My ds just started prepping for SAT II Lit test which he is registered to take this Saturday. His SAT CR score is 730, but he just scored a 610 on his first practice Lit test from Kaplan book. He says he may not take on Saturday. Any advice, experience w/ students quickly improving on real test from practice test taken right before. He scored an 800 on Math II subject test and is a strong student.
@karen0 did he take AP Lit? Thatâs really the best prep for that SAT test. Iâve heard it actually one of the harder SAT 2s and not like EW part of the SAT. Kids have to know what how to analyze poems and prose.
@ninakatarina - D was heavily involved in theater all four years of high school and it was so hard to have it end last year. The drama director often does strange things with casting for their big spring musical so I wasnât sure how things would turn out for Dâs final show. In the end D and her best friend (with whom she had done 3 years of middle school chorus and 4 years of h.s. drama) got the two female leads in Guys and Dolls and ended their senior year show singing a duet together. It was perfect and super emotional. Iâve been back for two of the shows this school year but if feels so strange not to be helping with all the food, sewing costumes and doing the photography/video. Iâm really dreading the lasts that my S will go through in the next year.
This is kind of my DS14/18, but without the guitar. :-/ Now mind you he only graduated a week ago, but itâs frustrating to see how little he knows (or wants to hear) about what he really has to do to get a job. Just clicking on the âeasy applyâ button on LinkedIn or Indeed etc. is not enough. I think he thought that because he majored in a STEM field (MechE) jobs were going to drop out of the sky for him, and he is learning that it is not quite so easy. Weâve told him that he needs to make a plan, and that plan probably needs to include frequent meetings with his schoolâs CDO (which is happy to work with alumni).
Finally back from long break to start DS19 college journey. Just graduated first child. Second kid half way through. Now finishing an East Coast road trip for DS19 and DD20. Then done finally whew!
@elena13, was your D Adelaide or Sarah? All three of my kids love school theater. If S24 sticks with it, thatâll be 12 years straight when he graduates.
I try to keep in mind the Winnie the Pooh quote: âHow lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.â
@karen0 Kind of the same in our house. S signed up for biology next Sat but he just started studying for it over the weekend. Heâll take the math II for sure, but will make a call on the biology and Spanish after another try at the practice tests. Would be so great for him to be done with testing, but not sure he can get a high score on biology without more serious prep. Heâs in biology now and doing great, but the subject tests cover some material he hasnât seen.
DS is cutting it very close, he is finishing up jr. year and will retake SAT at the end of Aug., he may need to take a subject test in Oct but it will be super close to the Oct. 31 ED deadline. Some of the schools he is applying to look at his full testing history and three of his schools require two subject tests. So, not sure what he should do.
Catching up on posts from ten pages ago! Sorry for all the references to posts made as long as four days ago! 
Welcome, @chipperd!
LOL, @SDCounty3Mom:
As a first-year, our D16 who is attending college in New England roomed with someone who had attended a Southern California boarding school (Thacher) and she seemed to do just fine. I know this is unusual, San Diego, but I thought it was funny that she fit the description you said was unheard of!
Another LOL that Rutgers is âweirdnameâ to you, @dfbdfb. I remember back in the 90s when they appended The State University of New Jersey to Rutgers because no one outside of NJ seemed to realize that the three Rutgers were state schools and that Rutgers New Brunswick was the state flagship.
I have a PhD (in literature), and I am not teaching as a professor right now (though I have in the past). I am not sorry I pursued this degree since it provided me many skills I use in my current job. My current job, however, does not pay well (to put it mildly). I also love @ninakatarinaâs support of her kiddoâs current choice, theater. As many have said, odds are that most of our kids will change majors. Our S13 started as a chem major, moved to an economics major before finally deciding to major in art (with a focus on painting) with a minor in economics and finishing all his premed requirements. He is completing a great post-college fellowship year based on his art degree and then will begin medical school this fall.
And btw, NinaK, my brother is a creative director at a very big video game company, so there are people who do end up with that job. When he landed his first job in the video game industry, one of the reasons he was hired is because his sense of a storyline and his ability to create compelling narratives was very strong. So maybe theater will work very well alongside your kiddoâs desire to create video game characters.
What we do know about job opportunities in the future is that they will look very different from the careers we considered 20-30 years ago, will be much more interdisciplinary than they were in the past, and will rely on critical thinking skills and the ability to integrate many ideas and work with many different people. So I agree with DFBx2âs analysis that it is better to be able to âthink nimblyâ and with NKâs idea that college is an important time to immerse yourself in a diverse experience.
