AP class in that time slot so he wasn’t missing a weighted class. I’d strongly recommend taking the non dual credit jr college course and the CBE - she’ll still have the college credit for it without the stress!
@3scoutsmom, just hung up the phone at our local jr college dual credit office (and you know where I live). The man told me our ISD is the only ISD that uses their own curriculum but making sure they fulfill the must lighter curriculum of the jr college. The other local ISDs that are in my town (yes, 3 ISDs in this town) do not do that.
But if she does CBE it will factor in her GPA as not weighted and hurt it. I don’t know how much that would hurt her GPA race. Goal of top 2%.
Is taking DE USH in summer school an option? One of my Girl Scouts that was in a full IB program was able to do this, It was a lot of work because it was compressed but it was the only thing she had on her plate at the time.
@3scoutsmom, called dual credit man back. NO our ISD allows NO DE summer courses.
We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The kids in the other 2 ISDs have a much easier time.
@vistajay and others, my D18’s ACT score is not where she would like it for scholarships, her composite is 33 but science is at 29, would you mind sharing what your S18 did to improve his science? your input is much appreciated!
@sonoran , my son went from a 30 to a 34 in science. He did not take any ACT prep courses. But in the first test he ran out of time. To prepare for the second ACT he took a lot of practice tests so he could do a better job of pacing himself. My advise would be for your D to figure out her science weakness and work on that aspect while taking many practice tests in the weeks before the test.
For those of us anxiously awaiting AP Scores, here is a compilation of info that College Board has released so far re: score distributions:
https://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Service/2017-AP-Exam-Score-Distributions.php
( I found this info on a CC thread on the AP board:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/1999615-ap-exam-score-distribution-2017.html#latest )
If you do Twitter, you can follow Trevor Packer, head of AP, for real-time updates.
Congrats and best wishes to everyone getting their ACT scores today!
My two got their ACT scores back. Neither was quite good enough for where they want (sigh). Guess we’re still on the testing carousel. #1 got a 1410 on the SAT (750E/660M) and is retaking in Aug. and doesn’t want to try ACT again. Not sure what to do with #2. One on one tutor for math?
1
31 Composite
30 Eng
30 Math
35 Read
29 Sci
2
32 Composite
34 E
26 M (!!)
36 R
32 S
First time poster here but I have been lurking around on different threads for quite some time now.
I wanted to add in on the AP Chem & APUSH comments. My S18 took AP Chem last year and Dual Credit US. His Chem teacher was very good, very demanding, but the kids loved her and respected her. They were required to attended 2 mornings a week before school to serve as their lab time. At first S18 wasn’t thrilled about that but once in the routine he liked it.
The Dual Credit US was an easy online course taken through a local CC. He had a class time at school where they logged on to computers to work on assignments. This was not monitored really so he had to be disciplined to log on and work and also did a lot of it online at home in the evenings. The work was easy but very time consuming. A lot of reading and writing in online discussions and papers. He could easily do the work, but it took a lot of time.
So I suppose it does depend on the situation. S18 loved putting in the dual credit time and knowing he would receive college credit and not having to score a score on an AP test. He plans to take dual credit English comp, Government and Economics his senior year where he knows he will get credit and not have to take a test. His school weighs all dual credit courses the same as AP on the GPA scale.
Can you all think of a 3rd college for my son? He’s considered Franciscan and Furman but needs a 3rd. He wants to major in Japanese, stay within 500 miles of his southeast home. He has 1310 SAT and is homeschooled.He has fallen out of love with Belmont Abbey, his former 3rd college, due to research and the fact it appears to be Catholic in name only. Thanks in advance!
@ShrimpBurrito Thank you for the AP update. Bummer that BC and Lang and Comp aren’t among the updated.
And I wish all who are waiting for their ACT scores the best of luck.
@sushiritto The site will update as he tweets - he tweeted Biology stats and within 20 minutes they updated the site. Scores start coming in two weeks so I would hope we will see Calc and English stats soon.
Yeah, I’m just a little too involved. I’m off this summer and D has a full-time job. It’s made the dynamic a bit weird.
@apraxiamom Emory? The Oxford College might be an option.
@SC Anteater S15 had a lower than expected math ACT score because he didn’t finish in time. It was pretty shocking as that was a strength. He pretty much had no prep for ACT though. It really depends on what they are struggling with. Grabbing an ACT book with sample tests is the best way to evaluate and prep in my experience. Recreate the test environment as best as possible and then evaluate what problems were missed, what took a long time, what kind of mistakes were made. Practice those specific questions and similar questions to the ones that are being missed between taking sample tests. Cheap way to start anyway.