Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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We have two more weeks of school, although to be fair nobody shows up on the last 3 days unless they are on the bubble and have to talk to a teacher.

They had the AP orientation this morning, where they talked about next year’s AP classes and tried to get the kids enthused. They served Chick filet, and due to people being terrible DS didn’t get any of it. So now he’s peeved at the school and the whole AP idea.

It’s stupid. If you’re going to feed kids, have enough for everyone and make sure they’ve all got firsts before you let anyone get seconds. How hard is that?

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Two more weeks of school here, too. AP Physics project due Tuesday and finals starting June 11. He said something about needing to relearn the trig identities between now and then.

All of this resume talk is stressing me out - everyone has such accomplished kids! My S19 could probably fit his resume on a Post-it note and it’s all music related (but he’s not winning national concerto competitions or anything). I’m hopeful that he’ll have a job or volunteer work or something this summer but he is not a big joiner, a leader, an award winner, etc. He is who he is, but, at 16, he’s still pretty far removed from the person he’s gong to be.

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Once again, thank you to all for the insights and advice!! Very much appreciated. I think I’m going to just let D19 skip the ACT and relax about it. Poor pup still has FINALS to contend with in addition to everything else as we slog our way to June 14. Choir performances this week are going well and tonight is the finale – I’m excited to see the real deal and not just the rehearsals version. And then she’s been asked to be a junior attendant at graduation, which is a cool honor but then that’s more rehearsals to attend. I swear I’m not complaining… :wink:

@eandesmom Thanks for the resumes expertise! I’d been following a sample from a college consultant; hence the inclusion of AP scores and more info beyond two pages. Perhaps I misunderstood the purpose/intent of that sample resume, because what you’re saying about brevity absolutely makes sense. Sounds like there’s not really a need for this mammoth document and it won’t get read anyway. I am doing a major revamping of what we have.

@homerdog I’m jealous of your year being over and the good grades in and done. D19’s math grade juuuuust slipped to a B+, just in time to have nothing left to recover it other than the final, so that ramps up the pressure. The exact same thing happened to her last trimester, which is frustrating. All her other grades this trimester have been super solid and she absolutely nailed her major project for APUSH, so this kind of stuff is just a bummer. Oh well. Keeping it in perspective…sort of. :wink:

@ninakatarina Your son is polite, which is why he ended up with no food. That’s happened to my D more than once before, with pizza. Kids going in for seconds and thirds and then there’s not enough. Be glad your son is a gentleman.

My kiddo’s favorite teacher invited her to lunch, which is awesome and I said obviously she should take the opportunity then to ask her to write a letter. Her response was that “then she will think I’m going to lunch just to ask her that.” My kid and her principles!! Sigh. Since this teacher is early-career and is already at a different high school than D’s, I’m a touch worried about tracking her down if we wait until the summer is over and I want this letter commitment in the bank. I’m going to have to restrain myself to let her handle this process in the way she sees fit. But I was pleased she got the invite and I’m grateful she developed this rapport with this teacher last year.

Do y’all think a supplemental letter of rec from a relative by marriage is a no-no? My sister-in-law is a professor at a LAC (not one D is applying to) and has offered to write a supplemental (i.e., the third letter, when two are requested) letter for D19. It’s true that she and D19 get along very well, that she “gets” D19 when not everyone on the street necessarily does, that she can speak to her fitness for top LAC-level coursework, and that the two have relatively intellectual, thoughtful discussions that I would otherwise be eager for an AO to know about. But…she’s her aunt by marriage so I’m wondering if this would somehow turn into a negative because it would look cheesy. No one would suggest that a parent or grandparent should submit a letter, but a woman who married her uncle when D19 was turning age 4?

My “baby” D25 had a fitness awards ceremony at her school this morning and the reality that we’re just about done with elementary school as a family started to hit my heart as I stood there. Having this third child has been a fun way to cling to all the baby things as my other two age relentlessly, and now even she is heading off to middle school. Gah. I’m glad that at least her ending elementary isn’t happening the same year as D19’s ending high school. I might explode if so…

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@3SailAway - So, you know my pain! ROFL on the 22 pages - takes me back to when we used to ask S19 what a book was about and after 20 minutes, he’d have you through the first chapter. S19 has a little of that kitchen sink writing too - or stream of consciousness or something. But then he gets lazy too, and when it doesn’t matter, he gives lots of detail. I’m like “three pages in, you have three sentences about one character asking another to the movies, but here in the first paragraph of the body, you haven’t written anything to set up the this major plot incident.” And last night, after I posted here, I read through the second half of the paper. We both were in an “I don’t really care” mood by that time. But I got to the conclusion, and he referred to two issues in the books that he hadn’t even addressed in the body of the paper! We got a good laugh at that one, but he submitted it not too long after that, so I guess he just took them out. It will be interesting to see how he does.

Sometimes I don’t know why he even asks my opinion because we have the same fights over and over again, and he usually doesn’t take my advice. One of my other pet peeves is that he doesn’t tell the reader where he’s going until at least 1/2 way through the paragraph. Maybe it’s my legal training, but I’m like, "tell me where you’re going with this so I can follow along. It’s maddening to read sentence after sentence of unrelated anecdotes and not know what the point of them is until the end of the paragraph. His girlfriend wants to go into journalism, and last night I asked if he could share the torture with her and have her read over his papers, because maybe she could get through to him. :stuck_out_tongue: I’m brutal.

@SDCounty3Mom - I keep saying S19 should take a gap year to maximize the time when 2 kids will be in college (God willing!) Wish I had kept him back a year too, just to have him here a little longer.

