Happy Independence Day, all you moms and dads! Having fun?
My D17 is in Connecticut, my D19 is swimming in the Pacific Ocean with two or three friends (they rented beach bikes and are down near Venice Beach now). My spouse and I did a lazy 5k our town hosts every July 4, and now we’re resting up before a BBQ at a house with views of a fireworks show. Our house has no such view!
@JenJenJenJen that sounds lovely (makes me miss my hometown in Southern Cali)! DH and I are sans kids for the first time since their birth as each are away at their respective summer programs. We’ve been hiking the trails, visiting some of the diary, cheese and other farms located upstate (much more fun than just buying at the farmers markets) and enjoying long dinners with bottles of wine. I think they are having as much fun as we are.
Sorry to hear about that AP test, your D sounds like she’s got the right attitude.
Happy 4th all!!
@mom2twogirls - – Laughing at "my d asked her “which is your safety that you know you can get accepted to and afford to go to?” … My daughter has described similar conversations with teachers, the college counselors, etc, where they get this stunned look on their faces when D describes The Spreadsheet.
I research everything to this level; it’s just how I am. You should see the lists and printouts for our camping trip…
I am sure S19 cares quite a bit about this AP world score but he hasn’t mentioned it. It was a rough end to the year and I’m concerned about next years load but he will not budge.
@homerdog we did our college visits for S17 in 3 basic stretches/ways. A spring break trip that combined visiting family and some schools we thought were solid fits. Local schools that were solid fits either on in service days or when they had a weekend preview event. Those visits helped him zero in on the kind of school that resonated.
As for the rest, we did our homework, a fair amount of interviews and a few fairs and applied. Once he was accepted and we saw the offers, then we decided which ones to visit. We “almost” did a summer visit to a bunch of mid Atlantic schools before the list was really finalized. Once I mapped out the cost and then realized we had date conflicts (some schools weren’t doing tours then as it was too close to the semester start) I pulled the plug.
SO glad we did it the way we did. He visited 4 schools in Feb and the level of interest, engagement etc was vastly different than when visiting a school to decide whether to apply or not. We also did “deeper” visits, sitting in on classes and/or meeting 1:1 with faculty.
Long answer but I wouldn’t worry about missing a visit this summer, at all.
@eandsmom Thank you. That’s super helpful. Did you guys see UVM before you received the acceptance? It’s kind of a one-off for us. Looks like one can apply EA so we could visit there in the winter of senior year if he’s accepted and he wants to see it.
Mostly, I want to make sure we visit the schools where demonstrated interest is important and where the merit is most competitive so that S19 can write well-informed essays if he decides to apply.
For those with students doing SAT/ACT prep this summer – how much prep is enough vs. too much?
D19 took an ACT practice test (from the “red book”) on Saturday under test conditions (I proctored) and did quite well. Knowing a practice test in a book is not the same thing as the real deal – how much practice is the right amount, readying for the September ACT? She plans on reviewing the questions she answered incorrectly, and focusing more on the reading section (her lowest score of 33). Are four more practice tests – sometime between now and the end of August – enough?
@OrangeFish S19 is prepping for the SAT. He took a practice test and got a 730 math 700 reading. His goal is to get above a 750 on both. For math, that means only a few more correct answers. He will do practice problems only for the types of problems he got wrong. In his case, they were either (a) stats type problems that he’s unfamiliar with or (b) geometry problems he forgot how to do since he took geometry in eighth grade. We are using the PWN Math book to match up his incorrect problems with problems to review. For reading, we are using the Meltzer books for reading and writing. We can use the directory in the back to match up his incorrect questions with the sections he needs to review. He’s not using either book from start to finish. Just dipping in where he needs review or help. So far, he’s spent maybe 10 hours reviewing the kinds of problems he’s gotten wrong in the reading/writings books. He’s working on math today (which I suppose won’t take long) and then we are doing another full length practice test this weekend.
I’m not exactly sure where we will go from there since he will have used up all of the practice in the books. I think I will have him review on Kahn (using this second test to see if he still has specific kinds of problems giving him trouble). Then, he will take a third test after a week or so of Kahn.
Since there are eight available SAT tests, we will just use those to practice. For the ACT, you have so many more real tests so that’s awesome!
@homerdog given that you have already planned your trip I would present the coach with a choice: miss camp this summer or possibly miss time in season next year. In our state, nothing can be “mandatory” until 8/1 so that might have given us more leverage but we found coaches to be fairly understanding about college visits once they really understood the scheduling options.
Also, your D.C. can train individually. Maybe presenting the coach with that plan would also help.
@Cheeringsection I hear you. I know it’s not “mandatory” in the real sense but these coaches are hard core. And ends up that S19 wants to go. Cancelling our Ohio trip only means cancelling one hotel reservation and either cancelling or moving our tour dates. We were just driving, not flying.
