@dfbdfb if my daughter liked babysitting, I would have been totally great with her doing it. Lots of opportunities in our neighborhood and less driving for me. She tried it once and it wasn’t comfortable. Add a new babysitter to a home with a new dog and then come back a couple hours later than originally planned and it might not be a good idea.
D19 spend the first week with his grandparents in FL, then 2 weeks at a computer camp as a Counselor in training. With all his issues, the fact that he did ok made me happy. I actually paid for this, but worth it. This week he is home just hanging on his computer, and doing summer required Calc Work. In a week he leaves for Israel for a technology based trip for 3 weeks. Praying he doesnt get into trouble or lose anything . With my D, at 16 she was fully capable of packing herself, keeping track of everything, etc. With S, not as much. When he gets back i am meeting him and we are visiting RPI and either WPI or RIT. The problem with RIT is the day we want to visit is supposily for only rising seniors. After that he has 3 weeks to get all his other pre AP classwork done.
Ideally i would have liked him to get a job, but with the israel trip in the middle, and his issues, it did not happen. Also would like him to be better at driving. That so far is no happening either :(. some kids get it, and some just dont.
What really sucks is that for most of the summer i have to work my full time job, that includes travel at time, so i cant really do too much with him, or even if he had gotten a job, drove him , if he did not trust himself to drive.
@sdl0625 I’d be interested in a comparison between RPI and RIT if you do that. I know a decent amount about WPI because we have visited the school for numerous outings, and I’ve been to RPI with my older son. RPI and WPI have some similarities, but I think WPI feels smaller and more hands on. RPI seemed a bit more ambitious in what they are trying to accomplish.
I have not had a chance to visit RIT. I’d like to make a trek out that way to explore RIT and U of R. .
I’m somewhat interested in RPI, RIT and WPI for S19 as well, although they are probably all a little too far away from home based on his current preferences. Also, he might not be thrilled about the male-female ratio. Also, RIT would probably be the only one that he could both get into and afford. Anyway, we’re talking about driving to Canada next summer so that would be our chance to visit any upstate NY schools.
Actually, we are going to Massachusetts in a few weeks. Maybe I’ll suggest at least swinging by WPI. He’s likely to mostly apply to big public schools but I want him to see some other campuses.
My S’s summer job fell through so he is in the same boat as many of you. The employer decided that he didn’t want kids under 18. I’m hoping he can find something else but he won’t have his license until the end of summer and very little is close enough to get to without a car so options are limited.
We’ve got a couple more days of school so summer is almost here. I don’t want him to just spend the summer on the playground playing basketball all day like he did last summer but that is the path we are on. He would be perfectly happy playing basketball most of the time. with daily visits to the gym to work out. The only book I expect him to open is the required summer reading book, which he will probably read in August right before school starts. He did get one of the AP classes he signed up for so there will be some summer work there. I expect that to be done the week before school starts, as well.
We are not doing any test prep this summer. He will take the PSAT for the first time next fall and that will be our base for deciding what to do for prep. I anticipate that he will take the SAT and ACT next spring for the first time. We also aren’t thinking about college visits yet. There are a few possibilities for majors that we’ve been kicking around, but the list of schools would be different for each so we really aren’t ready to move on that either. We will probably start visits next spring.
FWIW, we followed this schedule for testing and visits with my older D who was a much better student than my S and was targeting more competitive schools. It worked just fine. We feel no need to be starting this early.
In my opinion RIT is not in the same category as RPI and WPI. RPI is the affordable baby brother of MIT. WPI is great for affordable computer science. Bothe RPI and WPI are high level rigor which explains their high ranking. RIT has a great program and are well known for their co-op program. All three have a co-op program but it’s required at RIT.
Check the specific major of interest of each school for the past ten year to their salary at graduation to see the difference between RPI and WPI against RIT to see how different they are.
Again, RIT is fine and a good program but not in the same league as RPI, and WPI.
No job for D19, who doesn’t turn 16 until October. She’s volunteering with a music festival stage crew, but that doesn’t really ramp up until the end of summer (it’s a week after Labor Day). Big 3-week vacay to Yellowstone, though! Then SAT prep in August. The last really free summer she’ll have, I think.
She ended up getting 4 As and 3 B-minuses, so at least better than freshman year. The B-minuses were in the core classes of math/science/Chinese, though. 
I’m fairly pleased that she did as well as she did. It’s hard for me, as an OCD perfectionist, to accept her outlook and way of doing things, but I’m working on it!
@MichiganGeorgia, there are actually quite a few schools that are instantly affordable with a 32 ACT—Alabama isn’t the only one that waived tuition for good test scores, it was just the arguably highest-profile one.
@dfbdb - I’m kind of afraid that any college that currently has 32 as the “magic” number is going to be raising it to 33 or higher…
Well, Alabama-Huntsville requires a 30, Central Arkansas requires a 30, Florida A&M requires a 29…Like I said, Alabama was perhaps the highest-profile school to offer full-tuition or its equivalent, but it’s not the only one, and while 32 seems widespread for those sorts of awards, it isn’t the magic number everywhere.
