I, too, want my daughter to have some fun in college. Not too much, though.
In terms of romanticized visions of college, mine has a simple request: That there be boys who may actually ask her out. She is very pretty (if I do say so myself) and the only girl in her CCP Physics class - apparently that combo is the equivalent of being sprayed with Boy Be Gone. She says she’d like to have at least one date before she graduates. I told her I didn’t have a date until I hit college, and then made up for lost time. =))
@dadotwoboys, welcome back! Glad you guys made it through Irma OK. Here is the prompt for the NM essay:
To help the reviewers get to know you, describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you. Use your own words and limit your response to the space provided.
My D is just going to use her Common App essay (which is almost finished!) for this prompt.
Thank you @suzy100. I think he has an essay that will work for that, but if not, it’ll give him something to do today. AS I said, he hasn’t heard the official word on NMSF, but we know his index is above what appears to be the cutoff.
Supposed to do a tour of UF on Friday, but not sure if it is still happening. Public universities in Florida open back up for administrative purposes today and for classes tomorrow. Guess we’ll give them time to get their act together before getting in touch.
Saw in the paper today that public schools remain closed here until Monday because some still don’t have power and others were used as shelters and need to be cleaned up before becoming usable as a school again.
I called NMSC bright and early this morning while drinking my coffee. S is in, and they’ve advised me to “reach out to the school.”
I suspect that the school will notify him today, so I’ll reach out tomorrow if they don’t. It’s their first rodeo, plus there’s a new Principal this year, so while I’m impatient (!), I’m not angry. It’s time to git 'er done is all.
@dadotwoboys Glad to hear you came out ok from the hurricane. We had a similar experience with Hurricane Rita. We were part of the mass evacuation from Houston when it was a Cat 4 with a bulls eye on us. Gun shy from the Katrina devastation and DD was a newborn so we headed east to family in Baton Rouge… To have the landfall shift east and follow us. A couple years later Ike (a strong cat 2) is heading for Houston and DH swears he’s never evacuating again. The eye went over us on that one and I still remember the sound. At the height of the wind DH says he’s never staying for one stronger that that again. :))
My first time checking in since last week. DS took the ACT this weekend and said it was horrific. He was pretty well prepped and had hit his target score consistently on the practice tests leading up to it. Reading around on reddit boards it seems to be the consensus that this one was a doozy. Hoping for a generous curve or we will be at it again in October. :-/ He already has a decent score but still shooting for that Presidential scholarship to Alabama.
@dadotwoboys Welcome back. Evacuating from a natural disaster is terribly stressful, but then having that natural disaster hunt you down?? ^#(^ I hope everything is back to normal soon in your world.
@1822mom I feel for you D. I broke my leg badly in January, and I tell ya, the recovery was not fun. (I’m still not 100%, but getting close.) Being restricted like that messes with your head. Add in teen hormones and the stress of massive changes coming up, I can only imagine what’s going on with your D. Poor thing. Sounds like you are being as patient and understanding as humanly possible. Bless you.
H and I are attending a reception at D’s school this afternoon for the NMSFs and their families. When D was a freshman, there were 14 NMSFs in our large school district, but as school budgets have been slashed, numbers of NMSFs have plummeted. So now this year there are 6, and D is the only girl. Rather sad.
I was expecting this to be a very high NMSF year for S’s school, given the larger class size and the way this particular class has scored on standardized exams all the way through high school. They ended up with 18 NMSF, which is more than last year (16, although I mistakenly thought it was 17 for a while) but not close to the 25 from a few years ago.
@TexasMom18 that’s good to know that you heard this recent ACT was a bear. One of my D’s good friends is super bummed because she thought she did awfully on it. I’ll let her know there’s hope!
So lots of anecdotal reporting of lower NMSF numbers at certain high schools, but we know the number of NMSF in each state has not changed significantly, so they must be somewhere.
@vistajay Interesting. My guess would be that the higher cutoffs, at least here in CA, will concentrate the NMSF numbers at powerhouse high schools, especially those with dedicated prep programs. I’m also guessing that it’s harder for the typical "average excellent’ kid to qualify on general brilliance alone. S cleared it by a point, but I bet he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t done significant prep first.
@TexasMom18 my DD came out of the ACT on Saturday laughing…she was like “OMG what was the deal with that math section!” She is confident she did worse on the math, but then she thought the reading section was easier. So overall she says that she doubts she raised her composite. I think only 2 or 3 of her schools superscore the ACT.
I think “we” are done after this result. One of her safeties, LSU, ranks in her top 5. So she is happy to let things fall where they may. Hopefully your son hits his mark and he can call it a day!
@vistajay Right. I’d assumed that the private schools in our area would have picked up the slack, but that definitely does not seem to be the case (our local Catholic HS went from, I think, 10 to 3!). I’m eager to do a little research and see where the numbers are shifting to.
Our local private school went from seven all the way down to one! And zero homeschoolers after three last year. I’m very interested to see the whole Texas release to see where the NMSF went up. I’m working off very limited data from a picture jswani sent me.
It will be interesting to see how the NMSF shake out here in AZ, too. We have a growing number of BASIS schools that are very highly ranked nationally. I will be anxious to see if the lion’s share proportionately go to them. D18’s school has same number as last year (3), but only a graduating class of 72 so not too bad.
I’m not all that optimistic I will ever see a comprehensive list for AZ, though, so I may just have to wonder…
@mominaz
I was just about to type exactly what you typed. The per student metric for BASIS schools is remarkable, whether compared to a district school or a"traditional" private.
I think in many states, we have seen this concentration effect. I can not recall the post, but in CA there are schools with 40+ NMSF. Balance that with @DiotimaDM 's 0 or 1.
I dont have a lot of data but my run of the mill, average public high school with about 450-500 per class went from 1 NMSF 2 years ago, to 4 last year, and 4 again this year. So that accounts for 3 in WA state. Maybe students at my school do better on the new PSAT due to teaching styles, or maybe its just coincidence, as I only have 3 years of data.
I didn’t even bother grilling my daughter too much about the ACT - she was taking it to increase merit, and most of her schools superscore. She did say she finished it all, but the last couple math problems were Hail Marys. :-SS
