Thank you @mommdc, my daughter actually is doing well in Pre-Cal now and she probably spent double amount of effort in Chem and get As on test review worksheets but still failed the tests… I just desperately wanted to help her!
@jjkmom Is she just getting so nervous that she can’t remember the material during the test?
@jjkmom , have you tried a tutor? My heart breaks for your daughter and you. Have you and she met with the teacher?
What about an online course to help like edx…etc, poke around the Well Trained Mind Forum and see what the homeschoolers are using…
@jjkmom I understand your daughters trouble with Honors Chemistry. Our class’s two previous units on Moles and Stoichiometry were very math-oriented. When I took the Moles test, I received a 48%. Which was mainly due to the fact that I ran out of time. If it wasn’t for my teacher allowing to retake the test, which she normally doesn’t allow anyone to do, I would have kept that 43%. Since the week I took the test was the week before Spring Break, as in the week all of the teachers decide to finish all of their current units in order to not give us any homework, I was studying everyday. I had three tests and two quizzes that week. When I retook the test, I got an 83%. So, it was really more of a stress-related issue. But I would say that if your daughter is really struggling in Chem, this is a definite indicator that she shouldn’t do AP Chem. It sounds like to me that she might have testing anxiety when it comes to Chem. I do as well. She’s doing her homework well, but she starts to stress once the test comes. I would say to make sure she is calmed down before a test. This is a very stressful time for most students as finals are starting!
Thank you @RyanG1207 , @VANURSEPRAC and @ak2018 !
My DD’18 goes to after school where there is homework helper/tutor if students have questions. I ask them to test and help prepare her for CHEM test, she did fine and seems to understand the concept. But somehow when she take the school exam, she said she couldn’t finish the question and teacher doesn’t give partial credit. Like what @ak2018 experienced, she did poorly (20%) on Moles and Stoichiometry test and that’s class average!! There are couple major problems with this class, 1), this is 1st period, her teacher often be late or absent from the class due to his young toddlers and commute situation; 2), 1st period students complained but shared what’s happening with later periods students, so other two CHEM H periods are consistently do better and know what’s expected. 3), her teacher believes self-study like college students, therefore he often assign homework on new materials without teaching them during class. The last one, teacher wants students to go to his after school homework help session where he has AP Chem students tutor the students!
@jjkmom I feel like I would hate that kind of teaching.
I’m kind of excited for the next book we’re going to be reading in English. It’s Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Yes, we’re reading the book that the movie was based off of.
Just watched that movie for the first time yesterday!
DS’s class just finished Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and are working on Night by Elie Wiesel. I think they just have Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie and Outliers by Malcolm
Gladwell left for the year.
As you can tell, their Language Arts and Social Studies classes work closely together so they have worked in order historically through many books this year that matched up with the time period they were studying in SS.
@RoonilWazlib99 I actually meant to post this in HS Students Class of 2018 Thread, but it’s fine. I still haven’t watched the full movie, but I wil after reading the book. I actually read both Frankenstein and Night earlier this year and they both had excellent messages. We’ve also read Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and we just recently finished The Tradegy of Julius Caesar. All of those books also had brilliant messages.
Spring break college trip went well for our '18 and his dad! They ended up not being able to visit all the colleges they wanted, but did get to go to Georgia Tech, Duke, Virginia Tech, UVA, and Johns Hopkins.
After visiting and learning more, his order that he has placed them in terms of his interest in attending for Mechanical Engineering (at this point - we all know it could change!) is:
- Virginia Tech
- Johns Hopkins
- Duke/Georgia Tech tied
- UVA - probably not applying
He went into it thinking Georgia Tech was going to be his favorite and they definitely had lots of pros for him (co-op opportunities, quality of faculty and academics, etc), but he really didn’t like the campus. We’ll see how he feels about that going forward, but I can say that he RAVED about Virginia Tech.
He absolutely fell in love with the campus (said it is the most gorgeous campus he’s seen), the people (super friendly), the facilities (could not get over the magnitude and awesomeness of the Ware Lab), the opportunities, etc. Really everything about it. He called me and jokingly said we might as well put a down payment there now because he is so excited about it.
He was always looking for a school that does Formula SAE as cars are his passion and he was really impressed with the amount of opportunities like Formula SAE that are at VT (Formula SAE, Baja SAE, Electric Car, Concrete Canoe, Planes, etc). They actually got to talk to some of the captains of the teams who were working in the Lab as they took their tour and my husband said the one our son spent the most time talking to said to him, “Man, we need you on our team! You’ve got some great ideas already!”
Before going he made plans to attend various information sessions and was able to actually schedule a one-on-one meeting with someone in the Engineering department at Johns Hopkins. He was impressed and my husband said he did a great job presenting himself which is nice. It was hard to pin someone down, but he persisted for a couple weeks, making phone calls and sending emails to various people until he finally got a response. Proud of his perserverance!