@MichiganGeorgia I think a sophomore who got a 32 will have no trouble getting at least a 33 by fall 2018 
Alabama definitely isn’t on S’s radar, but we probably need to start researching schools that offer fairly predictable merit awards as his list will include OOS options. He won’t be looking for full tuition, but would need at least a small merit award at public schools where the tuition is over $30K.
Hi! Just introducing myself here…my D19 recently got back from an E Coast college visits trip with my husband. We are doing this pretty early because she goes to camp for a month every summer and school vacation is just so short that we didn’t want to run out of time. We live in California and she’s saying now (as a rising 11th grader so things could change lol) that she wants to apply to several of the UCs but she also is in love with the city of Boston. She was really impressed with BU. She also wants to learn more about co-op programs because for her intended major (Bio) she feels like that could be useful. They looked at Drexel in Philadelphia on this trip too and she was more impressed with how they do their co-ops than Northeastern but that could just be how they presented it.
Jewish life will be very important to her as she’s super active in our synagogue, teaching Sunday school, active in youth group leadership, going to AIPAC to do advocacy this year, and also as an EC started an Interfaith club on campus. She also plays tennis (so far played 2 years JV and hopes to make varsity next year.)
She has taken ACT already and has a good score of 33 so now the goal is for her to continue with challenging classes and keep those grades up! She has a weighted 4.0 but got Bs in her AP classes (Bio & English) this past year. In 11th she’ll have a pretty challenging schedule of APs and IB classes.
Anyway…just glad to be here and I’m sure things will get more active in the months to come:-)
@JDCaliMom Welcome! Looking forward to sharing this journey with you all.
Welcome @JDCaliMom, your daughter sounds like an excellent student. A 33 on the ACT as a sophomore is impressive and she should have lots of good school choices to pick from.
My older son will be attending Northeastern, primarily because of the way they run their co-ops 
Feel free to ask any questions moving forward.
Hi all-
Can I ask what type of testing schedule rising Juniors are thinking of?
I was thinking D19 should take the SAT in August. I figured she can spend the rest of this summer prepping, and won’t be too deep into school stress yet when she takes the test in 2 months. We figured if she does really really well, she could be done with testing except for the subject tests, and concentrate on other things (like the 5 APs she is insisting on taking in 11th )She did very well on the PSAT last Oct. The only concern I have is one of the schools she is interested in requires ALL SCORES… what if it’s too early and doesn’t do as well as she thinks she will? Is taking it this early foolish? She thinks she’ll be ready.
She is considering taking the ACT in January but is nervous about the Trig/Math portion. She has only taken up to Algebra 2 honors so far, will take AICE pre-calc in 11th/AP Calc in 12th. Math is not her strongest subject but has always received As.
Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts.
@sunnyflorida S19 is taking Aug SAT. He’s studying this summer (in fact, he’s doing some practice questions as I write this!). He took Pre Calc H last year so he’s ok on the math. I think that’s the one thing you should consider when thinking about the Aug test. Maybe have your D look at an SAT math book and see if she’s covered all of the math yet. Remember that the PSAT doesn’t go as far in math as the regular SAT.
Maybe have her take a practice SAT and see how she scores? Then you can make a better decision as to whether she’s ready to take in Aug. I’ve heard varying advice about how much someone can raise their scores with studying but I think it’s safe to say that kids can raise their scores by 50-100 points per section if they really buckle down.
Also, there aren’t many schools that look at all scores. If you have a list of schools you are considering, you can look online to see what they require.
SAT in the Fall and ACT in winter. SAT test prep at the end of summer.
Hi @sunnyflorida22!
My S19 is taking the October SAT (I wanted him to do August, but it’s probably just as well since he hasn’t even started summer break yet!). He did pretty well on the PSAT and I actually think he’s better off taking the SAT sooner. He’s not going to be organized enough to add any SAT prep to regular HW. I want him to do the bulk of his prep in July/August and then just do some maintenance review in September.
My understanding is that SAT math doesn’t go beyond Algebra 2 topics - since honors Algebra 2 covered some more advanced topics, I expect he’ll be fine (math was his best PSAT section, reading is the most difficult for him).
Really hoping for a one and done score, but we’re far from sorting out what may be needed for scholarships at OOS schools. A 1450 would be sufficient to give him a good shot at getting into in-state school(s).
As of now, I’m not sure if he’ll take the ACT at all. If he does, it might be next summer.
SAT definitely has some trig, but it will be only be one or two questions at the end. On the practice tests, you’ll see there are some questions with cosine and circle questions that require trig.
D19 is signed up for the September ACT. She did better on the practice ACT than the practice SAT she took ealrier this year, so we went with the ACT.
She will take the October PSAT at school, and then we’ll figure out if she should also take the SAT.
She will get extra time accommodations on the PSAT and we are applying through her school coordinator for similar accommodations for the ACT. She will spend this summer prepping for the ACT. (There’s no way any of it would happen during the school year.)