Youâre so right, @carolinamom2boys. This is happening to a 2018 grad in our neighborhood (who attends a charter rather than our excellent local high school). She was accepted by many tippy-top schools, including Brown and Tulane. Her heart is set on Brown. Her parents are insisting that she go to Tulane on the full scholarship they have given her. They could probably afford Brown but according to their neighbor it will include many sacrifices on their part. Last I heard, she wasnât speaking to them and hadnât since mid April. Sort of sad to end your childâs senior year this way.
@cakeisgreat, I am always a little surprised at how many of the 2019 parents (including me) have four kids. I guess I shouldnât be all that surprised about myself! :))
@dfbdf,
like this 
or this :-S or this 8-| or this :-?? or this @-) or this $-) or this ~X( or this X_X ? Myself, I wish FB had a âhelpfulâ button.
Finally, @infinitewaves,
I think we all may be!
@karen0 @liska21 S19 has always had issues with June SAT 2 tests. (1) He assumes that the AP equivalent will prepare him fairly well as long as he takes a couple of days to review SAT 2-specific material and (2) by June, heâs DONE. Mentally checked out. For us, the June SAT date is right after finals so itâs so hard to motivate to study for yet another test. Freshman year, he took the Bio SAT 2. He reviewed an SAT 2 Bio book for two/three days, maybe a few hours a day. He determined that he would not have time to prepare well. He got a 690 and we wonât use it. Sophomore year, he was signed up for Math 2 and, while he probably could have taken it and done ok, we realized late that many kids get an 800 and he wanted to shoot for that. Took a few practice tests the week before the test and was in the mid-700s but knew that he could get an 800 if he had just a few more days to prepare and we cancelled the test.
SoâŠthis year, he decided that June was a bad time. Opted for the May SAT 2 for American History since heâs taking APUSH. The APUSH test (as most of you know) is writing heavy and deals with trends, etc. The SAT 2 test is all multiple choice and full of details. He took the time to study for about a week before the test but there was only so much he could cover while school was in session (and it was right before AP week for him). That test is a little random. You donât know what kind of facts youâll need to know and you either know them or you donât. Very hard to guess. He took the test. Did ok I guess but not what he wanted and he wants to retake in August. As for that Math 2 test, we also pushed it until this coming August. And now he wants to throw Lit in there as well for that date because he says he will already be there so why not?
He will study for all three over the summer. I think he will probably not start until the beginning of August.
S19 will take the SAT for the first time this Saturday. He needed to finish up this year of âcollege prepâ math in order to have learned what is covered. The school did change the math sequencing this year for that very reason. What were junior year college prep math classes will now be taken freshman year. So the juniors and freshman were mixed together this year (itâs a small, Catholic school).
S19 had to deal with being in class with a bunch of S21âs friends. Apparently, this was âAnnoying. So annoyingâ 
Thinking about the kids who taking subject tests. Having those on top of the SAT itself is a lot. Theyâll totally rock 'em.
@3SailAway - She was Sarah and it was so fun to see them together. I think my S19 would really like to be in a play, but unfortunately the director would never allow it due to his sports commitments.
@EastGrad I suspect this refers to my familyâs circumstances, if it doesnât I would love to be put in touch with these folks because we have a ton in common:
âYouâre so right, @carolinamom2boys. This is happening to a 2018 grad in our neighborhood (who attends a charter rather than our excellent local high school). She was accepted by many tippy-top schools, including Brown and Tulane. Her heart is set on Brown. Her parents are insisting that she go to Tulane on the full scholarship they have given her. They could probably afford Brown but according to their neighbor it will include many sacrifices on their part. Last I heard, she wasnât speaking to them and hadnât since mid April. Sort of sad to end your childâs senior year this way.â
Let me clarify a few things so that these circumstances donât become over dramatized and a piece of internet lore that might misdirect someone in the future:
âHer heart is set on Brown. Her parents are insisting that she go to Tulane on the full scholarship they have given her.â
A more accurate description would be:
My daughter saw herself at Brown more than Tulane. She worked very hard in high school [as so many do] and believed that a spot at a progressive Ivy League University on the east coast was a better and more fitting outcome for that hard work than Tulane.
Her parents immersed themselves in finding out as much as they could about both amazing opportunities to help their daughter and themselves to arrive at a decision that was the âbestâ under the circumstances. There is actually an entire thread on this topic on CC which was one small part of the due diligence that we did.
âshe wasnât speaking to them and hadnât since mid April.â
It was a difficult decision, and of course a very wonderful decision to have to make. Our daughter did not engage with us for many days, probably 2 - 3 weeks, about this decision because there was a lot of emotion involved and some other personal issues. We hoped that it would be a collaborative discussion leading to a consensus decision of what was best for the entire family. However, that was not the case at the start. We respected that she was not ready to engage and gave her the space she needed to come to grips with her opportunities and to begin weighing them against one another.