He also had to do his track workouts for his high school team while on visits and happened to meet the coach at Georgia Tech on Sunday when he was out on the track. The coach and my husband started chatting, but when they found out our son was a prospective student, they had to stop because it was a dead period and no contact is allowed. They did get to see part of his workout, though! Then again at Virgina Tech the team was practicing, but the coach told him it was fine for him to do his workout as well. He also left him alone after he found out he was a high schooler. On Friday (first day after the end of the dead period), he was doing his workout at Johns Hopkins and one of the teams that shares the track was there, but he thinks it was Loyola and not JHU. JHU is probably the only place he really would have a shot to participate in track and field if he wanted to, but he will probably put most of his effort into the Formula SAE teams. It was still fun for him to be out training and see the college level workouts and facilities.
Our next college tours will be in the midwest. His list so far includes Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Northwestern, Purdue, and University of Michigan. Any others you all have experience with that you think he should take a look at?
What a great college trip @RoonilWazlib99 ! Sounds as if he got a good feel for some schools. We are taking our DD’18 t her DD’12’s graduation in five weeks. We will try to visit some East Coast schools while we are out there. As of now, she seems more interested in the West. But, kids change.
@RoonilWazlib99 It’s really great that your son and husband got to visit Virginia Tech. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but it seems that your son and I both share the same interest in major choice, Mechanical Engineering. It seems he’s interested in Formula Cars and SAE and I’m interested in Robotics, a branch of ME. I live in the state of Virginia and, as you can see from my profile pic, Virginia Tech is my first choice college! I actually just asked my parents last night if we could squeeze in a family college tour trip to Virginia Tech and one or two other colleges (GMU, UVA, or VCU) right before I start my summer class. They, thankfully, said yes! This will not only be a good opportunity for me, but also my little brother, who is a class of 2020’er, and will be a freshman in high school. I’ve seen pictures of the campus, and yes, it is very beautiful. The people there, I’ve heard are very nice and have what we southerners call “southern hospitality”. Unlike some UVA students, VT students don’t come off as slightly snobby. I’ve met some UVA and they are some of the most stereotypically southern people I’ve ever met. Not saying all UVA students are like that, but I wouldn’t be really ecstatic to go there. They’re know as more of a party school anyway. I can’t wait to tour the campus.
Awesome, ak2018! He lives and breathes cars! He bought his own car last year and fixed it up (completely replaced front bumper and impact absorber), fixed headlights (they are ones that go up and down and they were only staying up), fixed door handles, and lots of other stuff. I think I’ve mentioned before that he does community service every Saturday as well, volunteering with a group of older guys who hold an open garage for people in the community who can’t afford to go to a regular mechanic. He loves it! His dad just gave him permission to do an engine swap on his car as well, so he is looking forward to doing that - probably over the summer, he needs to find an engine hoist and some other things before he can start.
@ak2018 Just saw your edit! That’s actually one of the reasons he probably won’t be applying. He said it seemed pretty elitist and the engineering program wasn’t too impressive compared to what he had seen at other schools. He just didn’t think he would fit in there very well.
We used to live in North Carolina, so he is familiar with the southeast and that is one of the reasons he is looking there in particular.
@RoonilWazlib99, might interest your son
http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/MEMS/
Pitt mechanical engineering
http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/FSAE/
Pitt Formula SAE
@RoonilWazlib99 It sounds like your son is definitely heading in the right direction when it comes to ME. Hopefully, we’ll both see each other at VT one day!
@ak2018 - Wouldn’t that be fun if you guys did end up there?!
My husband also mentioned that the way they do roommate selection/designation is different now than when we went to school. Apparently there is a big online group of kiddos admitted to the colleges and then they all sort of talk about their likes/dislikes, interests, etc and choose their own roommates? Has anyone had a kid go through that? It sounds like a good idea, but is so different from the three question survey my college did: Do you smoke? Are you neat or messy? Do you stay up late/wake early?
@RoonilWazlib99 That’d definitely be fun!
And I believe I know what you’re talking about. Usually, those online groups take place on Facebook. I’ll probably join one when it comes time to choose my roommate. Either that or I’ll just do the roomate compatibility survey, like you described. All I can say is, I hope my roommate isn’t a person that likes to wake up at 7am. I’m a definite night-owl and have had my fair share of all-nighters. I’m also not a morning person.
@RoonilWazlib99 Also, is your son taking any Engineering classes? Specifically PLTW? I’m planning on taking two engineering classes next year, one being PLTW Principles of Engineering.
The only engineering-type course his school has is IB Computer Science and no, he’s not taking it. Perhaps he will choose to take it senior year.
This year he’s taking Honors Language Arts, Honors Social Studies (the only honors courses his school has), Spanish 3, Algebra 2, Chemistry, and Physics.
Next year he has selected IB English (two year course), IB American Studies, IB Physics (two year course), IB Chemistry (two year course), IB Spanish (could be one or two years - he’s not sure if he will continue in senior year), and IB Math (two year course).