@EastGrad - yeah. What’s the deal? I do not have an English degree, but I took quite a few lit classes in college and minored in Spanish (which was basically a minor in Comp Lit, but in Spanish) One of the papers I reviewed for S19 earlier in the year that I actually thought was pretty good and only needed minor changes received a low grade - I want to say C+ maybe? (I was basically blackballed after that, too. Lol. This paper is an 8-pager, a new style, and Dad wasn’t around, so I guess that’s how I got the job of reviewing this one) I am completely baffled by the teaching methods.

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Tomorrow SAT Chemistry test and all I hear is keyboard clicking, videogaming! Que sera sera!
The hard part will be getting up before 7 am after sleeping in for a week.

Oh, on que sera sera mode,
I haven’t checked what were summer reading assignment books.
If I order them too early, they will be lost forever by August. Lessons learned. :))

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Tomorrow is Physics, Math II and US History. Unfortunately, AP Chem was in 10th grade and subject tests didn’t dawn on us last year.
She flew out to spend time with dad since school let out last week. I am under no delusions that she’s been studying. whatever…

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I’ve come to grips with whatever scores son19 gets on any sort of testing, AP, SAT, SAT subject tests etc probably won’t help him nor will they hurt him in college admissions. He scores just good enough to be considered decent but he’ll never get a 800, and I just don’t think it’s going to matter that much when the schools he is looking at review his overall “package” in full. He has some decent EC’s, decent grades, decent rigor, decent test scores etc. He’s not a one dimensional brainiac nor is he a one dimensional jock. He’s like a nice combo of both, so I am sure some sort of school will like that.
I’m done telling him to study, review this or that etc. He’s pretty good on his own, but he’d probably do a bit better if we got in him a bit to put in a little more effort on test prep. But I don’t think he’ll change, and Im not sure that if he studies/preps more he will necessarily do better anyways.

I’m just going to tell him to run faster this weekend because a record breaking time might be the equivalent of 100 SAT points, lol
:))

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Today I got a piece of mail even more annoying than unsolicited college pamphlets. I got a glossy brochure from a cemetery inviting me to plan my own funeral.

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Math II and Physics here. Like others, I understood about six months too late about the whole college process – would’ve been better if D19 had taken Math II a year ago as she’s in Calculus this year and from what I understand that’s not necessarily the best prep. And the SAT subject test for Physics has its own problems, but since she wants to study Physics, it’s really the science she needs to do well in. And no sense in her taking anything else (i.e., humanities), so she gets to leave early. She has been studying a fair amount over the past couple weeks, though, so we shall see!

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LOL @gallentjill! I wonder if they offer merit-based aid for that.

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I was over 500 posts “behind” on this thread so I just did some superfast skimming – @eandesmom at one point told someone else that I have a kid at Colorado College. This is true, she loves it there, but with the block program it’s an oddball sort of school. I’m happy to answer any questions that I can.

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@JenJenJenJen that was me. I’m a Colorado native and my parents have deep roots in Denver so I keep wanting to like CC for my D19 who is interested in LACs, but the block system is a deterrent. I’m PM you with some specific questions. Thanks.

Good luck to all on the various SAT happenings tomorrow! I noticed today it looks like results not out til July 11, which is like two weeks later than most tests…or am I confused? That’ll be a big collegey week for D19 with our being on our college visits trip, AP tests coming out, and SAT results too. Bam bam bam.

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Umm, for subject test, the scores get sent June 11th.

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@payn4ward Your date makes more sense and is consistent with other dates, but a couple of days ago we found two sites that quote the July date.

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I also saw the July date. Where is the June date coming from?

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My DS is also taking the SAT Math 2 and Physics tests tomorrow, which will hopefully close out all of his standardized testing before college apps. He hasn’t done much prep because he’s been so busy, so he might well have to repeat. Let’s see. On another note, the other day he overheard me talking about CC with a friend and asked “what’s cc”. Bless him :slight_smile: I was going to ask him to look at CC for some of the colleges he is interested in, but after hearing that I thought it’s a better idea to keep it that way.

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@gallentjill @peachActuary73 Sorry, I misread the test admission ticket. June 11 is the last day to order free reports. So the release must be July.

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@payn4ward Thanks. Hopefully, D has a good sense of how she did, so we can submit to the couple of schools that asked.

On a related note, we were at a multi school info session last week as D wasn’t concerned about her last two finals, and one of the parents asked the question: “So, my student just finished AP BC Calc, AP Physics, got an 800 on the MATH portion of the SAT. If all the final AP scores turn out great, why does he still need to take the subject tests?”

We were there for Vandy, which does not require subject tests, but the Berkeley and Princeton AO’s basically echoed each other with their response about being competitive with other applicants who do submit the subject test scores.

I was disappointed with the response, and made a quiet comment to the kid about them being in bed with the College Board. She of course “shussed me”. She really needs to loosen up. Still, it sadly supports the idea that they expect to see the “recommended” tests, unless it’s cost prohibitive. I’d think they only need to see it if the other related grades were ambiguous.

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So true! I’m becoming more and more angry about this. The ratcheting up of requirements is just insane. Meanwhile, my exhausted daughter is going to wake up early on a Saturday to go take two subject tests on subjects where she will also have AP scores and ACT scores to prove her aptitude. Sheesh.

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I am not saying that SAT2s are helpful or necessary, @gallentjill, but requesting them is not ratcheting up requirements. I took them 35 (ouch) years ago when I was applying to college. They were mandatory at many colleges that now designate them as recommended.