Hi all, I’ve been a lurker for a couple of weeks now, reading and nodding at some of your posts. It’s comforting to know there are so many others in a similar situation fretting over PSATs, SATs etc. I have a son who’s a junior now. I’m a little curious about the mention of finals so early in the academic year. Do your schools follow a semester schedule? My S19’s finals are not until June.
Yes
@guppy64 We have two semesters that make up the year. We have finals for each semester in Dec and May. Schools starts super early (mid-Aug) so we can fit that first semester before holiday break.
We’re on a semester schedule. So grades are given each semester and then you basically start the next semester with a clean slate. Also we have letter grades but no pluses or minuses. Like with @homerdog our school starts in early August so the semester ends before winter break.
How does the semester schedule work for AP classes like APUSH or BC Calc? Are they split over 2 semesters? I can’t imagine doing them in one semester.
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Yes, BC Calc and APUSH are a whole year. Most classes are two semesters. Only a few electives are one semester and a handful of APs (Macro Econ, Micro Econ, Gov). Semester grades are what are seen on transcripts. So, each year, a student has two sets of grades that count for GPA. The grades posted in Dec and the grades posted in May.
At my D19’s school, some classes are semester (but fitting a full year in via a double-length period), some are semester (e.g., yearbook, which wouldn’t have anything to do after December), some are yearlong, and there are also occasional 3-week minicourses. Among the full-year-credit-in-a-single-semester courses the school offers are AP calc AB, AP stats, and DE English comp; on the other hand, AP world history is a full-year course.
So yeah, finals are a thing right now.
As for homework over winter break, it simply isn’t done here. That said, D19’s in AP world history and it’s being very, very difficult for her to keep up with the pace, so she’s planning on basically giving herself homework to try to get ahead of it a bit.
son19 got his scores back from psat and they went up a lot from last year. He scored in the high 700’s on math but low/mid 600 on English, which is about what we expected. if he could get his English section up he’d have an all around excellent score. I think he’ll be one of those kids with a 100 point gap between the 2 sections.
So pretty good for son19, as he didn’t do much prep. We’ll see how his SAT/ACT scores work out, but not really concerned too much. If he stays in the same range he’s fine for his safeties and match schools, but maybe some of the reaches are true reaches. If he improves a bit he should have a chance to some of the reaches.
DD was supposed to take an AP Lit final today, but came home with a very sore throat last night after cheering at the basketball games. Headache and maybe a bit of fever early this morning. She was really sick 2 weeks ago, had hoped that would be it for a while. She drove in late to school, talked to the proctor, and drove back home. The sad thing is our AP classes are online, and the test proctor is available on the days she doesn’t have the class, so she usually has to miss another class to take tests. That class has a final now because it is running on a college schedule, but our semester otherwise doesn’t end until after break.
We’re at a very small school (her grade is a bigger one at 70 kids) and they can do all the EC they want. DD is doing too much IMO. School play in fall, one-act now, Basketball cheer now, group and individual speech winter, junior class president all year, student council all year, choir/Advanced Music group all year, soccer in spring, part time job all year.
She was home Monday night though and for the first time I shared with her my college spreadsheet 
She had made one of her own on a piece of notebook paper consisting of checkmarks, stars, and frowny faces (for the expensive ones)! We did have a good talk and made a list of where to visit. She is open to visiting the affordable ones I found. She would really like a Christian private school (as would I) but the small state schools would save us $20-$40K over the 4 years so maybe she can just find some Christian groups there. We went over the course listings for the major/minor she wants and the gen eds at the state schools. The most affordable choice also had the courses that seem most appealing for what she wants. The only downfall is it is the farthest away at 8-9 hours 
She’ll take ACT in February. Here in the Midwest that is the favored test. We didn’t do PSAT. I do wonder if the SAT would be better for her as her strengths are English and Reading and her weaknesses are Math, Science, and time limitations. I may have her take it if her ACT is under 29. Christmas break is for ACT prep! And some much needed downtime, hopefully.
We’re on quarters here with finals for the current quarter next week. Then off for TWELVE school days. Mountains of homework during break though. It should be illegal. Packets in every class except art. HORRIBLE.
