Good luck on the last APs this week and congrats on all the graduations! S18’s graduation party was a big success. Over 100 people, lots of kids in the pool, pulled pork turned out great. Photo booth was not that popular. I guess they were too busy hanging out together. S18 has Calc BC today and French, then he is done! Graduation looming in less than 2 weeks!
@DavidPuddy so he has to take finals AND AP? That is overkill. At our school, if you take AP test you are exempt from the final. DS said last night “it’s so much all at once” to which my DH replied “welcome to college”. DS’ last AP test is today and last day of school is Friday. Just has one big project to wrap up and then a couple weeks off before graduation on June 1. The perks of being a senior who is exempt from finals. Underclassmen go until May 31 for finals.
D originally was signed up to take BC Calc and French today, but over the weekend we researched what credit she will receive for AP exams. It’s complicated, but she won’t get credit for Calc or Lang (scheduled later this week) so she is bailing on those. She’s still taking the French exam as a favor to her teacher, who asked her to take it. I wish we didn’t need to pay the fees for these exams so early. I still get a refund, but not for the full amount. Anyway, the relief on D has been palpable. Good luck to all the kids slogging through this week!
@Nomorelurker We had our grad party before because it honestly worked out better for our schedule. Several parties the same weekend as graduation so we just elected to have it earlier so more of his friends could make it. The actual day came down to the availability of the facility we rented. I had several people at the party (friends and parents) tell me they appreciated that the party was earlier and they thought it was smart to do it that way so…
Graduation for my S18 isn’t until the second week of June. So we are still slogging through APs. Two left on Thursday.Then finals and projects in all the classes. He has 6 AP classes, and took 5 AP exams. He has 5 finals to go with the AP exam. And several projects that seem like busy work at this point. I wish we could get a refund. I tried in late April to back him out of AP exams that won’t really help him with college credit, and school refused to let him back out/refund the cost of the test.
@nomorelurker I live in the DC area and haven’t heard any talk about higher acceptance rates being linked to politics. Georgetown has a similar result last year. Housing is particularly limited on campus, which results in a tightly run waitlist. They are admitting some transfer students. So if you child is really interested, I would consider applying next year.
Graduation is not until June 13 for us. Last day of class for seniors is June 6; our grad party is June 9. There is an all night grad party for the entire class starting at 1030 pm. That gives people enough time to have a nice family lunch or dinner (or both!) after the ceremony before the kids head off to their class celebration.
@S18D20mom , Yep, AP and finals. Also, as a private school, they “require” you to take AP the test if you take an AP class.
The silver lining is that most, if not all, of his AP tests will/can be used for credit for him.
To all those (including @TexasMom18 , @ShrimpBurrito, @vistajay and others) who chose to have parties before finals, AP testing, or graduation, my apologies. I understand now that maybe it was not possible or convenient for some to have parties afterward.
@VAmom23, what I read was not that there were higher acceptance rates due to politics, but that some speculated that there were higher numbers of applicants last year (the year of an election) and this year to schools in the D.C. area. I don’t know whether that was true or not but I do know Georgetown (and many schools outside Washington) set a record for low acceptance rates this year. May have nothing to do with politics, who knows.
@VAMom2015 based on the small sample size of my kids’ schools, urban schools are seeing a surge in popularity: Georgetown, GW, NYU, USC, BU, Tulane etc.
Graduation is 5/27 for DD but before that she is going on a 6-day rafting/kayaking trip with her American Wilderness class. So basically after this week she is done! I can’t believe it!
American Wilderness Class? Where do we sign up?!
DS has one more AP test tomorrow (econ) and then last day of regular classes for seniors is Tuesday. Finals are end of next week but he’s planning on exempting them. Then graduation! Between now and then we have final band concerts, senior awards, senior luncheons and church services. It’s jammed packed which means time will fly!
Looking forward to talking with my D tonight about that AP Calc exam she’s taking today. Teacher had another prep yesterday afternoon after yesterday’s APs. My D said that even the kid who has been struggling the most in class is routinely getting 4s on the sample APs, and more than 80 percent of the class is getting 5s, so I would have thought she could have taken it down a notch so the kids could study for their other tests or at least just relax before the next day’s worth of tests. I’m really shocked none of the kids (or other teachers) have given any pushback. Also, I’ve begun to wonder whether the kids are being taught the concepts or just the mechanics (teaching to the test). There was a thread yesterday (day before?) where a kid was saying how much harder college is (particularly for engineers), and how in college calculus a lot of times the class average is a 60 or lower (so the teacher then scales) because the kids are taught the concepts and then on the tests they have to take those concepts and apply them to new situations. I can imagine that a kid who gets a 5 on AP Calc because the mechanics have been drilled into him/her, could get a huge shock adjusting to that environment.
@Nomorelurker Sorry, my post wasn’t clear. When I was referring to acceptances, I meant acceptance of an offer of admission by applicants. Area universities (of which there are many) had higher yields, but there is no talk here of a causal link to politics. The same result can be seen in other schools (outside the area) as well.
@melvin123, I think my son’s school is on the opposite end of the spectrum re: AP Calc! 1) They have not been doing prep sessions and 2) I think it is probable that only the highest-performing couple of students will get 4s or 5s, but I am hoping to be proven wrong!!!
@SnowflakeDogMom @BingeWatcher You didn’t ask me. 
Send a PM to @CCadmin_Sorin with your new email and he will make the change.
@melvin123 and @pickledginger, S took AP Calculus today as well and said that the majority felt it was more difficult than expected. A 4 would be great at this point, even a 3 might get him out of a basic math requirement at UGA.
S got his dorm room reserved this week and the 5th and last AP test and last day of high school is TOMORROW! Whoo hoo!!!
@skieurope thank you - PM sent
@Nomorelurker and @melvin123, my son also said it was very, very hard. We will see. He hasn’t failed an AP test yet, but this may be the one! However, one benefit of staying in California for college is that he will get credit if he squeaks by with a 3. It’s kind of astonishing how beneficial 3s and above are on AP tests at UCs, compared to all of the OOS schools he looked at!
Concur with some of the AP Calc test feedback. The synopsis I got from DP Jr. was “We all felt it was much more difficult that the practice tests we had taken.”
The AP is curved so they could still get high scores. It sounds like there is consensus on the Calc test’s difficulty, so that might be a good thing for the curve!
Signed,
Miss Glass Half-full 