On the lighter side, I had to help DS to draw and cut out shapes for a poster yesterday night, for his IB English class. I kind of expected these craftsy homework projects would be over in senior year at least, but obviously not. Hope these skills will come handy when he has kids, because I don’t see any other way, with everything being digitally designed now.
@gallentjill his philosophy teacher is crazy amazing. He also teaches AP Euro and wrote arguably one of the best review books for that class (5 stars on Amazon). He’s so engaging. He told the parents on curriculum night that very few high schools offer a philosophy class and ours just started a few years back. After 15 minutes in his class, all of the parents wanted to take it too! He demands a lot from the kids and you cannot show up unprepared. Plus it’s a lot of both reading and writing. S19 is glad he chose it but I also think he’ll be glad when it’s over. It’s just a semester class.
This is, as I’ve mentioned before on this forum, rather a fascinating idea—not that high-stats kids might have a preference for reaches (it’s part of a widespread competitiveness in American culture, and high-stats students are often fully bought into that), but that part of the reason is that they want to be “challenged by their peers”.
We hear this a lot on CC, that high-stats students (or at least a subset of them) need to be challenged by their peers, but what does this really mean? It sounds like what’s meant is that smart students function well when they’re surrounded by other smart students, but I have to wonder. I mean, if you’ve got, say, a white ~18-year-old upper-middle-class high-stats student who goes to a college where they’ve got a lot of other white ~18-year-old upper- and upper-middle-class students around them then sure, they’ll be challenged—but that same student would also be challenged, just in a different way, if they go to a school where they’re surrounded by, say, African-American and Latin@ working- and lower-middle-class students, many of them “nontraditional” (read: over 25) and underprepared.
Hopefully this isn’t read as casting aspersions, because it honestly isn’t, but sometimes I fear that the desire to be “challenged” we see so often on CC is actually a desire to not be challenged, at least in any way other than academically.
S19 does not want to go to his safety and it wouldn’t make much sense to apply to other safeties as the one is an excellent school with a great honors program, price etc. It would be a much better option than other safeties. So many people on CC go on and on about making sure your kid finds a safety he/she loves, but that’s not possible for all. At this point in their lives, it’s unlikely that many parents of 17-year-olds can make them feel something they don’t. I am certain that S will make the best of any situation so I’m sure it will be fine in the end. I’ve just seen him go through many years of school being fairly bored and unchallenged and it would be nice for him to have what he wants academically.
While S has never worked as hard as I might have liked him to, he does what is needed to get great grades and puts a lot of effort into what he cares about. His schedule is fairly tough this year but not as challenging as last year. Currently, his main focus is winning a state championship in his fall sport. They just finished an undefeated season and head into their tournament soon. I really hope it works out for them - such incredible boys and families. It will be sad to see it end.
Ha, ha. Last night I collected my passports, fully preparing to go to the SSA office this week and finally lose the last remnant of my married name. Why, a friend asked, have I not done this already. Well, my records are completely sync’d. I’ve checked my statements multiple times over the last DECADE and my accruals are accurate. Clearly the SSA doesn’t care that much about my last name. Sure, it might make it easier to file a death benefit claim, but…
Well, @DCNatFan got me moving yesterday. Then 10 minutes ago, my FSA ID was approved due to a successful match with the SSA. I was so close to doing the right thing.
Kind of makes me wonder at how that database works, but I’ll go ahead and change it before I forget again.
D19 had her fourth interview last night in a hotel lobby. The others were on campuses during our summer tour of schools. It was fine and uneventful and she felt good about it. I’m glad that she’s had all these interviews actually…it’s a good life skill in general. We’ll do one more on a campus, and one more alumni interview. Should maybe be doing one other campus visit, but we’ve already visited that match school twice and I’m not feeling super motivated to schlep the 2-3 hours up there to do an interview. I’m not convinced these interviews do much for an application, since they’re often given by student interns anyway.
Read recently about housing challenges at UC Santa Cruz, Purdue, and Pitzer College. Overenrollment and poor planning seem to be the culprits. When it comes time for us to make a school decision, we’re really going to have to scrutinize some of these finer grain details, and I guess an overenrollment situation couldn’t be known in advance anyway so you just hope for the best. UCSC had been on D19’s longer list not that long ago because it’s a smaller UC, but it was on the bubble and I think knowing they have a housing shortage we won’t bother even if she does decide to do an app or two to other UCs. Hard to imagine a scenario in which she would go there, although like everyone else, I worry about the question of safeties, how comfy to feel with match schools, etc.
