Classes end on June 15 here and finals will probably be the 10th to 14th. There should be a little lull between AP tests and finals. (Son only has two APs and they are held the first two days. He has already declared that he doesn’t think he needs to study for them?) I’m not sure if the AP classes have finals.
I guess the VA standardized tests are in there somewhere - I think just history this year? I don’t know - they already had a writing test. Good riddance to those!
Our school has prereqs for AP sciences as well. Because about 1/3 of the kids start the high school science sequence in 8th grade, they are able to take AP Chem or AP Bio (most choose AP Chem) in 11th grade. Because my d is interested in engineering, one of her potential colleges requires a math and science SAT 2, so it’s lucky she fell into the track to be able to take AP Chem as an 11th grader.
Oh, and we are NY here so aside from May APs in Chem, Calc BC, AP Lang, APWH, d will have June Regents exams in Physics, English, and American History.
Most of the classes will also have their own finals in late May or early June. I think the only one that won’t is AP Lang (there is a project IIRC).
We were just talking about our testing plans. D is supposed to take the ACT for the 2nd time this weekend - I thought it would give her plenty of time to practice her math her spring break. Of course she has done nothing so now I am not even sure it’s worth it to take right now. There are ACT dates in July & September that should work. She thinks she should just do it this weekend but I am leaning towards waiting. It seems pointless to have her sit through all of that testing when she hasn’t done any prep.
I still can’t decide which SAT 2 subject tests to sign my S up for, and I think he will only do two. He thinks he could do very well on Spanish and English without a lot of prep. I think he should do a history and math 2 but he thinks he’d actually have to study for math (oh no!). I’m thinking colleges would like to see math and one of the others, but do you think it really matters? Any opinions welcome.
Also, I was thinking he would take the U.S. History test because he’s currently taking IB History of the Americas and I would think it would overlap pretty well. However, he thinks he should take World History because he did really well on the practice problems and doesn’t think he’d have to prepare that much. The problem is that he hasn’t taken AP World since freshman year!
@momtogkc Have you seen the thread about the ACT accusing kids of cheating? After reading through that thread, I would not have my kiddo take the ACT with no prep if she were planning on prepping and taking the test again. The score increase might be too high between the “cold” score and the prep score and raise a red flag with ACT which could result in an accusation of cheating.
Since a number of people here are familiar with WPI, a question: My D19 has described it as her “dream school”. (She’s had a lot of “dream schools” over the past two years, so this is subjectlikely to change, but she bases labeling WPI that way on their curricular focuses—yes, she’s the child of an academic, why do you ask?—and so at least it’s an overly-rational reason.) WPI is test-optional, and her test scores place her pretty much precisely in the middle of their middle 50% of admitted students who submitted test scores.
I assume that makes it worthwhile for her to submit them if she ends up applying there, yes? But I figured it was worth tapping into the hivemind for thoughts on this.
@shuttlebus I thought of that as well. One of my kids took the ACT “cold” in December because while she’s quite bright, she suffers from pretty severe anxiety in new situations. I wanted her to experience the testing environment and process without worrying about anything else. Her score was ok, but I expect that it could easily be at least 3-5 points higher just feeling comfortable and doing some prep (esp in math, as she is still learning some of what is being tested). She’s going to take it again in June “for real” and I have to say that whole thread gave me pause.
@shuttlebus - I saw that thread and it’s scary! I’m glad they didn’t flag my S. He took the ACT last June at the end of sophomore year without any prep. I doubt he even looked at any practice tests much to my dismay. While he had high scores on the other three sections, he got a 26 on the English part and I was surprised because he usually does well in grammar. Then he took it again in December with very minimal self prep (mainly just on the English part) and it jumped to a 35! I’m wondering if he messed up the answer key the first time or if just reviewing commas made the difference. Who knows? He’s a mystery.
My kiddo is planning to retake the ACT and hoping for a 1-2 point jump. 3 if he’s very lucky. I skimmed that thread, it seems to me that the people who get flagged took the test 3 or more times. A jump of up to 5 points between the first and second sittings of the test should be perfectly plausible as the difference between no prep and rigorous prep.
So glad no SAT II tests needed here. Planning for a June retake for the ACT.
Most test prep places offer a free proctored test - Princeton Review, etc. You can use that test for a baseline. It’s not “official” so it doesn’t show up for colleges.
