@coolweather S also thought it was “fine”. Said he had a pretty good handle on the written parts but the multiple choice seemed a little harder than he expected. He also said that certain time periods were completely missing from the test. He thought there were supposed to be a certain percentage of questions from each time period (like 5 percent from 1600-1680, 10 percent from 1960-present, etc) and that did not seem to be the case. Virtually no questions about the last 50 years.
It was his first AP so it was good to get it under his belt. BC calc and AP Lang this week, both of which he feels pretty prepared for.
My D never tells me things in details. Her brother and sister are the same.
AP Lang is the only test for my D next week.
D stayed up super late the other night finishing her AP Photo project (technically AP Are but they focused the whole class on photography) and studying for APUSH. Apparently at one point she fell asleep then woke up at 11pm and started studying again. She had to go in early for the exam and came home right after around noon. Went straight to bed, came out around 4 for a drink and went back to bed for another few hours! Poor girl was so exhausted.
@elena13 I think we have a decent list of good schools, but have a category on the spreadsheet that addresses women in STEM. Somewhat reasonable percentages across the department are important to her, and graduating with what you want is more important to me than just getting in. I get that kids change majors in school, but I don’t completely buy the Darwin explanation one frequently hears.
GT’s issue is not %. She has a couple of good HS friends for whom GT is the goal. No effect. Part of it is the location and her definition of aesthetics. But there is also a perception of fit and welcome. She spent a couple of summers at UTenn’s pre-engineering program. In their sales pitch, they put so much emphasis on support and retention efforts. She bonded with that school despite the relative ugliness of the campus (sorry). On the other hand, while GTech’s EECE camp was cool from a content perspective, the pitch came across less about the student and more about the GTech name. I don’t know, maybe the marketing is different if you don’t have to work too hard to get top students.
I’ve gived D a hard time about taking responsibility and ownership of this process. And truly, she was not engaged until the official visits began. However, some of the things that she zeroed in on at different schools made me realize that she’s giving this thing some thought. For instance, the rigidity of Purdue’s changing major policy dropped their ranking, even though she loved the school.
She’s cheating on UTenn to spend 6 weeks at Carnegie Mellon this summer, and while they’re too expensive for us as a college option, it’ll give her another chance to see what environment and level of intensity is her preference.
I just googled: [insert college name] local admissions presentations
and found 2 groups of colleges will have admission info sessions in my town in the next weeks.
I will ask my D to sign up for those.
@peachActuary73 I’m not sure what I misunderstood. You asked me a question
" @carolinamom2boys So was his school list limited to EA schools, and if so, consciously or coincidence? Or did you drop the non-EA schools based on EA success?" I just answered your question by describing the process that my son used.
In general, I believe the following.
- EA = improved chances of merit
- ED = decreased chance of $ negotiations
- Visiting remote schools that cost a love of $ to travel to before acceptance and knowing if you can afford a school, can end in heartbreak and monies spent that didn’t need to be.
And…I’m going against all my stated positions for S19.
He really wants to consider ED at a top choice, that he has not visited. His major is competitive, his score/gpa situation is lopsided (or at least I believe it is, they don’t publish CDS or GPA so it’s hard to know where the gpa really stands) and based on what we have seen, ED versus RD will not impact merit or FA at this particular choice. It is ED friendly so he can get out for $ or move to RD though as noted before (and I agree) that this is likely detrimental to the chances of admission in the RD round. If he does ED he may not hear until mid Jan and would have to decide by 2/1. 2 weeks to plan and book an east coast visit stresses me out on many levels. He has another close to top choice that we can also visit on the same trip, which will help provide ED clarity.
The current plan, pending the results of the summer trip, is
1 rolling auto admit
3 EA (1 each safety, match, reach)
1 ED (match/low reach, maybe high reach for major)
3 RD (1 safety, 2 high reaches)
He will have heard on all EA and Rolling before the ED so we ill have a solid feel for $ at all. 2 of the 3 RD are in state, and 2 of the RD 3 are high reaches so it’s fairly low risk to put them in a category of having to withdraw. Only one is high on his list and almost certain to be unaffordable even if he did get in. We will not revisit either of these 2 after acceptance. If it comes down to the end and others need to be visited, we will look at Feb and even April for those trips. They are all closer and more easily pulled off on a shorter trip.
On the flip side, with S17, he did all schools EA and had offers by 2/1 with merit for all. We didn’t visit any remote schools until after acceptance and tailored the trip around the financial offers, one school was never visited. So, it depends on the kid and the strategy.
Oh and, since I am breaking my travel rules we are adding some vacation elements in so it’s all good 
Help with recommendations! Can some of you experienced folk explain the logistics? I’m guessing the student will put a teacher email into the common app and the common app will email the teacher a link to upload? The Common App doesn’t open until late summer. If your student asks a teacher now for a recommendation, the teacher writes it over the summer and uploads in the fall?