As for school and life, D19 is markedly less busy with her coursework this year than last. I felt like last year was an absolute fog of stress and anxiety for her, with intensive SAT prep from Dec-June, lots of volunteering, four challenging classes including three APs, and a span in the winter when she seemed to get one cold after another. She did stumble a bit GPA-wise through all that too. This fall she has only two AP classes, choir, and two grad-requirement classes. I’m glad, and there was not a viable way around the grad-requirement easy stuff, so I feel like it’s worked out. She still manages to be somewhat stressed but she does have a better balance to her life now and is enjoying branching out socially. College app progress is plodding along. CA is filled out, so that’s good, and her paperwork is in to the counselor, which was a pain. Letter invitation and communication done with her primary writer; still lagging for her secondary writer. So in those respects, she’s in good shape. But the essays and tons of short-answer questions…eeep. Tons of work to do there. Also a fair amount needs to get done for her vocal music supplement. So…mixed bag for her, I would say. And time really is going by quickly.
@dfbdfb S19 would be thrilled to meet new people with different experiences than his. He only knows the life he’s lived so far and that has been in a school system where kids are divided up early by testing. He did take a non-honors class freshman year and it was so bad. We have a day each year when parents can go to class and I went to that one. The class was so different than anything he had experienced - way too easy, homework that a fifth grader could do, kids who didn’t participate. He chose the class because at the time he was playing two sports and we were afraid to overwhelm him with all honors classes. So, this is where he’s coming from when he says he would like to be in college classes with kids like the kids in his honors and AP classes.
Is he sheltered in this bubble that is our town? Absolutely. Not sure what to do about that. He’s volunteered a ton and works with younger kids in a neighboring town who struggle more. He certainly does not want to have everyone always agree with him. Believe me, he’s up for a good disagreement. He battles political issues every single day at our school since many families here are more conservative than he is.
I really do stand by the idea that having higher achieving kids in a discussion brings that level of discussion up. In our D21’s AP Euro class, she’s a bit intimidated by the discussion but she’s learning a lot and it’s pushing her to make sure she’s super prepared for class. S19 would like to have good discussions in class, not just with his professors after class. I hope that makes sense. He doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else but he learns more when he is with kids who take school seriously and want to be there.
D19 is still getting the hang of balancing her classes, her volunteering, and her sleep. She had three teacher changes over the summer. One was from an unknown to an amazing teacher she had last year & loved, one was from a teacher she enjoyed to a complete unknown. Both of those have turned out fine. She dislikes the third new teacher and with the switch came a huge jump in homework & expectations. She enjoys the material, but it is tough and she doesn’t think the teacher really knows how to teach the material-so that adds to her workload to have to learn it all herself (foreign language).
Her dual enrollment class has been stressful, but she’s holding her own (and more) against the college kids. Three of her classes are just this semester, and she has only one replacement planned, so second semester might be much less stressful. We’ll see if she decides to add anything at the semester break.
She has only safeties on her list because financially, it doesn’t make sense to apply to anything we can’t pay for. She loves two of the three (one only 4 hrs away) and hasn’t visited the third yet. She’s in at a fourth school only because they offered her an expedited admission decision over the summer, but she doesn’t plan to visit to even see if she likes it. She wants something small (or small feeling) without a big football culture. She does decide a lot based on the kids she sees on campus and engagement in the classes she visits. “Can I see myself here?”
From the perspective of a kid who chose her safety, I can tell you that it isn’t so much about the stats of the other students but about their motivation. Not all the interesting, challenging, successful students around my daughter had high stats coming in. But they do have a high degree of intelligence and eagerness to learn and participate. On the other hand, the school definately attracts a good number of kids who just don’t care. Who knows what their stats were coming in. But these are the kids who sleep through class, don’t participate in class discussion and really bring very little to the table. Maybe these exist at elite schools as well, but I doubt there are very many of them. My D doesn’t care, becuase she surrounds herself with the cohort that is involved and engaged. But I can see this being a very big downside for some.
As far as ECs, D19’s top priority seems to be the play she is directing. She is absolutely loving being a Senior in school theater, and it’s fun to see her in the role of mentor/big sister to the younger kids.