We shared all of the information that we were obtaining with our daughter. This information included, among other information, considered advice from some of the most amazing, intelligent, and successful people that we know, many of whom EastGrad you also know and whose thoughts, advice and observations I am certain you would not dismiss out of hand, as well as advice from their children who attended and are attending the top colleges and universities in the country for undergrad, grad and professional education. Our daughter was part of many of these conversations.
âSort of sad to end your childâs senior year this wayâ
Equipped with a vast amount of information, we had numerous discussions about our daughterâs numerous opportunities, and these discussions as well as the entire journey were educational experiences for all of us. In the end, the decision was not tremendously difficult. There was still some mild mourning that needed to be done for the loss of the idea of attending a progressive Ivy League University on the east coast, which was gradually replaced by the growing excitement for the adventures that lie ahead.
Our daughterâs senior year ended last Friday. The ending was as close to a fairy tale ending that one could imagine, with much joyful celebration with friends and family coming from afar to show their support for this wonderful young woman.
âThey could probably afford Brown but according to their neighbor it will include many sacrifices on their part.â
The question for us wasnât âcan we afford it?â it was âis it a good decision to afford it?â when weighed with the other options and future plans of our daughter. Hopefully the decision we made will work out. Itâs like anything - you do your best, make the choices you think are right and then cross your fingers and hold you breath!
All the best - Cheers!
Hello @jsnowut, I am not sure if this is you, because there are a few details in your account that do not line up. In any case, I am glad you and your daughter have reached peace with this decision, especially if it was painful. I am certainly not advocating choosing Brown over Tulane. My point was only to reiterate what @carolinamom2boysâs advice: âthatâs why my kids donât apply to colleges that we canât afford just to see if they can get in. It sets people up for family discord,â which I still believe is good advice. I think Tulane is a wonderful school, as you see I include it as a âtippy-topâ along with Brown, and I hope your child has a very wonderful experience there. There is no doubt in my mind that the weather will be nicer!
I survived our holiday weekend! Houseguests every night, and a big party on Sunday. Exhausting but fun.
Now on to the choir concerts and the final weeks of school. D19 is also taking the SAT on Saturday. Sheâs gotten lower than her March score on every subsequent practice test so our expectations are modest. Iâm glad sheâs got her one good set of scores in the bank. Iâve decided thereâs no perfect time to take the tests. March was good in some respects but horrible in that it was right after finals week with our trimester schedule. May was too soon after March and in the midst of AP tests. December, she wasnât ready math-wise. And June isnât great because weâre all âover itâ and need to get off this junior year train. We are putting off thinking about the subject tests. Will see how the AP test results look, and if those are strong, weâll let those round out her score portfolio and not bother with subject tests.
D19âs current list is at 15 and I feel like itâs getting too big again. Iâm also feeling concerned lately that some of what we have on her list is sort ofâŠarbitrary. For example, sheâs interested in Jesuit schools. Included on this list right now is St Louis University because they came to her school and told her sheâd be invited to compete for a full tuition scholarship with her stats, and it has various other appealing features. We used to have Marquette on the list in this same category and dropped it because we added SLU. But the schools are very, very similar and one is on and one is off because of the high school visit. Hmm. I feel like I need some really well programmed, up to date software to instead somehow take into account all the hard data and all the intangibles, see into Dâs soul and come up with our list for us instead. Take out the human factor. Even the one college consultant we had a sit-down with did this arbitrary push-and-pull decision-making. We mentioned LMU (Loyola Marymount) on the list and she literally told us she knows a kid who didnât like it there. Um. A kid. As if thereâs a school on the planet where every student ever has loved it there. Ugh.
@liska21 Interesting story for your oldest! I can appreciate that we all have a different progression and the luckiest kids are the ones whose parents both a.)let them follow their hearts, and b.) appreciate patience. Sounds like youâve done that well with your son! I have friends who have had all three of their twentysomething children back in their little suburban home with them.
@EastGrad That is funny about the California kid from a boarding school. The exception that proves the rule, I guessâŠ!
@mathmomvt Oooh best of luck to your son in his job search! Networking!! And use that CDO! Actually the CDO can be a resource even years down the road. Thatâs a perk of going to a school with a good one and a good alumni network.
@carolinamom2boys Congrats on being a double Eagle mom (or nearly so!). Iâm surprised to hear your council has such lengthy Boards. Ours run only about 30-45 minutes. The men get all dressed to the nines in military uniforms or full suit and tie, so they act like itâs a big deal but in reality itâs really not too bad.