S19 has been taking ACTs and SATs since middle school because he could do it for free through Northwestern’s gifted program (NUMATS). I think Duke and Johns Hopkins also do this. It’s usually organized through your middle school. I also had him take real sittings of the ACT and SAT freshman year. It’s the last year you can take the tests for real before they show up if you have to send all scores. Then, in June before junior year, I took him to Princeton Review and he took both an ACT and SAT. We decided to focus on SAT based on those scores and his preference for the SAT format. Maybe this doesn’t help this 2019 class, but younger siblings may be able to do it this way.
I know it’s a little nuts and wouldn’t work for everyone. S19 doesn’t mind taking the tests and he was very comfortable by the time he took one that counted.
@dfbdfb WPI loves women! They are really going all in to attract female students to the campus. If her scores place her in the middle of the accepted range, I’d send them in. She has a big advantage from being so far away and female. I’d try to have her contact a rep if she can’t make a visit, and explain where you live, and making a trip is hard at the moment, but WPI is tops on her list.
If her scores were in the low range maybe I’d think differently, but she’s fine. She just needs to show interest and explain somehow how she likes stem, group projects, and other stuff that WPI likes to see,
If you have more questions ask, I live nearby and visit the campus a few times every year for robotics and sports competitions. It’s a nice place, all of the kids I know who go there are happy.
@dfbdfb - Sending them seems like a good idea. I’m thinking the college would assume lower scores if you didn’t send, and that if they are in the middle of their score range, it would be a benefit to her application.
I forgot to add it would be a little weird if a few kids from this thread end up going to WPI in 2019. What are the chances?
My son still really likes it, it’s high on the list. We’ll have to see how it plays out, but I am confident my son would enjoy attending there and do well too.
Thanks everyone. I saw that thread about being flagged for cheating but I’m not too worried about that luckily. She has taken the ACT once and got a 32, I don’t think she would go so much higher or lower that it would make the ACT people take notice. What she needed to do was practice math so that could improve and as of now I think it wold stay the same or even go a little lower because she hasn’t been practicing and her timing is all off again.
The first time she took it she had no formal prep, just a few days of practice sections that I forced her to do and I think one full test. She got a 36 in reading, 34’s in English and Science and a 25 :(( in Math. She had plenty of time to finish the other sections but usually ends up with tons of math questions to go and has to guess. That along with having major math anxiety kills her so I was hoping lots of prep would relax her little bit.
I will probably leave it up to her but I hate her to “waste” a test when she could have a chance to take it two more times and may actually prepare a little more. (it hit her this week that she actually would like to try to improve her score a bit and now suddenly is more agreeable to doing some prep work) Once she started talking about caring about her score I mentioned the SAT subject tests - that did not go over too well! I guess I just have to take it one step at a time. :))
Wow, I just read that ACT thread and it’s horrifying. I am grateful our school didn’t make the kids take it, I can absolutely see kids phoning it in when they think they have a score locked up not realizing it might put that previous score at risk. The
@dfbdfb I would send scores (if that is the question). The only reason I see not to, in a test optional scenario is if the scores are poor/sub 25th % and the gpa offsets that.
I’m pretty sure that S19 is finished with testing. He mentioned SAT subject tests in passing once, but I think he has since forgotten that they exist.
I’m not likely to bring them up because I don’t think we can afford any school that requires/recommends them anyway. He doesn’t really have a favorite or best subject, and he’s not taking APs that naturally lead to a subject test. He can take them in August if necessary.
Agreed, that ACT thread is horrifying and especially so that they don’t inform you until so much later! We are thinking about having S19 take it one more time (math was his lowest sub-score) but worry that he might have a bad day and it actually goes down by a lot and then they think he cheated the first time. Then, we are really in trouble as we weren’t planning to have him take the SAT at all.
My S19 was not thrilled with WPI for some reason. Some of it was the panel of all athletes they chose for that particular open house as well as the large classes for the first year or so. The campus is just fine and safe as I go there all the time for my D20’s swimming. I want to say that many students move off campus at some point so if being able to secure on-campus housing is a important, extra research is needed. Girls seem to fare very well at WPI and two recent grads from my town are happily there.
We are headed to Philly area schools (from MA) next week. Our “tour” includes Bucknell, Lafayette, Villanova, and Drexel.
I am just getting so frustrated that things seem to be getting less and less straightforward. First, we’ve got the whole yield protection thing going on. (I’ve got a friend whose daughter got into Georgetown and Brown but was denied at Villlanova. Just one example!) And, now, kids need to worry about their ACT going up too much and being called out as cheaters?