@eandesmom, we are in West Texas. Every thing is far…we are used to it.
D21 is going on a “practice UIL” competition against a school 4 hours away this Saturday. She has to be at school at 0445.
@VANURSEPRAC what is a practice UIL?
The first item in google is shown University Interscholastic League… debate… at UT Austin…
Yes 6 1/2 hrs too much.
We are fortunate that there are 6 large state & research universities within one hour drive including flagship 15 minutes drive. That is why the “local” college reps can come and do middle school college fair, I think.
I still think that is too early although 100% of our seniors go to college and college dream is on our school mission.
The school they will be visiting wants to practice math and science UIL for preparation for UIL competition in January. This school is in a really remote section of West Texas and does not get much of competition.
Really not sure of how it works. D21 asked if she could go since math, science and number sense are the subjects she competes in, plus all her girlfriends are going.
Had never heard of UIL before.
@VANURSEPRAC - we are also in a remote place. D19’s school is 90 minutes away, my work is 90 minutes away in the other direction.
I saw someone online recommend the NextTier app - anyone used it? It seems to have a ton of info and works as a kind of prioiritization tool for the whole bewildering college app mess. I’m gonna DL it later and see what I think.
First report card of sophomore year. So proud of DS19. All As ranging from 91 to 97 with a 96 in AP World History. That is the class that I tried to get him to drop down to Honors . He also got an "excellent student " comment from his AP teacher who was so direct at the beginning of the year. What a difference a year makes. He was a good student last year, but he is so motivated and organized this year . Fingers crossed that it continues.
@carolinamom2boys Yoohoo! Congrats! <:-P :D/
Still waiting for first report card here. :-/
Great news @carolinamom2boys! It is so rewarding to see them grow. We are over 2 weeks out in the first report card but S19 is all A- to A. One 91 and the rest are 95-100
Except for the dreaded French 4.
Sigh. 2 weeks, he can fix it. Sooo frustrating, missed assignment deja vu.
Still, he has a very tough load and I’m really proud of him.
@eandesmom Just out of curiosity, how does your grading scale work? I’ve seen it quite a few times on CC. Our scale is the (I think) more typical 90% A, 80% B, 70% C, etc. It’s really impossible for anyone to get a 95 percent in an honors or AP class. Kids with A’s are usually between a 91-93. Certainly no one has a 100% which on our scale would mean getting full credit on every assignment and 100% on every test. (I seriously don’t know anyone who ever got out of any type of class with a 100%…well, maybe gym :))
On your scale, are the numbers the actual percents in the class?
I’m kind of tearing my hair out with S19. He’s bright and ambitious but since birth he has marched to the beat of his own drum (kind of a problem in marching band but that’s a whole 'nother thread). His stated college goal is Stanford or MIT with UVA or Virginia Tech as backups. He tested very very well on the PSAT he took last year so those are not completely out of the realm of possibility if he would apply himself to his classes. He is taking an extremely challenging load of courses this year and i honestly think if he would do all the homework diligently and turn it in on time he would have all A’s
But the first quarter is ending and he has 3 C’s and a D currently. Those will go up as there are a ton of un-entered grades but still.
So my question (mostly to myself as I’m ranting here but feel free to give any helpful input you have) is how hard do I push this kid towards his stated college goals?
He is extremely resistant to nagging and micromanaging. The reason for the low grades is mostly two fold. First marching band season is all consuming. That is coming to an end next week so that will help a lot. Second, he is currently creating his own operating system as in designing and programming a complete system from the ground up, by himself, with no formal computer training. He is entirely self taught. This is also his science fair project so he can honestly answer that he is doing homework at any given time we ask.
At this point in time he is hanging his college hopes on the idea that this OS (which he will publish open source) will be his ticket into a great school. That’s not impossible but I’d put it in the realm of the good high school athlete whose career plan is to go pro. I’ve told him that schools like MIT can choose kids who create their own operating systems AND have great grades and high test scores. I think he believes me but he’s a strong willed 15 year old boy.
So there we sit. S19 is the most pleasant, self sufficient, interesting kid to have around and I’m really enjoying getting to know him one on one now that his sisters are gone as long as we don’t nag. But…
@mom23travelers I didn’t want to stress our son out too early, but I did sit him down and showed him Naviance so he has a grip on the GPA/test scores of the kids who get into certain schools from our high school. It was a wake up call for him. He’s always been a hard worker and he’s doing fine, but I think he needed to stop talking about going to Duke or Brown. Once he saw the stats, he understood better that even the kids with super high stats were turned down in droves. Then, I showed him a few schools that are a bit more realistic but maybe still a reach. Those looked like possibilities, but only if he kept his grades where they are now.
