@homerdog
I did see the SAT advertising, but wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t see it with my own two eyes.
Standardized testing is a business, plain and simple. And about 3-4 years ago for the first time the ACT was taken more times in a given year than the SAT (for various reasons) and they haven’t relinquished that top spot.
Slowly, some schools are becoming “test optional” and fewer are requiring SAT II tests. And with both tests being equally accepted by colleges, students (or ‘consumers’) now have a true choice when it comes to standardized testing.
Coke v Pepsi
Ford v Chevrolet
McDonalds v Burger King
ACT v SAT
I’d like to see a Super Bowl commerical for either the SAT or ACT …
Normal ECs at our school seems to be playing a sport or being involved with band or theatre, and then belonging to some school sponsored clubs, and trying to volunteer a little bit. That’s kind of normal. There are kids who do more, some don’t do much at all.
Son19 has gotten pretty involved and uses his time to max everything out. He is involved with varsity soccer, regional club soccer team, varsity track, First Robotics, Math Team, Model UN, DECA, NHS, and does some volunteering.
He doesn’t have much time for anything else. He uses the time between school release at 1:50pm to 3pm when sports usually starts to do his clubs. Robotics usually meets at night and weekends, and he can work on his robotics projects at home and bring the files in.
He misses some of the meeting from time to time, but that doesn’t deter him from staying involved. I think he likes sports the most, and robotics a close second. He does the others because he learns something new, and he isn’t the captain so feels less pressure to be completely engrossed in it. He just does them for fun and be with friends.
Walkout day. Are your kids walking out? My son said he is not, not because he is against the idea, but he thinks there are better ways to deal with the issue then going outside and standing in the snow. He has a lot of friends that are signed up for the walk out though. I think some other kids not walking out are writing a letter to express their concerns.
I hope the kids around the country can force some sort of change. The gun violence in school has to stop. It’s a shame people have to deal with losing their kids or family members just showing up to learn or teach.
@RightCoaster Thank you!!! S19 not walking out either. Knows kids are doing it just to get out of class. Girls have been posting pretty pictures of themselves on Instagram with their signs they will use today. He’s just turned off in general about the whole thing. Most of those kids don’t even have a real policy position on the issue. Some kids are meeting in the school library during that time to send postcards to our congressmen. He may do that.
Our school has a walkout day on April 20th so most of them aren’t participating today.
When there is a play coming, my kiddo is scheduled for every waking minute. When a play is over he wanders around dazed until it’s time for auditions for the next one. He also usually chooses that moment to get sick. This week it’s a minor sore throat and cough. I wanted to have him stay home but he didn’t want to mess up his perfect attendance and he wanted to go to auditions this afternoon… Yeah, he has no time for other ECs.
If you list every job he has had for every play it comes to a long list; he is never ‘just’ an actor. So I guess you could list that as a bunch of ECs, all feeding in to one passion? Or maybe not.
It’s the difference between ‘well rounded’ and ‘pointy’. Our kids are pointy. Sometimes they’re pointy in the head. Maybe that’s just my kid.
My kids’ middle and high schools had admins and students plan some activities for those who wanted to participate. (Those who don’t wish to may read or do homework for the 17 minutes if they wish). The activities include banner signing, writing letter to representatives, make a list of 17 acts of kindness to perform, and a couple other things. The actual “walk outs” will be to the gyms/cafeterias and not outside in the snow and cold. I think it was nice that they created options so kids could choose issues of importance to them (safety, rememberance, anti bullying).
Our school had a hard time with this walk out thing. In the end, the administration decided that they could not support kids leaving class for this since the school is not allowed to take political positions. I’m ok with that but many parents are super upset. Supposedly, if a student leaves school, they can get a detention. I’ve heard that the school will probably decide not to hand out any punishments though. My understanding is that there will be a local police presence to help keep the marchers safe. I’m pretty curious how this will all go this morning.
Our school also said they could not direct the response but met with a student group to support whatever the student group came up with. They had parent permission slips. In the end agreeing only to allow them to congregate in the gym for the 17 min. BUT teachers were told to keep to their lesson plans. So my dd had the choice of 45 min to complete an in-class essay for ap english…or 17 min less to finish same. A friend’s dd has a physics test during that time. So in effect, the administration did not support any act of protest, solidarity - at all. There’s also some pressure kids were facing with “are you” or “aren’t you” - parents up in arms about that. A neighboring town created a planned school-wide assembly on the football field. Seems like 17 min certainly could’ve been officially spared to allow for everyone to either participate or not (could’ve just put a 17 min study hall option) but there was opposition from losing “critical classtime”. IDK.
Our school got very organized and involved with the walkout, the Principal even sending out several emails. I think they orgnanized it so the kids wouldn’t just walk out without a purpose and have a “skip school” kind of day. Probably a good idea, and the teachers and kids working together might be helpful to those relationships.