@jsnowut Sounds like a tough decision but a good problem to have in the end. Many of us I think are grappling with being able to afford sticker price tuition and wondering whether thatâs prudent. The old âcan vs shouldâ problem. For our D19, no one, including her, thinks sheâs going to be a big money maker, so does it make sense to spend soooo much money if there are sound alternatives? It doesnât sound easy to sort it all out, and emotions can run high. I have a ânuclear optionâ as I call it that I can use if D gets her heart set on a sticker price situation, so sheâs therefore allowed to apply to and consider all schools, but that would mean that the nuclear option would be used up and not be available to S21 or D25.
Demonstrated Interest insight to share, albeit from early 2000s era so possibly outdated: I saw my friend the former LAC AO this past weekend and she said they liked to see âseven pointsâ for tracking Demonstrated Interest. This is widely known already but it was stuff like requesting info and getting on the mailing list, campus visit, every clicked-through email, logging onto a virtual campus tour, email to regional AO, attending high school campus visit, interview, logging into a live chat, etc. Seven was the magic number for their office where it would then gain the power to tip you in. Also: lack of campus visit might be noted for those who live in the same region and provide some drag against the application for on-the-bubble applicants. This was only for applicants on the bubble (not clear admits) and who lived close enough where the expectation was that one could make a day trip to the campus and chose not to.
Best wishes to all for a great (short) week!
@EastGrad Thanks for the response.
I was not expressing or implying that your post advocated for one school over another.
My purpose was to provide some accuracy with respect to the description of the circumstances that you used to reiterate @carolinamom2boys point that you appear to agree with, assuming that the circumstances you described are the ones that I experienced firsthand.
Rather than these terms - âfamily discordâ, âreached peaceâ and âpainfulâ it was actually a very positive, learning and growing experience that I believe nobody should fear.
Cheers!
Itâs going to be a long summer if DD doesnât get to work at camp. Itâs driving us nuts not hearing from them- we need to know soon if she should make other work arrangements. She doesnât want to be a pest though, so we were hoping she would hear from her last email today and not have to call.
She needs people and activity and she doesnât get those at our country home. She spent Friday morning alone (and was bored), then we were home with her for the long weekend. Today sheâs asking to have a friend over- friend doesnât have a vehicle at the moment so it would be a 34 mile round trip for DD to bring her out. I know itâs hard at the beginning and as the summer goes on the kids always got used to the slower pace, but she has always had DDâ17 around in the past and now itâs just her and the cats/dog.
Meanwhile, DDâ17 worked a ton over the long weekend, now has summer semester classes which are harder than her first two semesters, and sheâs ready to just spend a long day at home doing nothing 
Which she will have Friday. Thatâs more her style though, DDâ17 is a chill at home person and DDâ19 is go go go!
@jsnowut seems like a reasonable family making reasonable decisions. When your dd applied, you couldnât have guaranteed that Tulane would give that merit award - but like all of us chasing some merit, we have to case a wide net of possibilities. My ds (hs '11) definately thought I was kidding when I told him he couldnât attend Michigan - he casually forgot about the original discussion which said he could only attend IF he were to get that lottery merit award (which he did not). He figured Iâd cave in the end. He was wrong. He instead went to the school that showed him the most merit love, and he did bloom where planted. He took advantage of lots of opportunities and enjoyed his 4 yrs more than he imagined he would. I hope you daughter does the same - Tulaneâs a great school! Congrats!!
I am so glad to hear this, @jsnowut, especially since it ended up as you describe as a âpositive, learning, and growing experienceâ for your daughter. If the account I heard refers to you specifically, and I am still not certain whether it does, it is clear that I heard the unfinished version of the story.
Another valuable piece of advice above comes from @SDCounty3Mom. She describes her own ânuclear optionâ where she can take things off the table, which you may have done. This certainly would make the situation much easier.
For our family, I still think it is better to follow @carolinamom2boysâs advice, since I do not want my children feeling upset and/or angry enough that they do not wish to interact with us for two or three weeks. I do respect the decision making process you followed and understand that your family ultimately had a positive experience.
I hope your daughter has an amazing experience at Tulane. Congratulations on such great options.
@SDCounty3Mom S19âs list is at fourteen. If I knew he could get in to some combination of the top 10 on his list then I would delete the last fourâŠbut we donât know! Plus, now heâs thinking he wants to maybe double major or do a major and a minor in two completely different subjects which I think is pretty cool but two of the best contenders on his list do not offer one of those degrees as a major or a minor. They will stay on the list because he really likes them and they are two of the closest to home and because he could very well change his mind again. With a student who is undecided and is applying almost exclusively to schools with acceptance rates below 25%, the list is just long. Iâm afraid we are stuck with it. The double major exercise did give us a little moment of clarity though. His schools are a bit different in their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to departments and, in the end, that may help him make a decision.