@dad2020 I’m not exactly sure if you know which district we are in but it wouldn’t be possible to do speech and a sport. Or chess and a sport. Etc. Our daughter is a freshman and a ballerina and she wanted to do speech but they meet after school and have weekend competitions which conflict and you cannot miss them. There would be no way our S19 could do it either. It’s just a shame. Coaches and sponsors of other ECs do not work together to let kids do multiple things. It’s not just a time issue where the kids don’t have enough time, it’s also that you get kicked off of the xc team after two unexcused absences and going to a club meeting is unexcused. Heck, taking the SAT was considered an unexcused absence from a Saturday morning practice until a few of us complained to the superintendent!!
4920. We are by Woodfield. Our school has 2100 kids. The district has 12,000 kids. My daughter doesn't have many EC's but there seems to be coordination between the sports, band and EC's. Actually the kid missed marching band for two home football games for math team and soccer. I don' think though at least the Band and EC's are as strict as your school. For juniors the District pays for the SAT and they take it during the week at school.
I was looking through some course catalogs of colleges D19 is considering. One of them says that incoming students should have taken 4 years of social studies in high school.
I’m wondering if anyone here knows how rigid that requirement is. D19 easily has the ACT and GPA to get accepted to this college. But she’ll only have 3 years of social studies because that’s all Texas requires to graduate high school.
I think she’ll have enough free time next year to schedule the fourth social studies, if needed. But she’s never liked social studies and would prefer not taking two social studies classes next year.
I’m sure there are some with more knowledge but I would guess worse case scenario is you would have to take a social studies course at the college?
A lot of courses count as history/social studies - variety of history classes, human geography, culture, government and politics, etc. Hope she can find one that fulfills the requirement and is enjoyable. @gusmahler
Welp, our schools just closed for tomorrow, so no ACT for S19. We rarely get snow in December and I’d be shocked if we get more than a dusting. If I had scheduled it for one county over or at a private school, I’m sure he would still have it. Oh well!
Does anyone have any experience with re-scheduled tests? I assume they won’t re-schedule for May or something crazy like that. I just want a score early enough to know whether he’s going to take the March SAT.
@homerdog The sports scene at your school sounds intense! All of the sports at our schools have a defined “season” and kids can fit in multiple activities. Football players can do band and get out of marching band. Most of the orchestra kids do at least one sport. Club leaders/music directors/coaches all seem to be pretty flexible. Of course, my kid doesn’t want to do anything besides orchestra, jazz band and pit orchestra.
@gusmahler does the college’s website say “required” or “recommended”? I think 3 years of social studies is pretty typical for a state requirement. Ours is: world history, American history and a semester each of government and economics. I don’t think our HS offers any other AP classes that fall in the social studies context except AP Psychology. And it doesn’t make sense to me for a high achiever to substitute a non-honors social studies class in senior year if it means losing a slot for another more rigorous class. For example, my D19 is taking Criminology this year which probably counts as social studies but it’s non-honors and definitely her easiest class, basically requiring no homework.
@gusmahler, we are in Texas also, at our school AP Psych counts as social studies. That is what my D is planning on taking as her 4th.
ACT cancelled due to weather. Wondering what to do with unanticipated free time so close to the holidays. Oh, gah, this means I have to figure out another test date, doesn’t it? How long does it take for them to decide what the rescheduled test date is?
Sorry to hear about the ACT being postponed for some of you guys. My brother is flying in from Boston today and I am keeping my eye on his flight right now! D left a little while ago for her test, unfortunately she woke up with a sore throat and hadn’t slept well. As usual she did not prep very much. I did manage to get her to take one practice test, each section on a different night though. Oh well, I did tell her that we could use these first two tests as baselines to see what we need to work on even though we both already know the answer - MATH!!
Speaking of math that continues to be her hardest class. She is in something called AICE Math, it is pre-calculus but instead of just learning the math you need to learn the AICE way of doing it. Don’t know if you guys remember from when I first posted but AICE is an advanced placement type class based out of Cambridge University. I don’t really know what that means for math but I know it is hard and it just baffles her. On the tests that the teacher adds AICE questions she has horrible grade, on the one test that the teacher did not put AICE questions she got an A.
