My kid is liberal arts all the way. He would be happiest if his schedule was packed with seminars on obscure esoteric historic movements and the philosophy of art and the psychology of dance. Now that I write that, I want to take those courses too.
^^.
Having a âliberal artsâ kid gives you a lot of options to find the right school. There are so many well regarded liberal arts schools all over the country at various price points and unique locales. Neither of my kids have much interest in English, theatre, politics, history, philosophy, etc. They take those classes and do well in them, but just not passionate at all about the subject matters.
Any tips on what to ask the guidance counselor if s/he is willing to check the data? Ours is willing to check but says the data provided is not clear at all.
For now, just knowing what his Selection Index is?
I donât think the Selection Index numbers are listed on their data sheets, @ThinkOn. I may be waiting until the 13thâŠ
Easy for me to say because I got the PSAT scores during the leak. But itâs only a week until scores come out. I would just wait the week instead of putting your kidâs name on the âthis kid has pushy parentsâ list. There is literally nothing you can do with having the information a week early. (Unlike having SAT or ACT scores early, in which case you could plan to take another one).
I had signed D19 up for the Dec 9 ACT. She said the semester shouldnât be too hard and sheâll have time to prepare for it. This past weekend, she asked me to change the date because she has so much AP Chem and AP Physics homework. Of course, itâs too late to reschedule, so sheâll just have to fit in preparing with her other work. Hopefully, sheâll get the single section point she needs to get her goal.
The only good news is that there will be plenty of time to prepare for the February ACT, if needed. And we wonât have to pay the late registration fees.
Ugh, itâs not that Iâm not a patient person, itâs just hard to wait when you know College Board already has the scoresâŠbut the 13th it is. Sorry to those having to waitâŠ
@ThinkonâŠI will fully admit, I have NO patience. SoâŠthe waiting for all scores ALWAYS kills me. I do agree, more so because I know that someone somewhere already knows!
@gusmahler, it does seem like a long wait since some received scores via the leak, and we have about the same amount of time in front of us, so it is indeed easy for you to say. I do not think we are on the pushy parents list. Counselor was happy to check but didnât know how to interpret the data, which seems to be a long string of numbers, possibly raw scores (counselor is very competent). After taking the August SAT and the September ACT, S19 has his other scores in hand and does not need to retake either test. We are interested in whether he has a good chance of qualifying as a NMSF. We would have been happy to wait until the 13th, but now that others already have the information, we are interested to knowâŠand it feels a bit unfair that we have to wait. ETA: The leak was on 11/26, so those of us who will hear on 12/13 will have waited an extra 17 days, a long time when youâre waiting to hear about scores.
All the stressing over PSAT has never made sense to me. There is literally nothing you can do with the score until you find out the cutoff. And you wonât find out the cutoff until senior year.
Every year, people start discussing and debating whether or not their 220 is good enough for a particular state. But itâs such a worthless discussion. Because thereâs absolutely nothing you can do with the information. You canât even âchance meâ at schools because no one looks at PSAT scores. Literally the only thing a score is good for is getting into CC cutoff discussion threads.
D19 did well on PSAT. In fact, had she gotten the same score on the SAT that she did the PSAT, she wouldnât be taking any more tests. But that information is otherwise worthless. I know for a fact she wonât be NMSF. But even if I knew she had a chance or even if she had a 228, thereâs still nothing we could do with that information until it was confirmed by the National Merit people.
And yet, @gusmahler, you immediately took advantage of the leak when it was available. I acknowledge that I would have done the same had I known about the leak in time. What I wouldnât do is tell others that there is no reason why they should be impatient for their score.
You might try Naviance again. If the scores werenât there earlier, they may be there now.
