I booked the first leg of a college visits trip with D in July. Our first destination is a safety school and visiting relatives. We’ve also got our final destination, a low-reach LAC that’s one of D’s top choices, pinned down. The middle of the trip is up for debate. I want to go to three LACs I’m familiar with. D wants to schlep out to Dream Reach School. Hmm. I’m looking into logistics. I’ll defer to D’s wishes if I can make the logistics work. I think she needs to get this school out of her system. And who knows – maybe she’ll love it as much as she thinks she will, and she does have some qualities I think they will like, so I guess anything could happen. I’m just glad to have pinned down our basic plan after weeks of uncertainty about it.
And we were right there with the long Friday wait for SAT results a couple of months ago – best of luck!
I can see that by the time I get to my third child, I’m going to be waaaaay over the college search and selection process. Eeep.
@elena13 Would you make the same decision to have your child go far away to school, knowing what you know now? One thing I think about is that a kid going far away is not used to the local vibe/culture as much. I went from a Mountain state to the west coast for school, and that was a doable transition. But some of the kids from the east coast struggled to adjust to California life. My freshman neighbor just could never get into it and eventually left. So I wonder about that with D. We’re in southern California, and she’s used to the lifestyle here – there’s no one racial majority here, it’s a 12-month outdoor flip-flops culture, dress is casual, boarding school is unheard of, etc. She’s not that into some aspects of so Cal culture, but I wonder if it would be a bit of culture shock to head to New England, for example, or Texas. But maybe a bit of culture shock is good? I don’t know. I think our college visits this summer will be really informative to try it all on for size.
@Kona2012 , we are headed back to W&M at the end of June. It will be D19’s first interview, and I’m trying to think of someone we know who could do a “mock” interview with her for some practice. I hope it’s not too hot when we go as D is not a big fan of temps over 85.
Fingers crossed the SAT scores come out with plenty of time before D leaves for pre-Prom tomorrow! We are so glad that she finally she took it, but it’s just hard to have no idea what the scores will be. She had major anxiety the first time she registered and ended up delaying her date. She felt decent about this test because she had really prepared, but who knows? I’d rather she doesn’t have to keep worrying about it, and the whole prom shebang goes from 5:00 until 1:30 am.
@3SailAway Our independent college counselor does interview prep and is going to start working with S after his crazy week next week. She has him starting to look at the common app essays since they are not going to change and generating ideas. She signed him up for a service called “Prompt”, seems like a good website.
She was an AO for Northwestern and did interviews so she has a list of questions that she is going to send to S. She wants him to think of answers and then she is going to “interview” him. She said he should practice with anyone but his parents! LOL! I can share the questions once I get them, if you want.
We are traveling almost all summer so she wants to pin him down before we start our travels so that he is good to go working independently on essay drafts.
S19 just received his 2nd SAT results and they are the same as the 1st test. Poor kid came home apologizing right when he walked through the door to which we hugged him, thanked him for doing his best, and reiterated that we (insert family name) do not give up or give in. He smiled We have a kick butt plan of action that includes modifying study plan/materials and taking the July ACT(1st attempt) and retaking the SAT in August. He has already improved by 200 pts from his PSAT and is incredibly close to his goal so it’s a fight to the finish! I share this because you would think reading CC posts that every student is able to score 1400+ on their first SAT! Nope! Not every student, including my S19 is able to knock the SAT/ACT out the park the first time or even the third time. Support your kids because I’m sure that like my son, they are trying their best! ETA: The schools he is applying to all superscore and recommended he retake the tests as many times as needed as we are going after highest merit amount…no penalization!
No SAT results here yet. This was the second one for S19 and he took it hoping to bump up a bit in math to increase his chances of merit awards but it’s not a big deal if he has to stick with the scores from his first test. Still, we’re all feeling impatient waiting for the results, last time he was in the first wave.
@Kona2012 There has been so much this year that I’ve listened, but didn’t really understand, but … oh well. TOK was the main class that she loved discussing. D’s presentation was the day after BC Calc, so Tuesday afternoon was quick recovery and then prep. She dressed up for it, too.
School is over next week, so finals for some classes. Summer is up in the air all of a sudden. Either SAT II, vacation with dad, then 6 weeks at Carnegie Mellon. Or SAT II, vacation with dad, 4 weeks of unstructured time to work on her Girl Scout Gold award and sew, then 1 week mission trip to Nicaragua.
Carnegie Mellon pushes into school 1st week, and her IB coordinator is backing whatever decision she makes (I love him). I want her to choose the second option, so she’s not burnt out at the beginning of the year. There is an SAT class and essay prep component to CMU, but she could also do that independently here. She’s leaning towards option 1, and has until Sunday night to decide. Very tempting to take the choice away from her.
@Kona2012 I’d love to see any interview questions. There are some specific questions I like to ask, but I prefer when a natural conversation develops. Catch is that with our alum interviews, we know next to nothing about the applicant unless they provide a resume or activity list. Sometimes flying blind is helpful, sometimes not, especially if the applicant is very shy.
