S19 only took the SAT subject test of Math 2 today. he says he probably got 4-6 wrong :(. No 750 to 800 for him.
oh well. he will take the regular SAT sometime in December. I asked him to “study” for the PSAT. doubt he will. Monday we tour UA Huntsville.
@momtogkc d said at first she started to freeze in the essay but then it clicked what she was reading and she thinks it went ok.
@sdl0625 I could be wrong but I thought that you could get up to five wrong and still get an 800 on SAT 2 Math. It’s not the same scoring as the math on the SAT.
@homerdog that would be nice. I expected S19 to be a good tester since he got a 1340 on his PSAT last year and has always been a good standardized test taker… He also does very well in Math. So we shall see in a few weeks.
S19 did the EW part of a practice PSAT today. Found it to be about the same difficulty as the SAT but it’s shorter and you get a little more time per question. He’ll look over math tomorrow. Test is on Wednesday. He’s having a low stress weekend and we are enjoying beautiful fall weather so disc golfing and hanging with friends is a nice departure from the usual busy academic day. It makes me so happy to see him have some time where his nose isn’t in a book.
Hey all, checking in from Athens, Ohio, where it’s raining cats and dogs, thanks to Nate’s remnants. I’m so bummed, because we had an amazingly gorgeous day at WVU yesterday and it looks like it’ll rain most of tomorrow for Ohio University’s Discover the Arts preview day.
I wanted apples to apples in terms of weather affecting perspective. We’ll see. I’ll wait to post reviews until I can do both together…
Catching up after missing 100+ messages. You all have been prolific in the past few days.
@RightCoaster, ours is another school where kids take a lot of APs. They are often on the pathway to IB courses, counting as the first year of higher-level IB classes. By the time S19 graduates he will have 11 or 12. He had 1 in 9th grade, 4 in 10th, 5 this year, and 1 or 2 next year. 2.5 more this year are standard-level IB standard courses, and 4.5 next year will be either SL or HL IB classes. S19 is motoring through homework and extracurriculars and has a girlfriend for the first time. D21 and I really like her! :x
Wow @EastGrad 12 APs! That is a lot. I don’t even know if a kid could possibly take that many at our school.
My son is only taking one AP, AP Stats. He likes it and says it’s not too challenging. On the other hand honors Pre-Calc is very difficult, lots of homework and getting a good grade is not an easy task. His friends that are taking APUSH are complaining abut their lack of free time. My son is in Honors USH and says it fine, not too much work. He could probably handle the extra work load of APUSH, but it would already keep him up later than he needs to be. He doesn’t intend to study liberal arts in college, so he is just focusing his AP efforts on STEM related subject. I can’t argue with his logic. Playing varsity sports, robotics, model UN, founding a Maker Space club is taking up time too, there is only so much time in a day for studies.
I can see where a kid that didn’t have tons of ECs at our school could take a few more APs. they’d just have more time to study and prep.
@RightCoaster my d took AP stats last year. She felt the course as taught by her professor was tougher than the AP exam. She did do well in the course but did have to stretch her brain for a different type of math than she is used to. I hope your son enjoys it.
My S19 thinks he may take AP Stats next year along with Calc BC, AP Physics 2 or Chem, and AP Music Theory. My D16 couldn’t make heads or tails of AP Stats and it was more work than expected. I’ll probably steer him towards CS Principles, but it’s really up to him.
He’s also avoiding the language, history and gov APs, so will top out at 5 or 6. He is enjoying AP Psych - it’s fun and the workload is reasonable. He knows kids who have 6 or 7 this year! I’m glad the school doesn’t rank!
How many of you think your junior is way too busy? I have been trying to find family time to watch Ken Burns’ new documentary on Vietnam, and DS claims he can’t find the time. Maybe it’s true.
DS HAS APUSH, Chem, Bio, Lit, and his foreign language as APs this year. He also has two IB courses and one elective for half a year until he picks up the required IB Theory of Knowledge class as a second-semester junior. (He had Calc, World, Geo, and Music Theory as APs last year and Stats as a 9th grader.) He also plays a sport, two instruments, and has one evening a week that he devotes to a community service project. I am not sure how he added a girlfriend to this mix, but the heart wants what it wants. And it clearly doesn’t want to watch a documentary on Vietnam. 
@EastGrad it is busy!
