Most of our mail lately is from colleges, most of them are not likely candidates though. S19 listed 4 universities in our region each time he took the ACT, so of course he has been getting mail from those places. He also applied for Questbridge last year(didn’t get in) and I’m guessing that is where most of the mailings come in because they are associated with QB. I hand them to my son and he says “never heard of it”, I point out that it is a prestigious university and he says “still never heard of it”. He is interested in the state schools but doesn’t have the stats to get enough merit money to make it affordable. The meets full need schools would be much more affordable, but they are extremely selective. Add to that the fact that he doesn’t want to go anywhere far away, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he winds up at community college.
He is supposed to be studying for the August SAT but hasn’t done much of anything(other than going to work) an really seems to have a don’t care attitude lately. I think he is overwhelmed and discouraged and has just halfway shut down, really hope he can pull it together before school starts August 7th.
@PepperJo My D’s stats are in that 75% range for most elite schools as well. I once thought that meant she had a good shot. Then I found our school’s Naviance page and realized how miniscule her chances are. At a certain calibar of school no one has a good chance. The chance is single digits. On the up side, we found many, many excellent schools where she really does have a great chance of admission.
@gallenjill. My D is in the same situation with her test scores and the 75% range. She is lucky in that she found a school that she likes more than some of the lottery schools that were on her list.
Even students with perfect scores, GPAs, loads of ECs,great essays and recommendations are shut out of selective schools. They’re called lottery schools for a reason.IMO, the assumption should be that you’re not getting in and then be pleasantly surprised when you do. @shuttlebus congrats to your daughter for finding a school that she likes .
Looking for some advice. S19 will self report his AP scores from Junior year on the Common App. He took AP Computer Sci A sophomore year but did not take the test. He got an A in the class, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t prepared for the test but he felt like he was going to have to study more for it and really needed that time to study for his finals instead. So we just told him he could skip that AP test. He’s got no interest in computer science and we knew he wouldn’t use the score for credit anywhere.
The questions is - do we need to have some sort of explanation somewhere explaining why he didn’t take it? In the additional info section? Should we have the GC address it in her letter? Or do we just ignore the fact that he’s not reporting a score? I don’t know if AOs will think he got a bad score since he’s not reporting it or give him him the benefit of the doubt that it’s possible he did not take it. If it needs to be addressed, we will think of a well thought out reason but my gut says to just leave well enough alone and don’t pull more attention to it by mentioning it at all. Or maybe we write that he didn’t take it and just leave it at that with no explanation. Thoughts?
@SDCounty3Mom OMG. What IS it with the delay stuff? Twin A even cleaned her room!! I mean, really? She said she filled out basic info for Elon, but nothing saved. My eye started twitching, but I refrained from yelling. The cookies in 100 heat is only funny b/c it isn’t my house. Hoping today is better and more productive.
@homerdog Given that AO’s spend on average, about 8 minutes per application, and given your son’s high SAT score, 5’s on multiple AP’s and solid GPA, I’d just let it go. My thinking is that the AO’s will check off that he’s met the academic threshold and move onto other aspects of his application to determine character, fit, etc. I would not bring any attention to it at all, because his stats speak for itself loud and clear.
@homerdog My S15 self-reported his AP exam scores, bu he also had taken an AP class where he didn’t sit for the AP exam. I homeschool and in my guidance counselor letter, I explained why he did not have a score to report for that class because I didn’t want the adcoms to assume that he simply didn’t list a bad score.
It has been a couple of years since I have looked at the Common App. Can your son add a comment in the AP exam scoring section where he just says he didn’t sit for the exam? I don’t think you really need to give a reason why.
I have read many comments that adcoms don’t care about AP exam scores, but then when I skimmed through the documents from the Harvard lawsuit, AP exam scores were included in the student’s academic rating which says to me that at least some of these schools are looking at the scores.
I would definitely talk with the GC about this. The GC may think it is not worth mentioning, but I would definitely ask the question.