Or is Naviance involved somehow?
@evergreen5 I would ask your GC. Our recs are all sent from the teachers to the GC and she sends them to the schools through Naviance.
That’s how our teacher recs work also. If you’re applying somewhere that doesn’t use Common or Coalition app then you have to get the recommendation separately, but for most recs they go through the guidance counselor. She gets to read them before she sends them - she told my kid that he should ask three teachers and she would send the best one (or two) after reading them. I’m not sure where that falls on the ethics scale, but I’ll take any help she’ll give.
@evergreen5 - Yes, that is how our recommendations work, as our school doesn’t use Naviance. My S is asking teachers to write now and then hang on to them until August when school starts back and the Common App opens. I guess having the counselor choose the best two out of three sounds good but wouldn’t work for us as the teachers will send them directly through the Common App.
Same here, @elena13 . No Naviance at my kids’ school. The teachers put their recommendations directly into the Common App. I am still “gently encouraging” S19 to complete his info sheet for the teachers so that he can ask them now. With the APUSH test now behind him, it might finally happen. 
Just picked up two shell-shocked juniors who took the AP Physics C exam today. It will be interesting to see how how they fared!
Enjoyed another morning of proctoring today – AP Bio. The students endear themselves to me because they tend to be super polite and ask cute questions, like the girl who worried this morning that she might not have bubbled in her middle initial on a test last week. Aww. I sympathize with these kids – they work hard and have a lot of pressure, and then it comes down to a few hours, whether it be AP tests or SATs or an athletic event.
@evergreen5 I agree with the advice to check with your GC. Different schools have different systems. Ours has a “letter request form”, which includes prompts to provide more info about what the student did in the class, etc. Those are all fine, and you may not have a choice. I wrote about this in a post on here a few weeks ago. I used to write many LoRs as an adjunct professor, so I have experience as the one being asked for letters. Do not just send an auto-generated email through the Common App requesting a letter, and leave it at that. Before your child sends that official request, he or she should go to the teacher and ask for a letter in person well in advance of any deadlines. Ideally this is included with at least a brief friendly conversation – because after all, you’ve got a good rapport with this teacher, right? That should be followed up with a second in-person visit when your child will hand the letter writer a cover letter thanking them for the letter and providing some contextualization, personalization, positive comments about the teacher, and reminders of class experiences. Also a reasonable (i.e., not 10 pages) brag sheet/resume, and, if relevant, a A+ type of project, test, or paper from the class. This doesn’t need to be (and definitely shouldn’t be) an inch thick, but it serves to draw attention, show effort, and subtly suggest what could be included in the letter. I’ve received auto-requests for letters without prior contact, even from students I know well, and it’s off-putting. I don’t know if people realize that one teacher or professor from big schools can easily be asked to produce 40 or more letters of rec a year. That’s a lot of work. A lot of those are going to end up being pretty boilerplate in nature, and are going to therefore re-state what can be learned elsewhere in an application. To have a chance of standing out and therefore getting a more productive letter, ask early, provide these supplementary materials, and be courteous. Those are just my two cents based on my experiences as a letter writer.
@SDCounty3Mom Thanks for laying it all out! Fortunately the asking part is something my junior had to do back in 8th gr for recommendations to apply to a private high school, so that part should go ok. But we do need to find out the general system at the high school - I’m annoyed that there hasn’t been an email (that I’m aware of). It would be great to get the asking part over with sooner rather than later - finals are next week.
Every now and then I notice the calendar. We have a busy summer planned and it will fly by, and soon it’ll be Sept… kinda feels like we’re waiting in line to get on a rollercoaster and suddenly the line is moving faster than we thought.
On request, I stopped by starbucks on the way to AP Calc. Five minutes later, the kid says, “I don’t think this coffee is helping my beating heart.” So glad this is almost over.
Now I feel we are behind on the rec letter thing and will just have to prepare over the summer. No Naviance, no communication from the school. To be fair, the 11th grade IB students don’t get a guided study timeslot, which would be the time when college advising would occur. Still it’s been crazy silent with regards to college apps.
I absolutely 2nd or 3rd the motion to check with gc. Even with naviance every school handles it in a different fashion. Our school lets the student request a letter/transcript sent out via naviance. We never see what is written. It is just a check box next to the teacher’s name who uploaded a letter. Started earlier this time asking the teacher; so, that part is done. While another school nearby with naviance, the gc handles everything via paperwork.
@evergreen5 absolutely love the rollercoaster line comparison. It is so true. Can you put on the brakes so we can slow down a bit??
My dds math teacher holds a scavenger hunt and the top 10 finishers get a rec letter from him. It’s silly and unnecessary but they have fun taking riddles and photo clues and finding him hidden in the school somewhere. Dd was first to find him so hopefully this gets her a great rec letter.