Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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Hi all! I know I’ve been pretty MIA. Work is nuts and I’ve been on the road a lot but hope to be stationary for about a month. Better laid plans though… Anyway, a bit of an update for us.

We are a month in here and it is going well. I can’t possibly get excited about it though. S17 almost always starts the semesters out strong, and often has a great 1st and 3rd quarter but then seems to fall apart the latter half of each semester.

He has an insanely hard load and a ridiculous amount of homework. His weekends are spent with XC when they have events on Saturdays, which is most weekends and the remainder is entirely on HW. 2 of his classes always have everything due at midnight on Sunday. So…there goes his weekend. The further we get into the quarter and semester, the more I will relax. I’d be over the moon if the grades as they look today, hold. He’s not yet been back to the therapist but I am hoping to get on top of that schedule wise soon as that may help actually keep these grades around. The capability has never been the issue.

Currently the only class that seems to challenge him is APUSH. While the rest are a lot of work, he’s not finding anything especially hard and thinks AP Physics is stupid boring so far which frustrates him as he’d been really looking forward to it. He thinks it’s partially the teacher (personality) but also that the guy just seems (to him) to be going too slow. AP CS is teaching him some nice attention to detail and tidiness so that’s good!
He has had a less than stellar XC season so far but you get out what you put in and he’s not really done his part to see progress. He did finally receive his Life Scout rank so we will see if he buckles down and makes it to Eagle, or not. He also made it into the top Jazz band for which we are all grateful. He is considering trying out for the Pit for the musical which would be a new thing for all of us, hard for me to gauge if that will be more or less time than tech but I am happy for him to have an activity so hope we can make it work. I need to look at the schedule tonight.

On the college front we’ve done very little. I’d hoped for him to take the December ACT so we had a baseline. As he is our 4th…having the tests done junior year really does help and earlier in the year allows for retesting and still keeping it in junior year. But, due to an add on vacation that has us flying back on the Dec test date…it will be Feb.
On that note. I do, kind of, want him to see a school or two on the December trip. We will be in SoCal (Anaheim/LA) and will have a free Saturday for the bulk of the day. Problem is…there may not be a school that fits! Open to ideas.
Refresher on stats/interests and what he thinks he wants (which will evolve or change entirely!).

Stats; 3.4 UW, 3.6 ish W (we don’t weight though) 3.8 UC/Cal Gpa if we actually look at any of those schools.
High Rigor, current line up is AP Physics, APUSH, AP Lit, AP Calc AB, AP CS and then two band classes.
Average EC’s. Several bands, XC, Scouts, Camp Counselor, founded and is president of the Philosophy club. One Bio Expo entry, no other awards.
Interests: CS, Physics, Chem (STEM in general really), Film, Screenwriting, Philosophy

Basically he is an average white boy without spectacular stats. Not that they are bad, he’s just not “pointy” quirky or with anything that really jumps out. Just a decent solid kid.

His “fit” criteria: Prefers State schools, mid to large, urban. He “thinks” he doesn’t’ want private and doesn’t like the concept of it but he doesn’t have a clue to actually make that statement yet in my opinion. I like private for him only as he might find more peeps in that kind of environment but class size won’t be an issue. If he needs help is is just as unlikely to ask/admit at a small school versus a large and doesn’t “need” the teacher bond relationship.

Deal killers: Extremely warm (humid is the bigger issue), ultra conservative, religious

My criteria. 40k or less after merit. Preferably a LOT less! We will not receive FA unless it’s a full need school and even then it would only be for 2 years so I need it to be affordable without FA.

So. For So Cal all I’ve really got is Redlands, Occidental and Chapman. He has some Chapman hang ups but it would be the easiest to visit, the others are 90 min away. CSLB is a possibility and maybe LMU if I can convince him to check it out (I’m making him visit Seattle U and U of Portland whether he likes it or not). UC’s are out of his league admission wise and my budget.

Any spectacular ideas I am missing for the Anaheim/LA area?

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@me29034 That’s too funny that a bunch of boys ended up looking at Naviance during a football game! If I try to get mine to look at a scatterplot he looks at me like I have three heads.

