Hi! New to this group but not completely new to the college process. My S17 is now finishing his first year away at college and my D19 is knee-deep in the college search. We’re in CA and most likely looking at the UC options.
As for the meningitis vaccine, my D19 was required to get one version for a residential college program she’ll be completing this summer. I’m definitely not a fan of all the vaccines but reluctantly agreed due to the program’s requirement. Her dr also recommended another type of meningitis vaccine before starting college. I’m going to research the risk/benefit of this other version plus review requirements for the college she ultimately attends.
@homerdog I guess I must have seen chatter on the vaccine on the Class of 2018 board. Not super crazy about brand new vaccines but at least we have a year or so to think on it.
Welcome @nextone1. I am from CA, but in TX now. I didn’t think about college when we made the decision to move away from CA. Now UC anything is a big no no for our kids! Did visit UCI and UCLA sort of to get the whole college visit thing started when we were at home last summer. My D would LOVE to live in Irvine being so close to the beach and Disneyland. Funny, we used to live in Laguna Hills and if we still lived there, she definitely wouldn’t want to go to UCI because it would be too close to home.
No letter yet from my D19’s CA school but not sure where she actually fits within her class. She’s taken more dual enrollment courses than AP. We’ve had the de transcripts sent to her high school but it’s not clear whether the coursework has been credited. It’s a huge public school with a guidance office that is overstretched. If she does happen to be in the top 15% and does not get the UC permission letter, does that mean she would be disqualified from local ELC?
@jellybean5 we too moved from CA to TX, so even though a few UC’s have great film programs, they are a no-no. We just returned yesterday from visiting Oxy, LMU, and USC.
Given all the hype, SCA was even more impressive than we imagined. It’s on a completely different level as far as film schools go. S19 knows it’s a huge reach (SCA Admissions met with us privately and told us they had an a acceptance rate of 3.5% for 2018), but it was still worth the visit.
@gallentjill I am pro vaccine too but on the very new ones, I am a little leery. D19 got the Gardasil 3 (?) years ago, and after the last dose, she had a high fever, was ill for over a day, and I was regretting it. I still consider Gardasil pretty new.
I thought it was interesting that D19’s pediatrician was not endorsing it, because I had just taken D22 to her pediatrician a few days before and that Dr. is really in to it. Long story why they have different pediatricians, insurance is the culprit :((
@Redslp My D’s PSAT went from 1490 to 1480 in junior year. She took it cold though and almost wanted to skip it. Stubborn kid. She probably will not make semifinalist in California. But her SAT score is very high.
@nextone1 You may want to talk to your kid’s school about ELC. In my kid’s school counselors don’t consider dual enrollment classes for overall GPA. Students must request colleges to send transcripts themselves when applying to colleges.
I’m extraordinarily pro-vaccine, particularly since I know how intense the testing is for a new vaccine to come to market—so yeah, it’s new, but it’s not really new, you know?
Of course, the new meningitis vaccine isn’t available—no joke, like literally isn’t available from anyone anywhere—in Alaska right now, so my kids haven’t gotten it yet.
There are a lot of standardized tests in junior year. SAT/ACT/SATIIs and APs. Prepping is happening on top of all the homework. Look at the test dates for next year and do some pre-planning and keep in mind that your kid might want/need to take exams twice. Be realistic about how much prep your kid can do on top of school work. Think about what else they might have going on. Example, heavy prep while doing the school musical or play, say, is unrealistic for most. A bit of calendaring now will mean you are not caught off guard. Like in your head, you are say thinking April is the first time your kid should take the SAT. So that’s the plan. Then months later when you look at the dates to register, you discover that the April date conflicts with something your kid can’t miss. Now the whole plan is out the window and if you’d looked at the dates for the next year, you would have known that April was out a long time ago.
I am pro-vaccine. Both S17 and S19 got the Trumenba meningitis group b series and Gardasil shots.
I forgot the 2 or 3?-month spacing thing so they got the 2nd dose after 6 months. Hope that was still effective.
The boys were pretty sore with mild fever after the meningitis shots. So I would suggest getting the shots when they are in perfect health and free of obligations next day, sports or academic, etc. I would postpone the shots if the kids have a cold on the scheduled day.
Studying for the P/SAT was very helpful for my d last summer too. She took the SAT in October/November. Her score is good. She might take it again to get higher but if she changes her mind, that’s ok too. I think it helped take some of the pressure off to have it done in the fall. Studying for both PSAT and SAT at once also just made sense. She won’t get NMF, but she did what she reasonably could to give it a shot and won’t always wonder if she just didn’t study enough.
We just bought books and she self studied.
@Redslp - My advice would be to either start looking at schools now, or start SAT prep now if you think you child is ready. My son is about 2 years advanced in math, and with personal SAT tutoring, raised his score from mid 1300s to 1560. It was expensive, and I thought my ex husband was nuts for shelling out all that money and insisting he take it so early, but now that I see all the doors that are cracked open for him and the potential merit aid he could get, I think it was an excellent investment. But it was intense. He went once a week - they first assessed him for his weaknesses (some math he was rusty on) and focused with him on areas where he needed to improve. He did practice tests at home every week in preparation for his tutoring session, and he sat for at least 3 exams on the Saturdays leading up to the test day. Somehow, he pulled out a score that was 70 pts higher than any of his practice tests. Anyway, the down side of that was that we did absolutely no college touring in the Fall. We had no time for it. So, we’re pretty behind, especially since he went away on a class trip over Spring break.
You have to make a decision about when it will be best for your child to study for and take the SAT, but I don’t think it’s ever too early to start looking at schools. Also, if your child is taking any AP exams this year, sign up to take the SAT subject test right after the AP test.
@ Trixy34 Wow. Those are some impressive results. How long did he go to tutoring for? I’d like him to do most of his studying over the summer/early fall and take the PSAT and SAT in the fall.
@Trixy34 you are not behind. You are doing things at your own pace and that is fine. You have SAT testing out of the way (I assume, I wouldn’t retake a 1560) and that’s a big hurdle crossed, so you have more time for some of the things other people managed to do while your kid was acing those tests.
College tours can be pretty fun, especially when you have good tour guides and you’re the only ones on the tour. College tours during spring break when you have 60 people per tour guide and can’t hear anything, well, they can be pretty uninformative.
I’m definitely in favor of the meningitis B vaccine and did my research last year. I had my daughter get both doses before she left for college this past August. It requires some planning to make sure you can get the doses in within the correct time frame before your kid heads to school.
@Redslp - Oh gosh, let’s see. I guess he took the SAT in early November because we had the results by Thanksgiving, and he started in the Fall not long after school started, I think. So 2 months? It felt like so much longer. He really worked hard. I think with the math, it was a matter of just refreshing his mind; and he was taking AP Language, so I’m sure that helped the English portion. But the one-on-one was great because he has a tendency to make silly mistakes in his math work, so he had it drummed into him week after week that he needed to be careful and double-check. He also got lots of tips about how to choose the right answer, etc., which I think is probably part of all courses, but the personal tutoring allowed him to be very precise in where he needed to focus his efforts.