S19 has APUSH, Physics 1, Language, CS and Cal AB as his AP’.s He too will end up with about 11AP’s + 4 honors classes , depending on what he takes next year. He wants to add Pit for the fall show, first time we are doing a fall musical. Which is great but it overlaps with the end of the XC season and conflicts with his actual trumpet lesson which is a bear to schedule already.
We never restarted piano lessons and frankly I don’t how to fit it in. The kid has so much homework…he can’t do the very minimal chores on his list.
Sounds like our sons have very similar schedules, @eandesmom! I hope they are still standing when the year ends! 
Your post reminds me that I have to get piano lessons back on D21’s schedule. Surprisingly, she hasn’t mentioned it! ;))
So apparently at school today the guidance counselors had the kids hang around in the library for an hour adding colleges to their Naviance lists. Kiddo ran the college match programs and picked Emerson and Occidental.
Emerson was one of the ones I had quietly steered him away from because they don’t appear to give enough financial aid for us to cover the costs. Occidental hadn’t even been on my radar.
So on the one hand, I’m happy that he’s taking ownership and helping in the process, but on the other hand I wish he had come up with something that I could say yes to and look at enthusiastically.
So, anyway, we talked about the two schools and agreed that we’d add Emerson to the New England summer trip, but it wouldn’t be an early round school and if he were admitted they would have to come up with a respectable financial package before he can say yes.
@ninakatarina what was it he said he liked about those two? Maybe some more affordable choices will have similarities?
@EastGrad my general rule is that if they don’t push for a pricey EC…I’m not going to force the issue unless I see them sitting around with time on their hands and glued to a screen. I am glad he is doing the pit even if it is a lot of extra work. Busy, for the most part, is good!
@mom2twogirls he said he added them because the college match search engine suggested them in between colleges he already liked. Which is fair. I don’t want to shoot down any options he comes up with too hard, because I want him to eventually take ownership of this search. So I just said he could apply to either one of those, but not ED and we would wait on the scholarship round before making a decision.
@ninakatarina yikes. I would think the counselors would talk to the kids about considering their family’s budget when searching for schools on Naviance. I’ll have to warn S19 when the counselors start meeting with the juniors. If they sit them down and tell them to do the search, he’ll come up with a ton of schools that I’ve already eliminated because they don’t give merit. The ones I’ve left on his list that do not give merit were very carefully thought out by my husband and me as schools that we would maybe (maybe!) pay full price for depending on how the chips fall after acceptances are in.
I hope that our school’s GC works with the juniors on Naviance - I can’t remember if that ever happened with D16, though. I certainly can’t get S19 to look at it just yet. I can understand the frustration, though, if your kid picks potentially unaffordable schools @ninakatarina.
We did have some progress - S19 actually asked when he would get his SAT scores and seemed annoyed that it’s next Friday at the earliest.
Since he thinks he did well, I asked him about the free score reports and he almost uttered the name of a college where he thinks he might apply, but then stopped himself and said he should wait until he gets his scores. I don’t see any point in sending score reports yet anyway - I was just trying to see if he had any schools in mind!
@eandesmom @EastGrad You reminded me that I need to find time and money for S19 to take piano lessons! He’s been playing 20-30 minutes a day, but has never had a lesson. He’s taking AP music theory next year and could stand to improve his keyboard and treble clef knowledge - I guess it can wait until summer if I can tolerate listening to the same 3 songs over and over again!
Emerson would actually be a very good choice for him if we won the lottery. It has a very good film department, it’s right in the center of Boston it’s in the middle range of where his test scores are at the moment. And I’m willing to plop down an application fee for a school that is that close to all requirements in order to roll the dice on financial aid.
I don’t know much at all about Occidental other than it’s in California. I’m willing to look at it more closely, however first glance doesn’t look too promising on the affordability.
I worry a little bit that I’ve done too much of the searching for him, that I’m not leaving range for him to search on his own. However seeing how unprepared the seniors in our high school are when it comes to college searches, I know that I need to do a lot of it myself.
We had a talk with a senior kid over the weekend. She’s bright and sociable and friendly, senior class president, very good grades and test scores. She’s going to (eventually) apply to Morgan State because her grandfather went there, might apply to Villanova because her cousin went there, but thinks she will probably end up in community college. And she’s not applying anywhere ED. It seems such a criminal waste, I want to pummel her guidance counselor.