At the mid term she had her first ever C and she was so upset. With that A on the last exam she brought her grade up to a B. All she had to do was get a B on the last test and the final (in two weeks) and she could have kept the B. Yesterday they had their last (I think?) test and she came home so upset saying she failed it. We go to a tutor and she seems to get it most of the time, but once she gets to the test she just blanks out. Same thing happens on standardized tests. I keep telling her not to stress, it is known as the hardest class in the school. We are not going to be looking at tip top schools anyway so this should not make or break her. Doesn’t matter what I say though, she can’t stand the though of ever having a C on a final report card. 
I need to show her my old report cards, plenty of C’s sprinkled throughout those! :))
D19 is on here way to her ACT test this am as well. She didn’t do much prep for this or the SAT last weekend. I am expecting her scores to stay the same. I am giving her a 2 week break and then she is going to start studying the real way(my way)! Good luck to everyone taking the test this am.
@jeepgirl the right way (my way) :))
That’s reminiscent of what my husband says - don’t do your best, do MY best! 
Well at least it finally started snowing here! When I woke up at 7 to let the dog out, not a flake had fallen. My son actually seems kind of bummed not to take his ACT today. His girlfriend is taking her test at a Catholic school right now. I’m surprised they don’t have set makeup dates for these things.
That math sounds rough @momtogkc. S19 is finding his honors pre-calc class to be his most difficult this year - it’s pretty discouraging for someone who thought he would do a math related major!
I suspect the private schools didn’t cancel their ACT sessions, wish I had had the option to shift the kid over to one of those. Knowing my luck they’ll reschedule the test to a weekend we’re already triple booked, and I’ll have to postpone until February.
After breakfast I told the kid he wasn’t getting quite the break he thought he would, and that I expected we would be going through another finished test together this afternoon. Since he had already fired up the computer for Fallout I suspect I am not his favorite parent at the moment. Tough break, kiddo. I know if we planned to study as if he were taking the test in February the reschedule date would be next weekend.
I am sorry to hear about the snow cancellations.
If it is like SAT, I expect it to be rescheduled to mid/late-January after school starts. If the rescheduled date would not work, it can be rescheduled for free to February or April, etc. You just have to call them ahead of the test date.
I am glad DS19 was not scheduled for ACT here.
I do not know if area schools are closed, but his SAT was cancelled due to Hurricane Harvey. He could not take it in September on the rescheduled date, so took it in October.
My friends are already blaming me for bringing snow from Colorado to Texas. They have no snow in Colorado!
AP Psych. yes, that counts as social science too. DS17 took it after AP US History rather than AP World or European History.
Social studies: Everyone in our school has to take 9th and 10th grade world history (two years, even if one is AP World), 11th grade U.S. History, and 12th grade U.S. Gov (you can substitute AP Comp. Gov). AP Euro, AP Econ, AP Psych, etc. can’t take the place of any of them.
In VA an advanced diploma requires 4 years of SS. Must have a combination of 2 years of world history or geography and 1 year each of US History and US Gov. My kids all came out of middle school with 6-8 HS credits including World Geography. My youngest took World History 2 in 9th then took AP Psych in 10th. In Honors US now and will take Gov next year.
My ‘19 is planning to take the SAT in Mar, Jun and possibly early senior fall. She is not a great test taker so I already have her doing a study program that my ‘16 son liked, PrepScholar. So far she does like it better than Khan Academy’s free SAT prep.
NY also requires 4 years of social studies. Like @eh1234, it’s 2 years AP World or Global Studies, 1 year US (either AP or regular), 1 year of gov/economics or the AP that covers both. Sociology, Psychology, etc are additional electives and don’t take the place of the required courses.
Alaska requires 3½ years of social studies—more than any other subject except the 4 years of English language arts!!—but with a very specific breakdown: ½ year of Alaska Studies, ½ year of civics, ½ year of economics, 1 year of “American studies” (read, for a large portion of the college-bound: APUSH), and 1 year of “World studies” (read: AP world history).
Honestly, I don’t mind the requirement, but the lack of flexibility is somewhat annoying.