DS is reaching the stage of summer boredom where he is desperate enough to clean his room. This has resulted in a number of finds of my stuff that somehow got into his room and is no longer wanted. A lot of silent, “oh, I wondered where that was…”
Been away for quite some time. Still not much movement on DS19s part as far as looking for schools goes. We were hoping his summer session at Brown might jump-start things, but it just resulted in adding another highly selective school to the list. But I did use trickery to route us through Middletown CT (home to Wesleyan University) yesterday on our way home from vacation. We had a really good meal at an Italian restaurant, and since the campus looked pretty decent, he added it to his list of colleges to look at. I think his Dad did have a talk with him and got through that we are in crunch time now, so we’ll be touring a few schools in upstate NY next week. Not my ideal time to visit small LAC campuses, but it’s what we’ve got right now, soooooo…
@homerdog by son will not report an AP exam (he did take it but didn’t do that well). I’m not worried about it at all. My D17 did not take an AP exam but that was her senior year and she had already been admitted to colleges. Not sure what your child’s target schools are looking for, but I think rigor is more important than all of the AP scores. If the GC can mention it somewhere in his/her rec., that would be fine, I guess.
My kid managed, through infinite struggle and spending every lunch at the teacher’s office, to pull out an A in AP Calc AB this past year. He did not take the AP Calc test and I thoroughly supported this decision. He is not a math-y person. He isn’t applying for anything math-related, so I don’t think that this will hurt his application.
@jellybean5 I’m in Arizona. ASU scholarships are for the most part automatic and stats-based. The scholarship calculator was accurate for my in-state kids. For admission to Barrett honors college, apply as early as possible. At least in past years, admission gets harder the longer you wait. Barrett has some nice housing, a great dining hall, and good support for students. My kids did not attend (went to privates OOS) but we know many many kids that have attended and done very well.
Yes it’s hot here in summer, and really from May to October, but it’s really beautiful in winter during the school year,
Send me a message if you have any questions. My son will be applying to ASU this year.
I am very pleased to report that I’m “annoying” S19 at this point with all of the encouragement. Mr. InfiniteWaves is (finally) stepping in to provide parental support on the college planning front. Sheesh. It sucks being the bad cop.
Oh, and still no sign of an essay, or even an idea for an essay, anywhere. But whatever. The rolling-admissions-no-teacher-recommendations-required-self-reported-grades application for the top choice state flagship with competitive admissions for main campus opens on Wednesday. I mean, who would want to get that one in before band camp starts next week, right?!?!?
D17 was similar to @ninakatarina’s son and was very happy to be done with AB Calc junior year. She did not have a good teacher that year and did not feel prepared to sit for the exam. She had many other AP scores to report and presented herself as an English major theater kid so she just left it blank and didn’t provide explanation. I don’t think it hurt her applications at all.
I would either leave it blank or just put a very brief line about not sitting for the exam.
@InfiniteWaves :)) Love your updates. I was actually informed that there is a completed rough draft, so I was pleased about that but I’m wondering if S will ever let me see it. He has indicated a few times that it was personal so he didn’t want to share it but I guess he’s open to some feedback from others. I suggested we ask his IB lang teacher from last year to look at it (she helped D with hers) and he said it needs three revisions before he will give it to her. I told him it might be nice to have some initial feedback before he starts revising but oh well. He’s so stubborn!
@jellybean5 I’ll add my agreement to the comment by @Parentof2014grad about ASU Barrett. Yes it’s hot here in Phoenix/Tempe. But not that much hotter than SoCal and here everything is air conditioned. I have a 2015 HS grad at Pomona where most of the dorms have no A/C. That would never happen here. And November -April the weather is pretty close to perfect. My D19 will be applying to Barrett as soon as Barrett apps open (9/5/18). Barrett takes either the Common App or their own app. The online merit scholarship calculator should be accurate.
I think we will either (a) not do anything about the lack of score or (b) write a quick note in extra info saying he didn’t sit for test. I do agree that it won’t hurt him either way. I think it will just be a passing moment of “huh, no Comp Sci score” or they won’t even notice. @firstwavemom S19 is applying to LACs- a whole bunch of them and ranging in admission rates. Williams, Bowdoin, Carleton on the most selective side. Denison and Dickinson as safeties. A bunch in between. 1540 SAT, top 5 percent of class with all honors and APs, BC Calc (5), APUSH (5), AP Lang (5). Four more APs next year. Hoping they’ll just gloss over the missing Comp Sci score I guess. Just wasn’t sure how to handle it so I thought I’d throw the question out there!