I didn’t want senior year to roll around and for him to say “why didn’t someone tell me exactly how important grades are?” Now, he knows. And I lay off.
@homerdog Naviance is a great idea. He’s a logical math kid so stats are hard to argue with.
@homerdog it is an interesting question as the school does not officially publish a % to grade scale. However, all data is shown in % with the letter grade also showing so it’s easy enough to map out on one’s own. Our published scale is this
A = 4
A- = 3.7
B+= 3.3
B = 3
B- = 2.7
C+= 2.3
C = 2
C- = 1.7
D+= 1.3
D = 1
F = 0
% wise this generally breaks down like this
93 - 100 A
90 - 92 A-
87 - 89 B+
83 - 86 B
80 - 82 B-
76 - 79 C+
73 - 75 C
70 - 72 C-
and so on.
Late assignments recieve a max score of 60%, or a D. School wide. It is interesting, I have actually mapped out what our kids grades would look like on the 70/80/90 scale and at least in the case of his brother, it doesn’t make a difference in the final gpa. I was curious to see as many/most/all colleges recalculate to UW gpa’s to have more of an apples to apples comparison (and non one knows for sure when the report admitted gpa’s, what they actually mean by that from a calculation standpoint and it varies a ton I am sure. I wanted to see how his brother fared for his application cycle. So far, not a huge difference in gpa if it were on the other scale as the +/- seem to level out a bit. S19 would see a slight uptick if we were on that scale.
Because we do not weight and so many schools do, I did take the time with S17 to figure out where he falls on multiple GPA possible interpretations. UW/W all classes. UW/W core classes only. UW/W 10-11th grades only (the UC scale) both for all classes, and then core only. For me it helps give me a picture of where my kid might fall compared to any colleges admission stats and I have the same data running for S19. Which obviously with only 9th grade in, it is limited at best.
And yes, having 100% would mean getting full credit on every assignment, test and/or extra credit. It is not common, even in band. S19 currently has a 100 in PreCalc (actually 100.13 lol…extra credit on a test) and one in Stage Band. 99 in Symphonic Band, 97 in Honors English, 95 in Honors Chem and a 91 in AP World. Outside of the French 4 disaster the kid is knocking it of the park. Outside of band of course, these are not easy classes, his brother had 3 of the same classes his soph/jr years (Honors Eng, AP World and PreCalc) and didn’t do nearly as well, especially in AP World. Of course we will see if it holds but all have had enough tests (except stupid french) in all to have a grade solid base. I am especially pleased with Honors Chem and AP World which I was very concerned about him taking (though I’d like that to move to a 94 as would he lol), I expected A’s in the rest. He is working really hard, has a crazy amount of homework and has managed it well despite fall marching band, XC and Scouts.
We don’t weight though so really anything 93 and up means the exact same thing gpa wise. It just gives you wiggle room if you are higher up and then bomb a test or forget to turn in an assignment.
French though. We are awaiting a test grade there. IF he did well on it (he should have) and he gets the missing assignment fixed he should at least move up to a B but he would have have to have received 100% on the test to bring it up to the A- level. Not impossible but…
Annoying though, test was on the 20th, I hate it when they take 2 weeks to upload test scores since those are often so heavily weighted.
Naviance is helpful, but I found looking at the Common Data Set for the schools that your students are interested in is more helpful. In actuality , it’s more helpful to look how their stats compare with all accepted students , not just ones from their school because that’s who they’re really " competing " with.
@mom23travelers Naviance and freshman profile pages of those schools. The colleges publish average GPA, SAT etc of freshman class.
And CDS. google " common data set college-name"
google “collegedata college profile college-name”
@payn4ward great minds. We must have cross posted . 
@eandsmom wow. It’s so interesting how different schools can be. For example, our honors chem class gives kids an A for 80 percent and above. The tests are insane. Kids come out of there just shaking their heads. They would all say they are being tested on stuff they didn’t learn. The science department says it is trying to award the kids who can apply the material. They are allowed to bring their books and notes because that’s not really what’s being tested. The class (and all of the honors and AP science classes) really take an emotional toll on the kids. I swear it’s like a freshman college weed out class.
More and more I think about how hard it must be for admissions officers to compare the applicants!
80 has never been an A at any class in our school . Until this year it would be a C , now it’s a B.