@eandesmom - I don’t know - your son looks pretty "pointy"for music, no? Does he plan to keep playing in college?

My S19 did pit orchestra for the musical last year and had a great time. 7 performances, maybe 5 or 6 rehearsals and a certain amount of time spent learning the 75+ pages of music at home (but still less work than tech theatre, I would imagine). However, the music director the previous year held MANY more hours of rehearsal, so who knows.

Sorry, no clue on California schools. D16 applied to San Diego State and Cal Poly Pomona because the CSU application was really easy but never really seriously considered attending.

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@eandesmom have a look at SDSU - popular choice for socal CSU’s for good reason - think it would check all your boxes and come in under budget.

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Sorry, @eandesmom - am no help on West Coast schools of any kind. But I wanted to commiserate with you on your son’s grades habit as my D also starts out strong and finishes … less strong.
I also feel your pain on the workload, as D is in the same boat, and tech hasn’t really started up yet. Let alone lax next spring. In addition to tech, D signed on for the house band this year; they do some school events, so that’s performances to add on to backstage work.

She has all As and high Bs (even CHINESE!!) except, of course, the geometry sub from the black lagoon, who has her graded at a C+. My husband talked to him last weekend and he tried to gloss over the grades by saying D was in the “middle of the pack” – but H pointed out that, considering there’s a kid who already took the class over the summer and has an A, that stat was pretty meaningless. It’s a small class - maybe 10 kids - and I think most are completely flailing. The sub seemed taken aback that we knew about the kid blowing the curve :slight_smile:

We are leaving Friday for WVU and OU tours. One of the OU dept. heads sent an email inviting D to apply for a scholarship - saying that it wouldn’t count as she is a junior, but going through the process and having a portfolio interview would be invaluable practice.

But I have my doubts about her pursuing theater tech as a major and she is so slammed, I really didn’t push it. Coming up with a portfolio on the spur of the moment didn’t seem like it was possible either! We have stuff scattered around the house, but no, I have not been scrapbooking it at all.

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I’m not much help on the California schools @eandesmom but wish you good travel vibes and well wishes. All our “affordable” schools are midwest/mid-Atlantic.

I hear you on the testing window, too. There’s a July ACT that may or may not have a seat for D19. The rest of the year is just too chaotic.

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I don’t know anything about California schools @eandesmom. But I can commiserate on APUSH being a lot. I was just studying with my D, she is trying to figure out possible questions and answers for the SAQ they are doing in class tomorrow. I’m pretty much ready for a “Seven Years War” Jeopardy category.

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@eh1234 I guess when I think pointy for music, I tend to think of the kids that go to state, do a lot of competitions, start their own band, some of that. It’s a solid constant EC that shows commitment to be sure (marching, pep, jazz, concert). And he has competed…though never placed or moved forward so…

We’ve discussed SDSU and he’s not interested. My H went there for a year and has him convinced it’s too much of a party school despite the fact that a HS friend is there this year (drumline!) and loves it and he’s not a partier at all. In general he’s not a SoCal kind of kid so it’s not really something we are trying to push. We have a current senior at Cal Poly SLO so are very familiar with it. He may apply BUT it would be a huge reach unless he really kills it this year and even then…I have huge concerns about the lack of flexibility and ease to change your mind there. I do think he’d love everything about it though.

@my2caligirls see my note above. I also don’t think for a day trip (flight out of SNA at 7pm) San Diego is all that doable. Possible yes. Fun and enjoyable…probably not.

@Gatormama yeah…right now he has all A’s except for APUSH and that’s barely a B+ (aka almost an A-). But that holding…track record would not suggest a high degree of probability there. So I feel your pain. He did have a brief F in Calc that was scary but it’s been addressed (missed a test due to XC and it was hard to get it made up) and today was proactive, left lunch early to take todays test or he’d have been in the same meet boat!

@OrangeFish I have a few midwest ones on the list that I think are good fits, we will see if he bites!

@mom2twogirls yeah…I think APUSH is going to be the nemesis this year. We all tried to get him to take regular USH but no dice.

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My kid usually struggles in the early part of the year and finishes strong, which made it a big shock when he didn’t finish well in pre-calc last year, which probably is the root of this year’s calculus angst.