EC’s pointy vs spread out: I’ve determined that it seems that the top schools want a somewhat “pointy” candidate, that also has good scores/grades. My son never really received any notes, mail etc until he won his track event. It’s rather silly in my opinion, but I guess those schools have to find kids to be the next “kid up” in certain groups, like sports teams, music, theatre etc. If your kid is a standout with the awards to back it up it seems to help. They all want to have the the winner of the US Science Olympiad, State Champion in whatever, star singer or actor etc.
My. son is more of the spread out EC kind of kid, a lot of involvement in some interesting things, but now is pointy for mastering a goofy sports event and the other things don’t seem to matter as much anymore, they end up being nice add-ons to the sports thing. Weird. I would not have expected this 3 months ago.
Here in my Ds school (in MA) the walkout was a rather big deal. Teachers could not be involved (for the political reasons mentioned above), but were asked to not hold any assessments or complete any graded work during that period.
School tweeted out a picture of the walkout–which is visually impressive. And my D said it made a strong impact (for her at least).
@amandakayak My fingers are crossed for your job interview!
D19 planned to walk out today and will accept whatever consequences. She has always been drawn to political issues and has been following the Parkland kids and all the complications of debates about school safety and gun violence. Her classmates have been discussing it from all sides. She was planning to use today to encourage everyone who will be 18 in November to register to vote (easy to do online). She also thinks the walkout is important because it’s getting the attention of students who don’t follow politics and asking them to engage as citizens.
D21 was not planning to walk out. She’s been having nightmares about a shooting, and feels strongly that safety is an important issue, but she doesn’t think that walking out of school is the right way to address it. She’s not on any social media, and hashtag movements etc. are just not her thing. She’ll find her own causes and her own way to advocate/effect change.
I’m pleased that both D’s thought this through, and I respect both their positions. It’s brought all kinds of good discussion to our house, from free speech in private vs public school, to federal vs state power. I’d be interested to hear reports from all your kids on what they thought about how it went at their school.
Our school planned in-school activities (some student speeches, discussions) rather than have a walkout. One neighboring school’s walkout was cut short due to a threat to the school; another local school had a large walkout planned even though the superintendent said all students participating would have 1-3 days of detention.
Our high school preemptively walked out a couple of weeks ago under the premise that it might not be a good idea to advertise such an event. Our middle school was supposed (snow day) to have a “walk up” event today focused around inclusion including encouraging students to sit with students they don’t normally do so at lunch, etc.
We also received the one point email from ACT. I think I’m going to use it as persuasion to convince S19 to take it one more time.
Administrators at my kids’ (small, Catholic) school worked with the students to plan activities. The school day was restructured to accommodate. S19 and S21 participated. I’m really proud of them.
S19 will vote for the first time this November. He is interested in attending additional marches, activities, etc. S21 is not. Whatever they each feel is right for them at this time is cool by us. We have had a lot of discussions. I try to listen more than I talk. Not always successful. We are a passionate family of four.
@3SailAway thank you! I quit my job for many reasons in Nov and it prob was a bad idea seeing how we still have one more to get through this process! Now I have to explain why which makes it particularly tricky it seems.
Today’s spring break here, so no walkouts at all. 20 April, though, my D19 (and possibly my D23) is planning to walk out for that one.
No word from the school or the district, but I suspect that—given my view of D19’s school as a hippie-granola haven 50 years too late—there’ll be enthusiastic support from the adults.
S19 is marching with his school today. We are on west coast time and they just headed off and are marching to the university (a couple miles away) where 2 of the public HSs and 3 of the private HSs in the area are converging and having a rally. I plan to head over at lunch. S thought about 1/2 his high school is marching, but wasn’t sure. His school is supportive and no consequences for marching but you do have to make up missed work obviously. I expect that teachers would have scheduled assessments to not fall on today’s march.
Did not get that email from ACT, but it is true for us if DD chooses her current favorite. 1 more point would get her another $1000 per year, 3 points would get her another $6000 per year. I think it’s worth a try.
It is true that most of the bigMACs we have found are middle of nowhere schools (or HBCUs in the South). But we live in the middle of nowhere and DD’19 is used to it so to another middle of nowhere she will probably go She used to dream of acting in NYC or LA but recently has turned more nature oriented so a small town school near outdoor activities is now her preference.
I didn’t get the email from the ACT , but I’m all for it. Every year there are hundreds of posts from people complaining because " no one told me that I could get more money if my score was one point higher" and more “how am I going to pay for college? When did it get so expensive ?” posts so if it can help some student get more money to attend school, where’s the harm. They can’t make specific claims because each school is different . A reminder to research your merit opportunities at your potential schools is all good IMO. But I also am not part of the “College Board is evil” posse either.
