@3SailAway - I do have to say that despite my complaints about all the AP classes in early grades and the insanity involved in taking more and more advanced classes, I do really like the IB program and those course have been the favorites of my kids. They have had excellent teachers and great writing experience. My S has especially liked TOK (basically philosophy) and HOA (History of the Americas).
S will be working as much as possible this summer as a life guard, doing swim team, training for his fall sport, self-study for SAT subject tests and maybe one more go at the ACT, likely will attend a leadership seminar, hopefully will write some essays, and will work as a ball boy at a professional tennis tournament. Doesnāt sound very relaxing!
D will be hanging out at home this summer doing whatever she wants for the most part which probably means continuing to work on the computer operating system she is developing. She will also need to do some work on college applications and essays and so on as fall marching band season is pretty time consuming and she will be applying almost everywhere EA.
I think tomorrow is the AP stats test date for son19. He said heās not stressed at all about it and is not worried about his score. For some reason he was able to handle AP Stats and Honors Physics with ease, but honors precalc has been more of a grind.
Still another month of school to go before Final exams. Son is getting tired of it all right now, so heās just trying to grind his way thru the rest of the year. Heās really busy though and looking forward to having some downtime this summer.
As far as summer goes son is going to the high school national championship track meet, doing a track camp at one of the local colleges which includes coaches from all over the country, and he might participate in something like the Jr Olympics instead of work. He doesnāt have a long break, so finding a part time job is kind of useless, as he is currently has a part time job in Fall/Spring as a referee.
Heāll work on his college essay and application and try to have that wrapped up by late August. He may take the SAT one more time late summer, so maybe heāll study.
S19 has 3 football camps, daily strength/conditioning training, and will be a counselor for a childrenās type 1diabetes camp. He will also take the July ACT and write scholarship/admin essays. D20 wants to work but also has band/color guard camp all summer. D14 who graduated from college this past weekend will be looking for a job!
I do have a question which may have already been addressed for which I apologize in advance! There are two schools that S19 has shown alot of interest in and the schools have shown lots of interest in my son. They have his test scores/gpa already. One wants him to apply now. The other wants him to apply in August. Is there a benefit to him applying so early?
D tool AP Lang and AICE Math exams today - had about 15 minutes in between to eat. AP Lang she said was OK except she didnāt have time to finish her last essay which has never happened for her (it is her better subject.) AICE Math was impossible, she didnāt remember anything but she isnāt too concerned because it is like an AP exam - doesnāt count towards your grade and he already has enough AICE credits for her AICE diploma. The only place it would matter is if she went to a FL public school then she would get credit for it like you do with AP exams, from what we have looked at it looks like most other schools do not give credit for AICE (even though that is how the school talks everyone into the classes freshman yearā¦ 8-| )
She has no plans for the summer yet, in fact I told her this afternoon that now that most of her exams are over she really needs to figure out something to do! She would like to get a job but we are going away for a week in June and two weeks at the end of July/beginning of August so I canāt see how that would work. Oh - and at some point we need to look at more schools! She should be able to keep volunteering at the pre-school where she has been volunteering this year, they have a summer camp and Iām sure they wouldnāt say no. She also need to learn to drive, practice or her July ACT and hopefully work on her essays.
Canāt remember if I discussed summer plans here yet. DD gets out of school next Thursday. Not sure if the soccer season will extend past the school year, depends on how far they get post-season which is probably not far. First week of June she has a choir trip to NYC.
After that we are really hoping she has a job at our church camp- anxiously waiting for a reply. She would be so much happier there than working at her old job here, and the pay is good. I know camp needs people but DD can only work about 6 weeks so I donāt know if theyāll take her. If so, sheāll work at camp for a few weeks, then come back to see Hamilton and go on our family vacation. Back to work at camp for a few more weeks and then stay another week at camp with us, but as a camper and not a worker! Then sheāll have a couple weeks off before school starts.
Possibly ACT study depending on if she gets a better idea where she wants to go. I found another school this week where sheās already at the top auto merit so that might be a selling point because she does NOT want to retake. Maybe stop by a couple of schools over the summer when she can.
@4MyKidz I donāt know if there is a benefit to early application, but I plan on DD doing a couple this summer just to have something. Sheās not applying anywhere selective, and theyāre probably all rolling, so it will just be nice to have done.
We have a family vacation planned. Then S19 and S21 will visit with one set of grandparents for several weeks as they have done since they were young. Then we will all visit with another set of grandparents. We do not live near either set of grandparents. So these summer visits have always been the priority for our family. Itās precious time and moments. S19 still looks forward to these visits. And who knows what will happen next summer and beyond.