I thought my husband would really want to come with us, so that’s why I planned it on a week I knew he could go. Now, though, he said it’s fine with him if I take S19 by myself so we will probably just go a week earlier than planned. Coaches are ok with kids missing regular summer practice each day for college visits or family vacations…they just think it’s a bonding experience for the team to go to this camp and put pressure on the boys to go!
@homerdog sounds like it has worked out! Good luck with your visits.
Thanks for sharing your strategy, @homerdog! D starts four weeks of day-long theatre/arts classes on Monday, so I’m hesitant to load her down with practice tests every Saturday morning. 
I like your idea of sprinkling the practice tests in after some work on a particular section.
It is so nice to have a forum just for 2019 parents! Am looking forward to being part of this thread!
D19’s classmates have already gotten their AP scores. I went to the AP site and it turns out that they paid $15 for early access. D19 said she can wait 3 more days to get her scores.
Her summer has been busy. She’s taking AP US History over the summer because the rumors are that the regular AP US History teacher is pretty bad. But that means she has a ton of homework as they are cramming 180 days of classes into 8 weeks. It’s an online class, so she was able to take a vacation, though she had to log on every day to make sure she remained caught up.
Also signed her up for an online ACT prep class that starts in a week and a half. She probably won’t be able to get much done while she’s still in her AP class, but she’ll have a couple of weeks between summer school ending and fall semester beginning to do serious prep work.
Goal is the Sept/Oct ACT tests on the theory that preparing for the October ACT also prepares her for the PSAT. Don’t really have a goal score yet–that depends on how she does on her practice tests. From PSAT to ACT concordance tables, we figure 32-33 for the non-math portions, and 29-30 for math.
We do plan on one more vacation this summer where she’ll get some college visits in. The con is that its to the DC area and she doesn’t really want to go there. But there are plenty of colleges there to visit, so she’ll at least have an idea of how other colleges are. Probably hit up Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, and possibly Maryland. But we’ll finalize that as we get closer. Her GPA is 4.29, so Georgetown and Hopkins will be reaches.
@Samsmom2019 Welcome!
@gusmahler I’m surprised students had to make any time of paymet. My daughter is in a summer program on the west coast and using FaceTime we used my computer (I’m here on the east coast) to access her AP score. She later informed me that such was not necessary as all the students in her research program set up a VPN out of Washington D.C to obtain their scores.
@homerdog no, we did not see UVM prior to acceptance. He applied everywhere EA (7 schools) which helped quite a bit, that way we had all acceptances in hand by mid Feb (all "distance ones by 2/1 I think) and were able to plan visits.
I also think EA helped with admittance and merit overall and will use the same strategy with S19.
There are lots of ways to demonstrate interest without visiting, we leveraged them where the CDS indicated we needed to.
My son also applied EA to all of his schools. He had 5/5 acceptances by Christmas. He had 2/2 Honors acceptances by Mid Feb. Many schools have early deadlines for merit , by early Dec for all of the schools that my son applied to. IMO, no downside to applying EA. You get a decision earlier. It’s non binding and you meet deadlines for merit . We’ll also use the same strategy for DS19
We are also planning on doing what @eandesmom and @carolinamom2boys outlined and applying EA everywhere. For D19, she needs to also plan on portfolio reviews and interviews for fall of her senior year, and many (most?) of the schools she is interested in require applications being submitted before the portfolio review/interview. In addition, several of the schools require interviews for scholarships, and therefore have early deadlines.
Thanks, everyone. S19 has a few schools that have EA options and many others require 12/1 application submission for RD if you want to be considered for merit. He may only have two 1/15 deadlines but neither have supplements so they will most likely be sent in early! I’ve been reading the Class of 2018 Parent thread and it seems a little stressful figuring out when apps are open and when the year’s supplemental essays are posted, etc I picture myself chasing S19 around next summer each time a school’s essays are released. I hope I’m misunderstanding and it’s not as crazy as it seems.
I wish my son could do EA at all his schools but unfortunately his top choice (Georgetown) is restrictive so we can’t do that. It feels like putting all our eggs in one basket but since he is a double legacy at the school we really don’t have any other options other than EA there.
He is planning to do the PSAT so he will be prepping once he is back from his trip to see family in Ireland mid-August. Like most of your children on this thread he also has a packed summer! He is leaving this Sunday for the Federal Service Language Academy at University of N Georgia for 3 weeks of Arabic, then plans to retry for the NSLI-Y program in the fall for his junior summer. He is home for a week and a half then goes off to Ireland, then varsity track practice starts along with intensive skating practice as it is looking more and more likely that he will qualify for the National Solo Ice Dance Championships which are at the beginning of September in Colorado.
BTW was anyone else shocked at the sheer amount of homework for the AP classes? For APUSH he had to read 300+ pages of supplemental material, plus write a research paper, and he has to do 4 mini-papers and read 3 full length books for AP English. This doesn’t even factor in the packet due in French 4H. It seems a bit ridiculous…