Snow day today! There was a college planning thing planned for today and driving lessons that need to get rescheduled. s19 is hoping to get his license at the end of Feb, early March.
Not sure what we’ll do today, aside from shoveling, maybe take a nap I doubt I can convince him to do any SAT prep, but maybe. He just signed up for a once a week SAT class with some friends, he wanted to do it. He wants to get his English section score up, and he thinks he can really get a perfect score on Math, ha. He loves practicing the math stuff, it’s like a puzzle /game to him. The other section, not much love.
School here but a good chance it will be cancelled tomorrow. D19 is expecting an overload of homework for the weekend to compensate for the extra day off.
Sorry to hear about all of the cold weather y’all are experiencing. I’ve been in Los Angeles all week and am in the only place in the continental US that isn’t cold I think! When we left TX, it was 25 degrees, so not sorry about that.
Taking our tour of USC today w MIL and SIL, plus another alum, my SIL’s SO (baby daddy) plus the actual prospective student, and two other younger kids. Oy. The max you can say is going to be there is five, but everybody just invites themselves. Wish me luck. Hoping to get to see the Space Shuttle afterwards too, since that’s housed at Exposition Park museum there.
We’re expecting a high of 75 today in AZ! School starts on Monday so D19 is still on break. D15 plans to fly to freezing Cincinnati tomorrow to visit her BF before returning in a week to drive to SoCal. Good luck @jellybean5 with your tour. D15 toured USC about 3-1/2 years ago and it was definitely one of the better run tours we took.
Also enjoying the AZ weather. Just took the dogs for a walk. Almost too warm in a T-shirt and jeans. D14 heads back to Chicago on Saturday. Brrrrr. D16 is studying abroad in Europe in the spring and doesn’t leave until late January. S19 starts school Monday. He is a music kid and has a regional choir and orchestra auditions upcoming. He did well on the PSAT but won’t take the SAT until June. No free dates. Not sure about the ACT. We have a pretty short college list so far. Music auditions complicate things, and he is uncertain which of his many musical interests to pursue.
Hi everyone, I just de-lurked to answer a question on an entirely unrelated topic, and since there are 2 AZ parents in the last two posts, I thought I’d add a third to make it a trend and introduce myself.
I had done virtually no thinking about college for D19 until this past August, but after frenzied reading of books and perusal of CC threads, I think I’ve got a good sense of what’s in store. She did reasonably well on the PSAT and SAT, but we need to sit down with her to find out how much she wants to work to improve those scores, because while they will get her into 99% of colleges and give her acceptable odds for the Top 20-50 schools, they are not yet high enough to get her even into the running for the 2 or 3 tippy-top, reaches-for-everyone on her list. We’ve done a couple tours – through Minnesota in October, and Pasadena/Claremont in November. I think we’re done with tours for now and we’ll wait until she narrows down an application list and see if there are some schools where interviewing is recommended and/or spring 15 months from now if she gets in someplace she hasn’t visited.
Biggest worry: She’s focused too much on her reaches and not enough on her matches/safeties. But we’re working on that.
We also have a S24, but he has different issues…
Anyway, hi! (And, yes, this AZ weather is almost too warm.)
Hi everyone. Also a bit of a lurker here. Trying to catch up on some CC reading and thought I’d say hello. It was a snow day for us and now we are praying the wind doesn’t take down power lines and leave us in the dark/ cold all night!
Not too much to contribute yet. We have started looking at schools with my D19. Still very much a work in progress. She is an excellent student, involved with her school, plays sports and has received many academic acknowledgments, BUT she is not good at testing and that reflects in her PSAT/SAT scores. She will most likely be an English/ Creative Writing major… still working on our list of reaches, matches and safeties.
Snow day yesterday, and DS spent it finishing TASP essays! Well, he’s “finished”. I was allowed to look at them and one is a two page long paragraph, others need some serious editing. We have just over a week before deadline. Some of them may not be edited when he submits it.
So I’m going to let him take the lead on how much polish his application should have. This weekend is free, but next weekend is jam packed so any polish will have to be applied soon.
It’s been good practice for college applications, I think. The last one that he did is really quite good and would probably do for a couple of supplemental prompts that I’ve read.
It’s sometimes weird being in the real world after being around CC for so long. I was talking to the D20 of a friend of mine. I’ve known the D20 for a long time. Always known she was smart, but not quite sure how smart. I was telling her about our college tours and got around to asking where she wants to go to college.