I thought we were doing well with our list of mostly east coast schools, but kiddo threw me a loop and asked if it was possible to go to school near Los Angeles. Of COURSE it’s possible, but I knew nothing of the schools in the area. I suspect that kiddo wants to do this because he has a vague notion of taking the train into LA and auditioning for movie and TV roles, then dropping out when he lands his starring role. Um. Yeah.

So, since you know about SoCal, is that something that’s possible from area colleges? Chapman came up on my search. I have to admit I know zero zilch zip about any of the colleges around there. I mean, I’ve heard of UCLA and USC, and Chapman came up on my cursory zip code search, but I’m not entirely sure.

I’m tempted to sandbag the SoCal search before it starts by finding deal breakers at all of the commuting-range SoCal schools. I am so far resisting that urge, but it’s strong.

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Haha @eandesmom I tried to get my d to take honor USH instead but like your S, it wasn’t happening. She did consider it but not only were all her friends taking APUSH, kids who had taken non AP stuff the last couple years were taking APUSH. She felt like my suggesting she take non AP was like saying she couldn’t succeed at it.

So for those who remember my mentioning college admissions visiting my d’s high school and her not likely being able to miss class… there was a mini college fair yesterday. It was during her AP chem class and he allowed those who wanted to go to it to miss part of class. (Those who didn’t could stay and work on homework). She told me she did go! However, since I hadn’t thought she would go and she hasn’t been to one before, we hadn’t really discussed what it’s like. What I got was “it was really crowded and hot. I only stated about 10 minutes. I knew there were only 2 colleges with my major (that’s true). I stopped st the tables but they were so crowded. I picked up some papers at one but the other only had a thing to fill out. I didn’t do it because they were asking personal information.”

So… she knows the target colleges and the major. Check. She didn’t get that she needs to at least write her name down for it to be noticed as showing interest. And, apparently our stranger danger discussions of not giving too much personal information to strangers worked rather well. Now she just needs to know when it is ok to give your name and contact information to strangers.

The one she didn’t sign in at is one we are going to an open house at next month. We are already on the mailing list, so I’m not super concerned with the showing interest part. It was a good learning experience though. I’m really glad she went to it as an ice breaker for this kind of activity.

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Son19 is so relieved he did not sign up for APUSH. He said the workload is really bumming some of his friends out. He said it was way too much effort for somebody like him that just wants to study STEM stuff in college. He decided to take AP Stats which he likes, and had signed up for AP Chem, but didn’t get in. So, only 1 AP for the year. There are not may kids at our school taking more than a couple of AP’s as juniors. It’s usually APUSH and maybe AP Lang or AP science. Most don’t take the AP sciences though. Most don’t an AP math until next year when they can take AP Calc.
I think son will take 3 AP classes next year so he will finish with 4 in total, which I feel is more than enough. He is planning on AP Calc, AP Physics, and AP Comp Science I think.

Son19 said he has the right workload for him now and isn’t stressed out about school at the moment. He still has quite a bit of work though, he comes home from soccer at dinner time and basically just works and studies until bed. Not much room for downtime and relaxing. I don’t really like that, I think it’s good for kids to just chill sometimes.

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I’m very glad S19 didn’t take APUSH - he said it’s killing his friends. It probably has more homework than any other class taught at the school. Even with his “lighter” schedule he has a ton of homework and I’m not sure what his grades are. He usually aims for an 86.5 to 92.4 (i.e., B+/A-, seems unfamiliar with the concept of the regular “A”), and finally started caring enough last year to monitor the grade book. I don’t look at it because that usually leads to both of us being annoyed. First quarter is usually the worst.

He’s already talking about what he wants to take next year - I don’t think he’s feeling particularly inspired by any of this year’s teachers/classes, which is disappointing because I remain hopeful that his academic interests will solidify sometime before he applies to colleges. It’s hard to start the search when the kid has no preferences about major, size, location, public, private, rural/suburban/urban, etc.

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Yep. APUSH a ton of work. And BC Calc is a bear. AP Lang is also homework heavy. S19 fairing ok for now. It’s so early in the year, though. I have to wonder what it’s going to be like to keep up the pace.