Iām trying to get us all used to the idea that once S19 graduates high school, there might be other summer priorities of jobs, friends, etc. near whatever college he attends or here at home. One grandparent has already arranged for him to have a job while he is visiting this summer. A last ditch effort. LOL! Itās going to be hard for all of us to adjust and let S19 lead his own life.
Marching band will start at the beginning of August. Oh, and there will be an essay to write.
S19 is in a play, which makes him busy every single weekend from now until August. I am trying to remind myself that we wanted this to happen. It does make family vacation August or nothing. Weāre hoping to make a swing up through New England. Three colleges to visit, we could adjust the list slightly depending on final junior year GPA and possible improvement on the ACT at the second sitting.
Kiddo is also going to be taking two online courses from the local community college, and heāll be writing essays. I did sign him up for a one day ācollege applications boot campā thingamajig.
I donāt want to overload him with work, but I also donāt want him to stagnate. This will be my first summer that I work from home part time while the kid is at home. Weāre going to have to set boundaries, which may be hard.
S19 said that the AP Calc AB multiple choice was easy and the free answer was āa nightmare.ā We have no expectations for this test so it was relatively stress-free for him. Our school has a grant to pay for AP testing so the kids are required to take the tests even if they donāt intend to use them for college admission or credit. He though APUSH and Lit went well. Although there are technically 3 more weeks of school, things are winding down. This week and next are AP and Keystone tests so itās a partial day for kids who arenāt testing and then it will be finals which arenāt very intense for the AP classes.
He is doing two 2 week musical theatre programs this summer, we are taking a family vacation and he is going with his friends on their graduation trip to the beach so thatās more than the half the summer away from home. Time at home will be focused on preparing for and filming prescreens, finishing essays and filling out applications as soon as they come online. The next 2 1/2 months are going to go by in the blink of an eye.
We still have a month of school, with finals the last week. Every class seems to have an āin-class projectā at the moment, which probably means that the night before these projects are due, S19 will be trying to do 50-75% of each one at home. Hopefully, they will not all be due the same day!
Our summer is not looking particularly organized at the moment but Iām not too stressed about it yet. We need to visit colleges but which ones is still a bit fuzzy. Hopefully having the end-of-junior-year GPA will bring things into focus a bit. Iām glad he was willing and able to do his testing early so at least we donāt have to worry about that.
S19 will be running each morning with the coaches and the team - M-Sat at 6:30am! Heās going to a one week XC camp at Wisconsin with his team. He will be working on his essays with his AP Lang teacher and hopefully filling out most apps. He might work. Not sure yet. Summer is so short (nine weeks) and heās out of town for three of them so itās probably unrealistic. Heās also taking art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, one that is titled āLife Drawingā and includes nude models. I lied to him and told him they will always be draped but I donāt think thatās the case. :))
We will have a family vacation in there somewhere but I donāt have it planned yet. It may or may not include a college visit. Iām really struggling with whether he really needs to see the last few schools on his list and also if itās better that we just suck it up and do it in the fall so he can see kids on campus. I need to decide pretty soon.
Anyone else have those moments with your teen when you look at this otherwise lovely, bright, and rational person, listen to the insanity coming out of their mouth, and mentally drift away to a tropical island? Had one of those mornings with D. She is, without a doubt, a great kid and I am grateful to have such a conscientious, thoughtful daughter. But, like everyone, we have our moments. This morning she was insisting that she needs some free time and so I should cancel all her after-school commitments today. Um. And it was just because she finished outlining a short story and wants some time to work on it, and sheād like to do some party planning for an event weāre hosting over Memorial Day weekend. She was straight up pleading with me to cancel everything on her calendar for today so she can write and plan. This would be a $50 music lesson and a weekly volunteer commitment that we RSVP for every week. I made the grave mistake of trying to point out that this would sound pretty odd as an explanation for cancelling. I also reminded her that her junior-year calendar has basically been a wasteland of cancellations due to our whole family sharing what felt like four different colds from December to April, and the major academic stress of this year. I told her no about four times and then just decided to sloooooowly walk away. Life with teenagers!! And my less than two-year-old dishwasher has a broken motor. Ugh. I may need an extra-long walk with the dog this morningā¦
Great summer plans all around! Iām impressed by the 6:30am workouts! Thatās dedication.
Iām on Iteration #78 or so with the Great Midwestern College Visits Road Trip itinerary. Visit a couple of safeties or donāt worry about them? Add in a weekend with extended family or bail on them like I usually do? Drive out to the dream reach school or stay away to avoid later heartache? I canāt believe how I canāt pin this down. DH has apparently no opinion, and itāll just be me taking her while he stays home with our other two kids. Iām just going to have to go for it and weāll see what weāll see.