Well, she lives in Phoenix and spent many summers in Flagstaff, so she wants to go to Northern Arizona University, where her brother went. I immediately thought “oh, must not be as smart as I thought she was.” Then we eventually got around to testing and she casually mentioned that she got 1400 PSAT. 1400! As a sophomore! With no prep!
I immediately went into CC mode, thinking about how close she’ll be to NMSF (pretty damn close). How close to 36 on the ACT she’ll be (pretty damn close). And thinking about how NAU is the “worst” of the three state schools in AZ (their 25/75 scores are 20-25). How much merit aid she’ll get elsewhere ($60k at ASU and Clemson, $100k at Bama).
But then I didn’t want to seem to pushy, so just casually mentioned that she should start seriously thinking about other schools.
Schools are closed for “dangerous windchills” here so S19 is asleep with his favorite cat. I’m trying to arrange some visits for President’s Day and spring break, but he still won’t offer any opinion on any school. I’m thinking Maryland and Delaware.
VA Tech is having an open house during his spring break, but he’s currently getting a B in honors pre-Calc, which would probably be enough to put him on the reject pile in any STEM major (there are 200 applicants from his HS so they can pick and choose from the straight A students even though their admissions standards aren’t generally that competitive). It also remains to be seen whether he can get his cumulative GPA over a 4.0 this year, which seems like a ridiculous bar for a school with a 70% acceptance rate!
Still waiting for that December ACT score - I feel like everything is standing still while we wait to see if he wants/needs to take another test. Which is silly, of course, since many juniors have only taken the PSAT at this point! Plus, his October SAT is probably fine for a kid who is not a top student.
@gusmahler If you were in full CC mode, you would think a 1400 was “meh”. Plenty of kids with good test scores go to the third best public school in their state, though. My 1480 kid is a long shot for VA Tech!
I know what you mean about going into CC mode. I give a ride to school, most mornings, to a friend of my son’s. About a month ago the friend casually mentioned she was #1 in her class. I know friend is the oldest of 6 and her parents don’t make much money. I was all ready to print out Questbridge flyers and start her looking at partner schools.
I have thus far refrained from doing any such thing and I hope you admire my restraint.
Friend is a sophomore, so I have a year to channel her enthusiasm into thinking bigger than community college and Taco Bell middle management.
“Smile and nod” is a good tactic when dealing with friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintences…anyone who talks about college. Have a friend I mentioned Questbridge to when her dd was in 7th grade - never ever again.
@gusmahler My AZ son has a high psat score and is very smart. He has NAU as his first choice at the moment. He’s a junior. It has a great reputation for choral music and music ed and that’s what he wants to do. It’s much more undergrad focused than the other two state universities. We visited recently and toured the school and honors college as well as speaking with music department heads and attending a show. Ran into a former classmate of D16 in the honors college, who is also very smart and doing some pretty cool things at NAU. We also know a few really awesome NAU grads. Depending on what this young lady wants to do it could be a great choice. It’s certainly a beautiful campus and the presentation for the campus visit was one of the best I’ve seen at keeping interest and giving relevant information. All this from a heavily CC influenced parent with two kids attending OOS privates and doing lots of cool things.
Hopefully the young lady you know will do her research, consider a variety of options, and find a great fit for her when the time comes, but I wouldn’t consider NAU a poor choice out of hand.
I agree with @Parentof2014grad about NAU. If by “worst” AZ state school, @gusmahler means the one with the lowest average ACT/SAT then I’d agree that’s true. But NAU also has points in its favor (such as being in a very nice town and providing a traditional residential college experience). We’ve known plenty of friends’ smart kids who’ve gone on to great success there. One is now in a very competitive, funded PhD program at USC, for example. NAU is also in WUE so it draws in out of state students including lots from California who are squeezed out of the UC’s but want a reasonably priced residential college experience instead of a commuter CSU. I know another kid just finishing her freshman year in the honors program and already planning and preparing for her study abroad program for junior year.
I doubt I can convince him to do any SAT prep, but maybe. He just signed up for a once a week SAT class with some friends, he wanted to do it. He wants to get his English section score up, and he thinks he can really get a perfect score on Math, ha. He loves practicing the math stuff, it’s like a puzzle /game to him. The other section, not much love.