I think the key to testing is practicing as many sections and full tests as is humanly possible so that you can breeze through them. My son is taking a second attempt and he’s finishing the 35 minute sections like English in something like 20 minutes. Familiarity and reviewing what you get wrong helps over time.
@4MyKidz My D19 got her second SAT results today too and went down 10 points overall from the last time. I guess if superscored she’d be up by 20 but not enough to move the needle on merit.
@4MyKidz DS19 also got the exact same score on his second SAT. I couldn’t agree more that not every student can knock it out of the park the first, second or even third time. Good luck to him in the future attempts . dS19 did better on the ACT and will be taking the ACT again in June.
@Kona2012 My goddaughter attends William and Mary. She will be a junior next year. She applied ED and also requested an interview. She is instate and a strong student but she really feels the interview and ED really made her competitive.
My DS16 did not interview there, but had quite a few competitive interviews. Some of the unusual questions that he was asked included " If you were a bicycle what part would you be?" " If we went to your school, how would your peers describe you?" He was also given a topic and was asked to argue both sides of the issue.
Per another group that I’m involved with, the ACT is making changes in the accommodations starting in Sept regarding how extra time is allocated and they are also adding the section back that will not be factored into the score. Something some of you may want to investigate further.
In case anyone is still waiting for SAT Subject Test scores…on my D19 account under “view scores” it says her scores are coming. However, she was able to see her scores by logging in under the “My SAT” tab.
D is taking the SAT for the second time in June and boy is she ever at a plateau…she’s been getting essentially the same score for months. I’m naively hoping she will miraculously bust out of this plateau with perfect timing. Ha. She’s taken so many proctored practice tests we’ve lost count. I think she’s taking #11 right now. Starting to wonder what the point of all this is…I think we know where her SAT proficiency is, and it’s not a showstopper but it’s sufficient. Looking forward to being done. And I’m just the mom! I’m sure she’s beyond sick of it…
@3SailAway I had that same thought about getting someone to do a mock interview with my D. She needs some practice. Thankfully a friend has a son the same age and has agreed to exchange mock interviews. I’m thinking of asking a few other '19 moms for exchanges. D’s on board in July for her first ones…
SAT results in. Only slightly better than the first time, but did raise math score by 50, so I guess it was worth it. Not sure if all her schools superscore, but if they do she’s now at 1400. Problem is that she needs upper 1400s to bring the next tier of schools into range for her. I’m not sure I see that happening, but I suspect she’ll want to keep trying. At least she got some good news today- she was picked to be a dorm proctor for next year, which she really wanted.
Thank you so much, @RightCoaster ! I will be happy to have all the help in this journey!
I am still trying to catch up with the thread. A lot is going on in every student’s schedule. As my D19 told me after her AP Stat exam, most of her friends, herself included, are too exhausted with the constant exams, quizzes, projects, deadlines and can’t really bring out their true potential for the standardized tests. She was really feeling the pain of her friends. She said that the only things that will soothe her friends are the parental support and belief in the children. I get her point of view but I understand the parents’ situation as well. They know the kid can get better scores but there is time sensitivity of the better scores on paper. It is a catch 22 situation- the kids need time and the time is running fast. I wish collegeboard to schedule more exams during summer vacations when the kids are relatively free so that they can bring their A game.
We visited D’s dream school sometime back. It is a tippy top school. The chances of her getting into it are next to nothing. Actually, H got admission in it back in the stone age when he had hair on his head but chose another tippy top which offered him a full ride. She teased him for not giving her the legacy status. I told her not to fall in love with it as we won’t qualify for any need based aid and those colleges don’t give any merit aid. She doesn’t care about the beauty of the campus except this one. We actually “talked” that day after a long time! It was very refreshing.
@mom2twogirls I’m guessing you were referring to me. I’m looking at University of Central Missouri. We’re looking mainly at Midwest directionals and saving money We looked at it together tonight and she liked the courses offered, possible majors, and other tidbits I told her about. She, like me, is not into the red mule mascot! That’s actually why I didn’t really look into it before. I told her when I went to Central College I managed to get through without buying any red shirts with Dutchmen on them! She’s open to visiting.
Then she asked to look at schools in Colorado and we confirmed that they will all cost too much.
We have a kick butt plan of action that includes modifying study plan/materials and taking the July ACT(1st attempt) and retaking the SAT in August. He has already improved by 200 pts from his PSAT and is incredibly close to his goal so it’s a fight to the finish! I share this because you would think reading CC posts that every student is able to score 1400+ on their first SAT! Nope! Not every student, including my S19 is able to knock the SAT/ACT out the park the first time or even the third time. Support your kids because I’m sure that like my son, they are trying their best! ETA: The schools he is applying to all superscore and recommended he retake the tests as many times as needed as we are going after highest merit amount…no penalization!