Wish our school was that fast. They donât have the scores posted yet from the last tests. (October/November)
Ugh. Kind of annoyed with d19âs English teacher. They are starting to discuss course selection for next year and she is pushing the kids (this is AP Lang) to take AP Lit next year, she apparently told them that it will look bad for college admissions if they look like they started slacking after AP Lang. I think my d is going to hold steady and not take it, but since most of her friends seem to be listening to the teacherâs advice, she might weaken. Iâm going to keep telling her to be a rebel and take the English electives she is more interested in. She has a tough enough course load planned already. Iâve also been reminding her that the teacher is talking to the class in generalities and doesnât know what courses she will already be taking.
Itâs just annoying because my d tends to be a people pleaser and a worrier anyway. At the end of this school year, she will already have taken 6 AP classes, as well as 5 dual enrollment classes. She is already planning 2 APs next year and at least 3 dual enrollment classes. Sheâs a stem kid most likely majoring in chemical engineering. I donât need an English teacher to tell her that AP English Lit is needed to get into a good college.
That is annoying, mom2twogirls! Itâs not as if colleges give credit for both of those classes. I guess you must be in a school where all the high achievers apply to Top 30 schools.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, S19âs guidance counselor discouraged him from taking AP classes this year! I donât know if itâs because heâs part of the minority of students in the school who arenât âgiftedâ or what, but itâs pretty discouraging and probably contributes to him not really seeing himself as one of the âsmartâ kids despite doing quite well in his classes and on his first SAT. He wants to take four APs next year so I guess the GCâs head will explode.
I sent S19 to school today in search and of his GC today for the scores. Unfortunately he wasnât in but if folks are saying itâs hard to interpret, this dude will never be able to tell us anything. I am in the camp of not wanting to wait for something I could have.
I donât think that many apply to top schools. Most go to public universities. I guess they could be applying and not getting in.
Iâve never read anything in my research to suggest that even if d wanted to shoot for the most selective colleges in the country, that she would really need to take AP Lit. I didnât even push her to take Lang this year, but didnât protest it since the alternative would have been an honor English, so not much real choice. There are (off the top of my head, so my count could be slightly off) roughly 15 or so English elective options that she could take next year instead of AP Lit. There is quite a variety. I would really love to see her explore areas that strike her as interesting in english, rather than just take the boring AP that I know she will absolutely hate. (Personally, I probably would have loved it for myself but I know she wouldnât). As someone who has always loved English classes and reading, I really want to see her try something of interest in the subject and maybe develop a little more enthusiasm for it rather than kill whatever spark of interest she has left.
Iâm not asking about the scores. I am a super nosey person and waiting is hard but realistically, it wonât make a difference if her college search process if she gets it because itâs highly unlikely at this point that she will choose a school that pays big for it. Even if it were to make a difference, we wonât need it for almost another year. Additionally, Iâve spent a lot of time telling her that she didnât have to be nervous or anxious about it since it has little to no effect on anything so if I starting bugging anyone to know the score, it will send the message to her that it is important. And then she will not believe me next time when I tell her there is no need to stress about something.
Since S19 is my second kid, I am not biting my nails about the test scores. Que sera sera. =))
S17 did get both credits for AP Lang and AP Lit from UT so will not be taking any English/Writing classes while in college. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. :-?
His high school was a small one. All his smart friends were in AP Lit, the other option was Standard English with no GPA boost, so he did not have a real choice.
I doublechecked and it doesnât look like she would get english credit (just general credit) for AP Lit at her likely college anyway. She can get the same number of general credits from a dual credit college writing class, nonfiction creative writing class or gender in literature class (that last one is my pick for her if she wants a college credit option).
She has been wanting to take a Shakespeare class since 9th grade because she loved the teacher who teaches it. If there is anything that makes my STEM kid want to take a Shakespeare class, Iâm all for it. There is a class about diversity in literature that sounds interesting too. As well as science fiction, which would likely interest her. There are others she wouldnât want to take like public speaking, modern war in literature, journalism, film studies, etc. These last options arenât ones she would get college credit for, but that doesnât mean they wouldnât be beneficial in some way.