For us the last day of school is next Thursday, May 24. That evening D19 is leaving on a trip with her choir (not a school choir) to a choir festival near Seattle. She comes back on 5/29. Starting on 6/11 she has to take summer school PE to fulfill a graduation requirement that sheās put off until now. Summer school consists of two 3 week sessions (each covering a semester), Mon-Thurs 8am to 1 pm. I think it would be really good for her to get a part time job (maybe on the weekend) but Iām waiting until she gets back from the choir trip to have her start looking. I donāt think thereās any shortage of minimum wage jobs around where we live.
I would visit the safeties @SDCounty3Mom if possible. Itās been a huge relief to my d that she loves her safety and can picture being there. She wouldnāt have known that without the visit.
Our school drags on until June 15. It used to drag further into the summer, until the governor set up state laws that put June 15th as the latest they can go. The teachers donāt take attendance for the last 2 or 3 days, and tell the kids that they should only come in if they have makeup work to do. This year weāre getting renovations over the summer so many teachers have to move their entire classrooms into sea containers for storage, so theyāre telling the kids not to show up from 6/13 - 6/15 unless they want to be drafted into heavy labor.
Last day of school here is June 25. We leave on vacation for a week on the 30th. I am hoping he will have a new job to work at when we get back. There are a lot of jobs here for teens as long as you arenāt looking just for summer, so Iām hoping that isnāt too much of a problem.
A second vote for a safety, @SDCounty3Mom ā especially if itās close and has a particular angle (e.g., big city or rural, larger or very small, etc.) that the other schools might not cover. I would characterize our safety as a high safety, so not guaranteed, but itās good to know that sheās comfortable attending that school if all the matches and reaches prove even more reach-ier than anticipated.
I think there are mixed opinions on the value of visiting the dream reach schools before application. From our perspective, I think visiting the dream reach school ended up eliminating the school (plus probably one other similar school) from major contention, so it was a worthwhile trip. Now, that was for a school that has a somewhat narrow niche (akin to, say, visiting conservatories if the kid isnāt sure about applying to conservatories), so that might be different from someone who is comparing Williams with, say, Carleton or St. Olaf ā I would guess that people who like Carleton and St. Olaf might be inclined to like Williams, and Iām guessing the marginal value of visiting Williams is less in that case than in visiting, for example, Oberlin. At that point, itās your call as to whether the value outweighs the costs.
Relative to summer jobs, I know I said yesterday we hope that maybe D19 gets a summer job, but after we talked a bit with her last night, and my wife and I talked this morning, I am less certain we can make a summer job work ā she will essentially have 10 weeks of freedom, and between the fact that sheās done no searching thus far and will be gone for a week on vacation, Iām now thinking a new job is unlikely. I also suspect that the idea of a āsummer jobā as I used to think of it when I was her age has disappeared. Especially in the desert of Arizona, where ice cream stores are busy year-round and if youāre not a lifeguard, thereās not really an employer that needs you in the summer and not the other 9 months of the year.
For those of you whose kids will have no real summer plans, do you worry about how to address that on college apps? Will the kids have to account for all of their summers? My D had a summer like that last year. It wasnāt what we planned but life conspired against us.
@gallentjill ā Because there isnāt a specific line for summer activities, Iām assuming that it all depends on whether the overall mix of activities is impressive. Besides things like completing driving lessons, studying for SAT retake, working on college applications, and having some fun ā things that wouldnāt appear on a college app ā Iām hoping that D19 can find an internship of some sort at the college or work on some self-directed science-related activity.
My wife described her wish this morning that D19 learns a new skill this summer. Obviously that could be via a new job (many skills in a 20-hour-a-week summer job), but there are other ways, too. Learning new skills is always useful, even if it doesnāt directly translate to help on the college app.
Had one of those mornings with D. She is, without a doubt, a great kid and I am grateful to have such a conscientious, thoughtful daughter. But, like everyone, we have our moments. This morning she was insisting that she needs some free time and so I should cancel all her after-school commitments today. Um. And it was just because she finished outlining a short story and wants some time to work on it, and sheād like to do some party planning for an event weāre hosting over Memorial Day weekend. She was straight up pleading with me to cancel everything on her calendar for today so she can write and plan. This would be a $50 music lesson and a weekly volunteer commitment that we RSVP for every week. I made the grave mistake of trying to point out that this would sound pretty odd as an explanation for cancelling. I also reminded her that her junior-year calendar has basically been a wasteland of cancellations due to our whole family sharing what felt like four different colds from December to April, and the major academic stress of this year. I told her no about four times and then just decided to sloooooowly walk away. Life with teenagers!! And my less than two-year-old dishwasher has a broken motor. Ugh. I may need an extra-long walk with the dog this morningā¦