Academically, things seem easier than last year, but that doesn’t really make sense as she has a lot of AP classes, so maybe it’s just early days.
Has anyone’s '19 taken the SAT II in Spanish? I’m torn about whether to encourage this. D19 has always enjoyed Spanish, and she did an exchange with family friends who live in Spain, so she had that time of immersion. Her schedule would not allow Honors Spanish last year (although she’s in AP this year), so it could be good to find a way to show that this is an area of strength. Still, I’m sure her test score wouldn’t hold a candle to the native and heritage speakers. Thoughts?
@3SailAway If there is a chance that she can get a high enough score to test out of her college’s language requirement, then I would do it. There is no harm in it. If she gest a score she doesn’t like, she doesn’t have to send it anywhere.
I am struggling with panic. Essays not complete and their ECs are declining due to dual enrollment - which I knew would happen, but still. Crossing fingers that their grades stay where they are now.
Only one twin has a real safety. Three tours left and I’m worried about demonstrated need for many schools on the list. We’ve toured so many colleges, but I was unprepared for the interview logistics.
They were up super late last night studying for Calc. test, which turns out is Oct. 2 not today.Twin A said it was today and Twin B didn’t verify. OMG. I may be down a kid this afternoon. No words.
The college application process is like the presidential aging effect. I’m feeling like an older mom.
Trying to breathe…
@Twinmom2023, We’re in stress mode here, as well, but with just one kid ;). Tried to tell S19 that the number of hours he wanted to work wouldn’t be… .pardon the pun, workable once school started. He finally broke down and realized clueless parent might be right, and just updated his schedule availability to remove a couple of weeknights beginning October 11, which should help. He’s got 5 APs, the STEM academy Capstone course, band, and the state required econ which is online and tedious. He also has several school EC’s that he’s committed to, plus Aikido.
He’s feeling overwhelmed enough, so I haven’t mentioned that he really ought to get those short answer essays done for the one dream school app he still has… I’m glad he already has the rolling admit acceptance with merit on paper, so he’ll be going SOMEWHERE next year :).
@gallentjill and @wisteria100, I wouldn’t worry too much about the WL at safeties because the school knows it’s a safety. The whole reason they put over-qualified kids on the WL is so they can protect their yield numbers but still avail themselves of some great kids who don’t get into higher ranked schools. In other words, if your child has legitimate qualifications for [reach school], [safety school] doesn’t want to just go ahead admit your kid because the odds are that if he gets into [reach], he’ll go there, thus driving down [safety’s] yield. But [safety] can put your kid on the WL, and then if he doesn’t get into [reach], you contact [safety] and make clear to them that he absolutely will attend [safety] if admitted off the WL. Guess what, a spot magically opens up! Obviously, it doesn’t always happen that way and someone can always tell a sad tale about the great kid who got shut out everywhere, but a lot of times, this is just how the game is played.
Anyone have any experience/thoughts on the dual degree program at Brown/RISD?
I’ve read the online info, but I’m particularly interested in selectivity for admission into the program. Getting into both Brown and RISD is already a big reach, I imagine getting into BRDD is even more so. DS May consider Screenwriting/Playwriting @ Brown and Filmmaking @ RISD.
Do colleges know what other schools have been applied to?
Sorry for the dumb question. I always thought that was private.
@romns116, no, they don’t know which schools a student has applied to. And I don’t think they’d particularly care about the identity of the specific schools. But if a student with academic (or other) credentials sufficient to get into, say, Harvard or Yale, applies to, say, Denison, I think you can imagine that Denison will assume that the student has probably set his or her sights higher than only applying to Denison. If you have access to Naviance data, it’s actually pretty obvious for certain schools – you’ll see there’s a real sweet spot of where they’re accepting kids, and then kids well over the sweet spot are mostly waitlisted.
Thank you. That makes sense. DS comes from a very small private that has never had anyone go to an elite college in its 18 year history (not even UT Austin). No Navience data available. Most graduates attend community college.
@soxmom In Denison’s case, at least according to our Naviance, they don’t waitlist high stats kids. Neither does Miami of Ohio. They accept a lot of those kids and offer them considerable merit money. We met two kids at Denison. one who was accepted to Chicago and one to Stanford, who chose Denison because of the merit. Those donut hole families with bright kids who don’t want loans find their spot there.
Couldn’t agree more @dfbdfb .