Thank goodness S19 opted for an honors Earth Science class this year since his friends are all dying in AP Physics. He can take that on next year when his load is actually a little lighter. French is also a God-send since it’s proving to not be a ton of work and a pretty easy A. It’s a surprise since the teacher is a native Frenchman and only speaks French and the kids swear that they have no idea what’s going on in there. Yet, most kids are doing well on the tests. Go figure.

Conference meet for XC is next Saturday and then S19 will get a little bit of a break before winter track starts. Only top seven kids advance to sectionals, etc. The whole team is expected to keep training but without the coaches. Runs are organized by the kids after school and on weekends but it’s a lot less intense because no one is taking attendance.

S19 got a mailing yesterday from one of the schools he’s interested in. It was a questionnaire for the student to return to the school. It was very interesting to see how he filled it out. They had a list of things that the kids could rank in importance to them. S19 ranked “quality of education” number one, “personal attention from faculty” number two, and “active social life” number three. Hm.

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D is handling Calc BC well. She is also taking honors physics and says that she thinks they go along well together. Sometimes having had something in one helps in the other and vice versa

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@mom2twogirls Yep. That’s true about the overlapping math/science classes. :wink:

The AP Physics class is just a killer here in that the median in the class is now a 69. The class grades are curved so that the 69 is a B-. It’s truly taught like a college class, curve and all. Plus, each Monday, the teacher puts up a list of the students from highest current grade in the class to the lowest. Names and all, not just ID numbers. I have never heard of a teacher doing that and I’m pretty surprised parents aren’t complaining. It’s causing a lot of stress.

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@homerdog my thinking is that’s not at all legal and will totally backfire if the teacher believes that will inspire student to do better.

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@MAandMEmom I know. I was thinking it seemed like an invasion of privacy.

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@homerdog Our middle school had a 7th grade honors algebra teacher who did that to 12 year olds! That’s the reason we opted not to put S19 in algebra that year. That lady was nuts.

S19 likes AP Physics 1 well enough and will probably stick to AP Physics 2 next year instead of attempting Physics C while taking Calc.

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Holy cow that would be stressful.
Our school switched which AP physics they teach (most of you know the difference better than I do) and now the kids don’t choose between honors physics and AP. They have to take physics as a pre requisite for AP Physics. But they also added optics to the Honors Physics curriculum and added the option of getting community college credit for optics with it. I think it seems like a positive curriculum change. Some of the stuff she’s learned in her PLTW classes has helped a little with physics too.

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@eandesmom D17 is about a month and a half into her freshman year as a business major at Chapman and she loves it. It is private and is not cheap by any means, but Chapman is pretty good about giving merit and it sounds like your S would be a solid candidate. D received their highest merit award of $29k/year, though in our case the financial aid portion only brought it down to about the value of our EFC. They have varying levels of the merit scholarship at $29k/$22k/$16k/$10k. Housing is guaranteed for freshmen, but not yet beyond that. Most sophomores and up move off campus. The campus is beautiful and the weather, well, it’s Southern California.

It sounds like your S has a pretty rigorous workload, so take a look at their AP credit policies. D was able to use her APs to get 22 credits waived, and then tested out of two semesters worth of foreign language classes. Chapman requires 3 consecutive semesters of a language (101, 102, & 201), but the placement test determines which class you are qualified for. D took Latin throughout HS, but wanted nothing to do with it for college. She took the Spanish placement exam, even though she hadn’t taken Spanish since 8th grade and still managed to test out of 101 and 102.

Chapman is definitely growing, as their multi-million dollar Science and Technology building should be open by the time your S would start. They have a major for just about anything your S would be interested in. I would definitely recommend taking a tour. Feel free to PM if you have any other questions.

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If it’s a public school, this is a violation of federal law (specifically, FERPA): https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/students.html

The school’s administration, I am certain, would appreciate knowing about this breach now, not just to correct the situation and prevent further breaches, but also to limit their own liability.

(If it’s a private school, OTOH, sorry, that’s just the way it is—one of the drawbacks of private K–12 education in this country is that students and their parents have much less in the way of things like privacy and procedural protections.)