@RightCoaster It sounds like our kids have similar test outcomes. Mine had an 80 point score difference betwwen Math and English on both the PSAT and SAT he took in October. He did somehow eke out a 700 on that section on the SAT - I’ll take it!
He did better on the ACT English and reading sections when he tried a practice test (35 and 32), but that could have been a fluke.
I just made my baby cry. I forced him to take a run at the practice ACT math section. He was slow and took an extra 45 minutes, and by the end was thoroughly mentally done. I scored it and he’s gained a few points since the last practice test, using those techniques that we talked about and just remembering more 8th grade math. But it was so exhausting that he ran off crying. I don’t know, maybe he expected he’d just jump to 35?
I hate doing this to him but at the same time I’m so tired of the waterworks whenever he’s under stress. He has this ambition to go to a top school, but it’s not going to happen unless he works at things that he doesn’t like from time to time.
I am sorry @ninakatarina =((
If it was my kid, I would not call it “ambition” rather “desire or vanity” if it lacks substance.
I would not force him and lower expectations. He will do fine wherever he ends up going.
Easy for me to say, I guess.
Well, I forced DS17 quite a bit with no avail. I know forcing won’t work for DS19 as he is a different animal and is motivated on his own albeit somewhat lacking realism.
Well, I’ve been a hands-off parent in regards to schoolwork all through my kid’s life. The most I’ve done is a single, “do you have homework?” in the evening. Kid has had A’s all along, so I thought we were fine. Thing is, our school system is not all that rigorous so straight A’s doesn’t equate to high test scores. Kid studied for the SAT using Khan over the summer, but the PSAT scores are twenty points lower in this October’s sitting than they were in sophomore year.
He’s not getting there on his own so I’m trying to step up and be his tutor so that I don’t have to pay for a private tutor. However if I have to haul emotional baggage the whole time I think the private session could be worth it.
I always had mediocre grades and high test scores, so I suppose this is my karmic punishment for gloating about my own test scores back when I was younger.
I really am proud of him for improving his score, but it’s so exasperating how hard this is for him, when it used to come easily for me. I was looking over his shoulder and getting many of the questions he missed. I wish I could just do a brain transfusion and not have to worry about this slow painful studying process.
Part of our job as parents is to prepare our students for life after HS. Pushing a child to tears is not preparing them for life. It’s adding undue stress. What happens if they get admitted to that school and can’t perform ? Or what happens if after all of the pushing they aren’t accepted . A child’s mental health is not worth it.
We’ve done test rounds in English, Science and Reading with nary a tear, and a few laughs. It’s just Math Night that makes the kid cry.
^^
It’s hard to know when or how much to “push” a kid to strive higher. Or know how they will handle it. Or know if it’s even worth it.
My son has told us that he might prefer to go to a school with less pressure i.e. WPI vs some place like Cornell. I personally think he could handle the workload of either place, but I think he likes being a big fish in small pond versus going to a place where he is clearly not the smartest/best.
So, I am tempted to not really push him/encourage him to do SAT prep work and not to worry too much about achieving a tip top score.
We gave him some nice compliments about his psat score, and he said he was satisfied but could’ve done better.
Just trying to go with the flow with this kid.
@RightCoaster , my kid also scored 100 points higher on math than verbal on the PSAT. So there went any hope of any National merit anything.
But in the meantime, as we head into midterrms, he has an 86, 87. 89. 92, and 94. (plus 100 in self directed study, so that doesnt really count). all those classes are AP classes except the 94, but any one of these classes can go either way. Does he care, ? not as much as I would like him to. The college list is changing .
We get quarterly grades and there are mid terms, but not until late January.
I’m desperately (probably futilely) hoping for little or no homework over our short winter break. With d’s luck, AP Lang will assign a novel and some sort of writing, there will be an APUSH packet, and who knows what else. We have a shot on Spanish though because the head of the department had been campaigning that kids have no homework over school breaks. She says the kids need that time with the families to be lower stress and a real vacation from school. Hopefully she will convince the school board to make that a rule.
And add us to the camp of kids who did much better on math than reading for both the October SAT and the PSAT. It does underscore that she is looking in the right direction for majors.
@RightCoaster if your son wasn’t an athlete, I would think you were talking about my d when you talk about his abilities, strengths and weaknesses, lol. From what you describe, that seems to be the biggest difference between them.